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Every episode
The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe
30 episodes
498: Bill Whittle—Communism for Dummies
Ep 498 · Aug 11, 2026 · 1 hr 33 min
What exactly is communism—and why has it failed so spectacularly everywhere it's been tried? Bill Whittle has spent years answering those questions, and in this episode, he makes the case in a way that's hard to misunderstand. Bill is a writer, filmmaker, and political commentator whose work includes Empire of Terror, a detailed examination of the history and ideology of communism. Here, he breaks down the fundamental differences between individualism and collectivism, explains how free markets…
497: Ethan Thornton—I Like a Lotta Problems
Ep 497 · Aug 4, 2026 · 2 hr 3 min
Ethan Thornton doesn't shy away from problems—he goes looking for them. At just 22, the founder of Mach Industries is tackling some of the biggest challenges in American defense manufacturing, rethinking how weapons are designed, built, and produced. In this episode, Ethan takes Mike deep into the problem he believes America can no longer afford to ignore: How did we get to a place where China has such an enormous advantage in manufacturing, production capacity, and the ability to produce things…
496: Dr. Philip Ovadia—Meat is Medicine
Ep 496 · Jul 28, 2026 · 1 hr 48 min
For decades, Americans have been told that cholesterol is public enemy number one. But cardiologist and heart surgeon Dr. Philip Ovadia says we've been fighting the wrong battle. Despite decades of lowering cholesterol with drugs and dietary advice, heart disease remains the #1 killer in America—and Dr. Ovadia believes it's time to rethink what's really making us sick. After losing more than 100 pounds by adopting a diet centered primarily on meat, Dr. Ovadia began challenging conventional wisdo…
495: Todd Rose—One Good Thing
Ep 495 · Jul 21, 2026 · 1 hr 51 min
Todd Rose, bestselling author of Collective Illusions, former Harvard professor, and co-founder of Populace, joins Mike for a conversation about the surprising gap between what people really believe and what they think everyone else believes. Together they explore the collective illusions that shape our society, the barriers that keep us from living our best lives, and the disconnect between public perception and private conviction. They also dive into Todd's newest brainchild, Be The People, a…
494: Scott Bessent—What's Up with Those Trump Accounts
Ep 494 · Jul 14, 2026 · 52 min
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent joins Mike for a wide-ranging conversation about the state of the U.S. economy, the ideas behind his influential speech While America Slept, and the policies he believes can restore long-term American prosperity. Then they take a deep dive into the new Trump Accounts—how they work, who qualifies, and why Secretary Bessent believes they could give the next generation a stronger financial foundation. Many thanks to our excellent sponsors Pure Talk—Switch your phone…
493: JD Vance—Communion
Ep 493 · Jul 7, 2026 · 1 hr 10 min
Vice President JD Vance joins Mike for a wide-ranging conversation about faith, family, and the future of America. From the dignity of work and the lessons he learned in the Marine Corps to his return to Christianity and the deeply personal journey that inspired his new book, Communion, Vance reflects on the people and experiences that shaped him. He also explains why America's energy future may determine whether we can keep pace with China in the decades ahead. Big thanks to our terrific sponso…
492: Jon Erwin—Young Washington
Ep 492 · Jun 30, 2026 · 1 hr 41 min
Before he became the Father of His Country, George Washington was a young man with doubts, ambitions, failures, and a calling that would eventually shape a nation. Mike sits down with filmmaker and entrepreneur Jon Erwin to discuss his new film Young Washington, and to explore the remarkable true story behind America's most iconic founder. Jon also shares how he launched The Wonder Project and his mission to tell stories that elevate faith, hope, and the human spirit. Along the way, he recounts…
491: MacKenzie Price—The Most Talked About School in the World
Ep 491 · Jun 23, 2026 · 1 hr 56 min
What if school could be reimagined from the ground up? This week, Mike sits down with entrepreneur and education innovator MacKenzie Price, the founder of Alpha School, a model that's attracting global attention for helping students learn twice as much in half the time. Using artificial intelligence, personalized learning, and an unconventional approach to education, MacKenzie is challenging nearly every assumption about how kids should be taught. She also makes the case that meaningful change i…
490: Peggy Rowe—About My Father
Ep 490 · Jun 20, 2026 · 30 min
In honor of Father's Day, we're sharing several hilarious chapters from the audio version of Peggy Rowe's bestselling book About Your Father. Buy all three audiobooks from bestselling author Peggy Rowe for $30 or $15 individually at: https://bit.ly/MomsAudiobooks Tip o' the hat to our excellent sponsor PureTalk.com/Rowe Pure Talk is matching donations dollar for dollar until they hit two hundred fifty THOUSAND DOLLARS for America's Warrior Partnership, who is on the frontlines of supporting our…
489: Michael Easter—The Hard Way
Ep 489 · Jun 16, 2026 · 1 hr 57 min
Why do so many of the things that make us stronger, healthier, and happier require doing things the hard way? Mike sits down with bestselling author, journalist, and researcher Michael Easter to explore the surprising benefits of discomfort, challenge, and voluntary hardship in a world engineered for convenience. Easter, whose work has appeared in Men's Health, Outside, Esquire, and Scientific American, discusses the ideas behind his bestselling books The Comfort Crisis and Scarcity Brain, along…
488: Connor Boyack—Spontaneous Order
Ep 488 · Jun 9, 2026 · 1 hr 51 min
Spontaneous Order might sound like a contradiction, but according to author, entrepreneur, and educator Connor Boyack, some of society's most important innovations emerge without a master plan. Mike sits down with Connor, the bestselling co-creator and co-author of The Tuttle Twins book series that inspired the hit animated show, founder and president of the Libertas Network and a leading advocate for teaching the principles of liberty, entrepreneurship, personal responsibility, and free markets…
487: Blake Scholl—Making Supersonic Travel Real
Ep 487 · Jun 2, 2026 · 1 hr 16 min
Mike Rowe sits down with Blake Scholl, the former Amazon software engineer turned aerospace entrepreneur who walked away from Silicon Valley to revive supersonic passenger travel. As the founder of Boom Supersonic, Blake explains the century-long pursuit of faster flight. From the Cold War race to break the sound barrier to the rise—and fall—of the Concorde, Blake explains why supersonic travel disappeared just as it seemed destined to change aviation forever. He also shares how Boom Supersonic…
486: Jason Ladanye—Nothing Up His Sleeve
Ep 486 · May 26, 2026 · 1 hr 54 min
Mike sits down with master card mechanic and sleight-of-hand expert Jason Ladanye, whose impossible demonstrations of gambling moves and psychological deception have earned him a reputation as one of the best card handlers working today. Jason explains how a childhood obsession with cards—and an influential mentorship with legendary magician Darwin Ortiz—shaped his career performing around the world. Along the way, Jason shows Mike how magicians secretly track cards through a shuffled deck, demo…
485: Josh Smith—Made FOR America
Ep 485 · May 19, 2026 · 1 hr 30 min
Founder and president of Montana Knife Company Josh Smith sits down with Mike to discuss his unlikely path from working as a lineman to becoming one of America's premier master bladesmiths. The conversation dives into the grit, craftsmanship, and obsession with quality that helped turn a small operation into one of the fastest-growing knife manufacturers in the country. The two also talk about the grand opening of MKC's brand-new 50,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Missoula, where Josh…
484: Tom Albanese—The Metals at the Bottom of the Ocean
Ep 484 · May 12, 2026 · 1 hr 32 min
In this episode Mike explores the growing race for critical minerals hidden deep beneath the Pacific Ocean with mining executive Tom Albanese, Chairman of American Ocean Minerals and former CEO of Rio Tinto and Vedanta Resources. Tom has spent more than four decades in the global mining and metals business, overseeing some of the largest resource projects on earth. Now he's focused on something even more ambitious: harvesting polymetallic nodules from the ocean floor—potato-sized rocks packed wi…
483: Peggy Rowe—Mother's Day with Mom… LIVE!
Ep 483 · May 8, 2026 · 1 hr 5 min
In this special LIVE edition of Coffee with Mome, Mike heads home for Mother's Day and sits down with the woman who taught him everything worth knowing — his mom, Peggy Rowe. Recorded in front of a live audience at the place Peggy refers to as The Home, this episode is filled with the warmth, wit, and wonderfully sharp observations fans have come to expect from America's Grandmother. From family stories and hard-earned wisdom to laughter that only comes from decades of shared history, Mike and P…
482: Xi Van Fleet— Don't Be a Shiny Little Screw
Ep 482 · May 5, 2026 · 1 hr 50 min
Mike sits down with author and Cultural Revolution survivor Xi Van Fleet for a conversation that's equal parts personal history and cautionary tale. Xi recounts her childhood under Mao Zedong's China, where conformity wasn't encouraged—it was enforced. As a schoolgirl, she watched teachers publicly humiliated, neighbors turn on each other, and young people mobilized as ideological foot soldiers. Education gave way to indoctrination, and individuality was crushed in favor of collective obedience—…
481: Jason Altmire—Trade Up
Ep 481 · Apr 28, 2026 · 1 hr 22 min
Former congressman Jason Altmire has spent years in Washington—and even more time outside it—making the case that America's biggest opportunity isn't behind a desk, but behind a welding mask, a set of tools, or the wheel of a big machine. Now leading Career Education Colleges and Universities, he's on a mission to close the skills gap and reconnect hard work with real opportunity. In this episode, Mike and Jason dig into why millions of good jobs go unfilled, why the stigma around skilled labor…
480: Matt Ebert—The Billion Dollar Car Wreck
Ep 480 · Apr 21, 2026 · 1 hr 35 min
Matt Ebert didn't set out to build a billion-dollar business—he just wanted to fix cars the right way. Today, he's the CEO of Crash Champions, one of the fastest-growing collision repair companies in the country, valued in the billions and trusted to bring wrecked vehicles back to life. Mike sits down with Matt to unpack what really happens after a crash, why the skilled trades behind collision repair matter more than ever, and how a kid with no grand plan or college degree wound up leading a na…
479: Evan Voyles— The Connoisseur of Irony
Ep 479 · Apr 14, 2026 · 1 hr 43 min
Neon lights aren't supposed to be profound. They're supposed to buzz, flicker, and sell you a cold beer or a bad decision. But Evan Voyles—founder of The Neon Jungle—has made a career out of bending that expectation into something stranger… and maybe a little wiser. Evan is a self-taught craftsman who works with fire, gas, and fragile tubes of glass to make signs that don't just glow—they say something. His work has been commissioned by brands, collected as art, and—on more than one occasion—mad…
478: Nicholas Eberstadt—The New Misery
Ep 478 · Apr 7, 2026 · 1 hr 27 min
Numbers don't lie—but they can obscure significant information. In this episode, Mike sits down with economist, demographer, and Harvard-educated brainiac Nicholas Eberstadt to explore a different kind of arithmetic—one that measures not just how many Americans we have, but how we're actually living. In his latest book, America's Human Arithmetic, Nick digs into three uncomfortable truths: first, the steady decline in prime-age labor force participation that persists even in strong economies. Se…
477: Adam Carolla Has Some Thoughts
Ep 477 · Mar 31, 2026 · 1 hr 48 min
Adam Carolla sits down with Mike for a wide-ranging, no-holds-barred conversation on comedy, culture, and California. Adam breaks down his no-nonsense approach to making people laugh, building a podcasting empire, and telling the truth as he sees it—whether it's popular or not. The two also take a hard look at the Palisades more than a year after the fire, the growing frustration with California's regulatory maze, and what Adam really thinks about Newsom. Spoiler alert—it ain't good. Oh, you bet…
476: Michael Cadenazzi—The Department of War is Hiring
Ep 476 · Mar 24, 2026 · 1 hr 30 min
What does it take to rebuild America's industrial backbone—and who's actually going to do the work? Mike sits down with Michael Cadenazzi, Assistant Secretary of War for Industrial Base Policy, to discuss his role at the Department of War (DOW) and his mission focused on restoring the muscle behind America's might. Cadenazzi makes the case that while the U.S. still produces world-class engineers and cutting-edge weapons designs, there's a growing gap where it matters most—the skilled workforce n…
475: Jan Jekielek—Killed to Order
Ep 475 · Mar 17, 2026 · 1 hr 34 min
Mike talks with Jan Jekielek, senior editor at The Epoch Times and host of American Thought Leaders, to discuss his new book, Killed to Order: China's Organ Harvesting Industry and the True Nature of America's Biggest Adversary. It's an explosive investigation into allegations of state-sanctioned organ harvesting in China. Jan shares what he's learned from years of interviews with doctors, investigators, and even survivors of this gruesome industry where political prisoners are killed for their…
474: Jeff Childers—Coffee & Covid
Ep 474 · Mar 10, 2026 · 2 hr 4 min
Mike chats with Jeff Childers—the attorney-turned-writer behind the wildly popular Coffee & Covid Substack—for a wide-ranging conversation about media narratives, pandemic politics, and the strange new world of citizen journalism. What began as a daily blog written during lockdown has grown into a must-read for hundreds of thousands of devotees looking for sharp legal insight, media criticism, and a dose of wry humor with their morning coffee. Jeff explains what it takes to crank out 2,000 to 6,…
473: Will Swaim—Don't Follow California
Ep 473 · Mar 3, 2026 · 1 hr 6 min
Mike talks with Will Swaim, CEO of the California Policy Center. California has long marketed itself as the future—a place where trends are born and the rest of the country eventually follows. But Swaim argues that when it comes to public policy, that's the last thing America should do. Despite spending roughly $24 billion, California still leads the nation in homelessness. The state ranks near the bottom in education outcomes, while residents face the highest energy and gas prices as well as ma…
472: Anna Vocino—Eat Happy
Ep 472 · Feb 24, 2026 · 1 hr 50 min
Mike sits down with comedian, voiceover pro, cookbook author, and culinary entrepreneur, Anna Vocino. Anna shares how her Eat Happy journey—from her bestselling cookbooks Eat Happy, Eat Happy Too, and Eat Happy Italian to her podcast Fitness Confidential—grew out of personal health struggles and a lot of hustle. She also pulls back the curtain on her voiceover career and explains why getting a food product onto grocery store shelves is a lot harder than most people think. It's a candid conversat…
471: David Zucker—Thanks for the Parking Spot
Ep 471 · Feb 17, 2026 · 1 hr 30 min
Mike talks with comedy legend David Zucker, the creative force behind the movie Airplane! Zucker shares what it took to make Airplane!—pitching a spoof no one quite understood, casting serious actors to deliver absurd lines with a straight face, and why making his co-writers laugh was the secret sauce to pleasing the audience. He also discusses his new "Master Crash" course, where Zucker teaches the dos and don'ts of spoof comedy writing. Along the way, we learn how John Landis landed National L…
470: Mark Malkoff—Love Johnny Carson
Ep 470 · Feb 10, 2026 · 1 hr 46 min
Johnny Carson didn't just host The Tonight Show—he defined late-night television. In this episode, Mike talks with comedian and pop-culture historian Mark Malkoff, author of the book Love Johnny Carson, about Carson's quiet influence, off-camera generosity, and the unlikely ways his legacy still shapes comedy today. It's a short history lesson, a love letter to show business, and a reminder that some icons never really leave the stage.
469: Rep. Riley Moore—I'm Just a Bill
Ep 469 · Feb 6, 2026 · 46 min
Mike sits down with West Virginia Congressman Riley Moore, whose path to Capitol Hill began with a welding torch. Moore shares why he chose the skilled trades early in life, what that work taught him about dignity and opportunity, and how those lessons now shape his approach to policy. The discussion centers on Moore's new legislation, the Jumpstart Savings Act, a proposal designed to remove financial barriers to apprenticeships, tools, and certifications—and to breathe new life into America's s…
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