On this episode of American Prestige, Ben Freeman and Nick Cleveland-Stout discuss their work monitoring the seamy underbelly of the think tank world.
Vice President JD Vance (R) waves goodbye during the American Compass think tank’s New World Gala at the National Building Museum on June 03, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Kayla Bartkowski / Getty Images)
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Ben Freeman and Nick Cleveland-Stout from the Quincy Institute join the program to talk about their Think Tank Funding Tracker, a repository that tracks funding from foreign governments, the U.S. government, and Pentagon contractors to the top 50 think tanks in the United States over the past five years. The group discusses think tanks’ role in the “military-intellectual” complex, what specific foreign funders like the UAE and UK might be looking to influence, why certain governments like Ukraine and China gave little to no money, the lack of transparency among individuals working in sectors like journalism and government who also work with think tanks, the utilization (and under-utilization) of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, how to restructure the order so that expertise isn’t limited to these kinds of institutions, and how to make think tanks more democratically accountable in the meantime.
Read the Quincy Institute's brief on their project, “Big Ideas and Big Money: Think Tank Funding in America.”
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Ben Freeman and Nick Cleveland-Stout from the Quincy Institute join the program to talk about their Think Tank Funding Tracker, a repository that tracks funding from foreign governments, the U.S. government, and Pentagon contractors to the top 50 think tanks in the United States over the past five years. The group discusses think tanks’ role in the “military-intellectual” complex, what specific foreign funders like the UAE and UK might be looking to influence, why certain governments like Ukraine and China gave little to no money, the lack of transparency among individuals working in sectors like journalism and government who also work with think tanks, the utilization (and under-utilization) of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, how to restructure the order so that expertise isn’t limited to these kinds of institutions, and how to make think tanks more democratically accountable in the meantime.
Read the Quincy Institute’s brief on their project, “Big Ideas and Big Money: Think Tank Funding in America.”
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
Danny and Derek welcome to the show Molly Lambert, creator of the JENNAWORLD podcast, to talk about the rise of the modern porn industry and its roots in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley. They discuss the medium’s origins in underground stag films and the porno chic era; the shift to home video and the corporate studio model; breakout stars like Ginger Lynn Allen and Jenna Jameson; porn as an outsider industry mirroring Hollywood; gender, labor, and power in late-20th-century media; the relationship between pornography and evolving feminist politics; porn’s role in the VHS–Betamax war; and how the internet, OnlyFans, and content platforms have affected a formerly professionalized industry.
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Daniel BessnerTwitterDaniel Bessner is an historian of US foreign relations, and cohost of American Prestige, a podcast on international affairs.
Derek DavisonDerek Davison is a writer and analyst specializing in international affairs and US foreign policy. He is the publisher of the Foreign Exchanges newsletter, cohost of the American Prestige podcast, and former editor of LobeLog.