65 · Tier 2 — National media agenda-setters

Ross Douthat

Opinion columnist; podcast host

AI position

Aware of x-risk

No stable, attributable and sufficiently current personal AI-policy stance was located.

He has repeatedly hosted and engaged with AI-2027-style extinction-risk scenarios (Kokotajlo episode, "calming counterpoint to AI 2027" post, "Age of Extinction" column, Amodei interview on rogue-AI risk), but frames it skeptically/culturally rather than treating it as his own recurring core theme.

Sheet category (Jul 12, 2026 snapshot): No clear personal stance

Absence of a located position is not evidence of neutrality or disinterest.

Why influential

Produces reusable arguments and interpretive frames that circulate among policymakers, donors, advocates, academics and other journalists. Primary policy lanes: religion; culture; elections; political theory.

Who pays attention

Religious conservatives, academics, opinion editors, policy professionals and intellectually oriented readers

Work samplesunvetted

AI-world contactsunprocessed

  • Rod Dreher — author and conservative Christian commentator, author and conservative Christian commentator

    • Hosted / interviewedsource · interview · Jul 9, 2026 — I'm Worried About Weimar America — Platformed: I'm Worried About Weimar America

  • Christian Brose — president and chief strategy officer, Anduril Industries, president and chief strategy officer, Anduril Industries

    • Hosted / interviewedsource · interview · May 28, 2026 — Our Military Is Built for the Wrong Century — Platformed: Our Military Is Built for the Wrong Century

  • Jennifer A. Frey — philosopher; University of Tulsa professor and former dean of its Honors College, philosopher; University of Tulsa professor and former dean of its Honors College

    • Hosted / interviewedsource · interview · May 21, 2026 — A Defense of a Liberal Arts Education in the Age of A.I. — Platformed: A Defense of a Liberal Arts Education in the Age of A.I.

  • Kyle Chan — China and industrial-policy fellow, Brookings Institution, China and industrial-policy fellow, Brookings Institution

    • Hosted / interviewedsource · interview · May 14, 2026 — China's Not the Problem. We Are. — Platformed: China's Not the Problem. We Are.

  • Andrew Miller — transportation-policy writer, transportation-policy writer

    • Hosted / interviewedsource · interview · Apr 30, 2026 — Why Are We Still Driving? — Platformed: Why Are We Still Driving?

  • Dario Amodei — Co-founder & CEO, Anthropic

    • Hosted / interviewedsource · interview · Feb 12, 2026 — Douthat interviewed Amodei on Interesting Times about AI consciousness, model control, and rogue-AI risk; Douthat also promoted it on X.
    • Social interactiondirectness unclassified · Feb 9, 2026 — Douthat tweeted promoting his 'very timely A.I. conversation with the head of Anthropic, Dario Amodei.'

  • Paul Kingsnorth — novelist, essayist and Orthodox Christian writer, novelist, essayist and Orthodox Christian writer

    • Hosted / interviewedsource · interview · Nov 14, 2025 — This Is the War Against Human Nature — Platformed: This Is the War Against Human Nature

  • Shyam Sankar — chief technology officer, Palantir; U.S. Army Reserve officer, chief technology officer, Palantir; U.S. Army Reserve officer

    • Hosted / interviewedsource · interview · Oct 30, 2025 — What Palantir Sees — Platformed: What Palantir Sees

  • Jason Furman — Harvard economist; former chair, Council of Economic Advisers, Harvard economist; former chair, Council of Economic Advisers

    • Hosted / interviewedsource · interview · Oct 23, 2025 — The Next Economic Bubble Is Here — Platformed: The Next Economic Bubble Is Here

Guest & source indexunvetted

Platformed — hosted, fresh-quoted, or published

  • Alice Evans — social scientist specializing in gender and development

  • Allie Beth Stuckey — conservative Christian podcaster

  • Amitav Acharya — international-relations scholar, American University

    • Welcome to the Indian Centurysource · interview sympathetic · Feb 19, 2026 — India's economic and demographic rise, multi-alignment and a prospective Indian-led century.

  • Amy Coney Barrett — associate justice, U.S. Supreme Court

  • Andrew Kolvet — Turning Point USA spokesperson; executive producer of The Charlie Kirk Show

    • Is Anything Holding MAGA Together?source · interview sympathetic · Dec 11, 2025 — Turning Point after Charlie Kirk, conspiracy theories and the ideological glue of MAGA.

  • Andrew Miller — transportation-policy writer

    • Why Are We Still Driving?source · interview neutral · Apr 30, 2026 — Waymo, Tesla and Zoox; autonomous-vehicle safety; and what is lost when humans stop driving.

  • Anna Paulina Luna — Republican U.S. representative from Florida

  • Anthony Pompliano — chief executive of ProCap Financial; cryptocurrency investor

  • Bart D. Ehrman — New Testament scholar, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  • Ben Sasse — former Republican senator and former University of Florida president

  • Bret Stephens — New York Times Opinion columnist

    • Israel's Moral Balance Beamsource · interview neutral · Jul 10, 2025 — Gaza, Iran, antisemitism, just-war questions and Israel's obligations to diaspora Jews.

  • Chase Strangio — ACLU attorney and transgender-rights advocate

  • Chris Hayes — host of All In With Chris Hayes, MS NOW

  • Chris Murphy — Democratic U.S. senator from Connecticut

  • Christian Angermayer — biotech and technology investor; founder of Apeiron Investment Group

  • Christian Brose — president and chief strategy officer, Anduril Industries

  • Christopher Rufo — senior fellow, Manhattan Institute; anti-DEI activist

  • Crooked Media — podcast network (Pod Save America); interview conducted by Jon Favreau

  • Curt Mills — executive director, The American Conservative

    • Does the Iran War Put America First?source · interview sympathetic · Mar 5, 2026 — Whether war with Iran betrayed Trump's restraint-oriented voters and might break the MAGA coalition.

  • Dan Wang — technology analyst; author of Breakneck

    • Does the Future Belong to China?source · interview sympathetic · Sep 4, 2025 — Chinese state capacity, infrastructure, manufacturing and America's comparative inability to build.

  • Daniel Kokotajlo — executive director, AI Futures Project; former OpenAI researcher

  • Dario Amodei — co-founder and chief executive, Anthropic

  • Diana Walsh Pasulka — professor of religious studies; author on UFO belief

  • Doug Wilson — pastor, Christ Church; Christian-nationalist writer

  • Elliott Abrams — former U.S. special representative for Venezuela

  • Ezra Klein — New York Times columnist and podcast host

  • Francisco Segovia — executive director, Communities Organizing Power and Action for Latinos

  • Hasan Piker — Twitch and YouTube political commentator

  • Helen Andrews — conservative writer and author

  • J.D. Vance — vice president of the United States

  • Jack Goldsmith — Harvard Law School professor; former head of the Office of Legal Counsel

  • Jamelle Bouie — New York Times Opinion columnist

  • James Martin, S.J. — Jesuit priest; editor at large, America

  • Jared Isaacman — NASA administrator; entrepreneur and private astronaut

    • The New Space Racesource · interview sympathetic · Feb 26, 2026 — Artemis II, Mars, private spaceflight, extraterrestrial life and NASA's future.

  • Jason Furman — Harvard economist; former chair, Council of Economic Advisers

    • The Next Economic Bubble Is Heresource · interview neutral · Oct 23, 2025 — Whether AI investment is propping up the economy and how to distinguish a productive boom from a bubble.

  • Jay Bhattacharya — director, National Institutes of Health; Stanford health-policy professor

  • Jennifer A. Frey — philosopher; University of Tulsa professor and former dean of its Honors College

  • Jeremy Carl — author of The Unprotected Class; former Trump State Department nominee

    • White Identity Is Galvanizing the Rightsource · interview critical · Mar 19, 2026 — Claims of anti-white discrimination and whether white-identity politics inevitably approaches white nationalism.

  • Jeremy Lewin — former DOGE official; USAID deputy administrator

  • Joe Coscarelli — New York Times culture reporter and Popcast host

  • Jon Caramanica — New York Times pop-music critic and Popcast host

  • Jonathan Keeperman — founder, Passage Press (a.k.a. "Lomez")

  • Julie K. Brown — investigative reporter, Miami Herald

  • Kathleen Kingsbury — editor, New York Times Opinion

  • Kyle Chan — China and industrial-policy fellow, Brookings Institution

    • China's Not the Problem. We Are.source · interview sympathetic · May 14, 2026 — The U.S.-China AI competition, deployment versus frontier-model development, manufacturing and chip controls.

  • Leah Libresco Sargeant — author of The Dignity of Dependence

  • Lila Rose — founder and president, Live Action

  • Lina Khan — former chair, Federal Trade Commission

  • Louise Perry — Wall Street Journal columnist; author of The Case Against the Sexual Revolution

  • Mark Dubowitz — chief executive, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

    • How Far Will Trump Go in Iran?source · interview critical · Mar 26, 2026 — War aims, regime change, Hormuz and the tension between Trump's desire for victory and a quick settlement.

  • Matthew Continetti — senior fellow, American Enterprise Institute

  • May Mailman — White House lawyer and architect of Trump higher-education policy

  • New Left Review — editorial/opinion desk

    • Condition of Americaplaced · op-ed sympathetic · Mar 1, 2025 — Long-form discussion of liberalism, populism, Catholicism, Trump and Douthat's position inside the Times.

  • Noor Siddiqui — founder and chief executive, Orchid

  • Oren Cass — founder and chief economist, American Compass

  • Osita Nwanevu — progressive writer; author of The Right of the People

  • Paul Kingsnorth — novelist, essayist and Orthodox Christian writer

  • Peter Thiel — co-founder of PayPal and Palantir; venture capitalist

  • Ray Dalio — founder of Bridgewater Associates

  • Reihan Salam — president, Manhattan Institute

  • Rod Dreher — author and conservative Christian commentator

    • I'm Worried About Weimar Americasource · interview sympathetic · Jul 9, 2026 — Christianity's decline, European immigration, Orban, American instability, and AI as a possible "vector for the demonic."

  • Ryan Burge — demographer of religion; former pastor

  • Sam Harris — author and host of Making Sense

  • Sarah Isgur — legal commentator; editor at The Dispatch

  • Shyam Sankar — chief technology officer, Palantir; U.S. Army Reserve officer

    • What Palantir Seessource · interview sympathetic · Oct 30, 2025 — Palantir's government work, AI-enabled warfare, privacy, military-technology cooperation and AI doomerism.
    • What Palantir Seessource · direct quote sympathetic · Oct 30, 2025 — Sankar told Douthat that secular AI doomerism fills a "God-shaped hole" and disputed a Terminator-style account of military AI.

  • The Atlantic — Ideas section (opinion/commentary desk)

    • The Age of Decadenceplaced · op-ed neutral · Feb 25, 2020 — Douthat argued that wealthy societies can become repetitive, stagnant and culturally exhausted.

  • Tony Gilroy — screenwriter and showrunner of Andor

    • What Makes Art 'Left Wing'?source · interview sympathetic · Jun 5, 2025 — Political storytelling, fascism, rebellion, Hollywood stagnation and making adult drama inside Star Wars.

  • Yoram Hazony — chairman, Edmund Burke Foundation; nationalist theorist

    • It's Deeper Than Nick Fuentessource · interview sympathetic · Nov 20, 2025 — Antisemitism within "America First," nationalism and the responsibilities of conservative leaders.

Discussed — covered without direct contact

Scan coverage note: Carried over from the harvest report's 'Important exclusions and search limitations' section: This index is exhaustive for publicly discoverable 'Interesting Times' interviews through July 15, 2026, including identifiable pre-launch video interviews, but the source model could not claim absolute exhaustiveness for every Douthat interaction across the decade. Caveats: (1) the Apple podcast ID was inherited from 'The Argument,' so podcast databases mislabel roughly 400 legacy episodes (often hosted by Michelle Goldberg, David Leonhardt, Jane Coaston or other Times journalists, sometimes without Douthat) as 'Interesting Times'; those were not attributed to Douthat here. (2) Apple exposes only a limited recent window and Times audio/column archives are increasingly subscriber-only and partly blocked from automated indexing. (3) Spotify and YouTube episode metadata are inconsistently indexed, and several podcast databases collapse rebroadcasts, trailers and solo commentary into ordinary 'guest' episodes. (4) A feed copy of a Meher Ahmad interview with Jessica Grose was excluded because Douthat did not participate, even though it briefly appeared in his feed. (5) Quote-attribution search is necessarily incomplete since paywalled column text cannot be reliably searched for every variant of 'told me,' 'said to me,' 'in our conversation,' 'I spoke with,' or unattributed background interviews. (6) A reported 90-minute conversation with journalist Seth Harp was never published, so no platforming event or URL exists and it is not indexed. (7) Passing mentions of public figures based solely on their already-public words were not treated as platforming, to keep the concept distinct from an ordinary decade-long coverage scan.