The Munk Debates Podcast - Bonus Episode: behind the scenes at The Munk Debate on Foreign Wars

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

Munk Debates Chair Rudyard Griffiths and Managing Director Ricki Gurwitz pull back the curtain on how they chose the four debaters who took the stage on Wednesday night — and preview the blockbuster debates already in the works for the fall.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rudyard Griffiths here, Chair of the Monk Debates. Welcome to our post-mainstage debrief with Ricky Gurowitz, the managing director of the Monk Debates, who is responsible for putting together our big mainstage doohash. What do we call these things, Ricky? It was a big debate, a couple thousand people downtown Toronto. Let's just begin by reminding our audience what was the debate motion and who was on the stage? So the debate resolution was be it resolved.

don't go hunting monsters, as you can see here. And it was all about John Quincy Adams' famous quote that he gave when he was Secretary of State in 1821, I believe. And it was a warning to his fellow Americans that America does not go abroad for foreign expeditions to find conflicts with those it disagrees with. and it stays at home. And I think a lot of people today feel that, well, rightfully so, that America has not

heated those warnings in the past three decades, and the consequence of not listening to that warning has been disastrous. And so to argue that resolution, we had two kind of foreign policy giants on one side, we had Victoria Newland, who's had 35 years in State Department and as a career diplomat. She actually probably had the most foreign policy experience of everyone on stage. And she hasn't done a lot of public debates like this. No, she hasn't. Well, she only left government about a year ago, so it was kind of nice to get that.

This is her first big kind of public event to talk about American foreign policy. Yes, and it was also nice to hear because she's been on the receiving end of a lot of criticism with regards to Ukraine and Russia. She was quite instrumental in how America kind of led on that file back when Biden was president. And so she's taken a lot of criticism from the likes of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Wall. So it was nice for her to set the record straight as she sees it, which she hasn't been able to do. So we paired her with former Secretary of State and CIA director Mike Pompeo. And on the other side, we had the returning duo of John Mearsheimer and Steve.

and Walt who are since we had them in 2022 we had them for our debate on ukraine and russia and they were fabulous they've only gained more notoriety and um attention in the the you know ensuing four years probably because americans foreign policy or sorry america's um the american sentiment about how their foreign policy should be exercise has changed so much in those four years. Yeah, and this Iran war, obviously, making this debate all the more relevant and a big reason why we chose the resolution.

So just to remind viewers and listeners that if you are a monk member, you can access a live stream of the debate depending on your donor level. And if you're listening to us and you want to dig into this media debate, there is a live stream pass that people can access the data.

debate on on demand and access future debates live as we broadcast them from our locations here in Toronto. Ricky, the purpose of these debrief episodes is to kind of lift the rope, so to speak, for our audience to understand a little bit about how we go about building these debates and what goes into them. So talk to us a little bit about putting this particular debate together, rave reviews after of the fact in terms of the substance on the stage, the extent to which they really engaged with each other. What were you trying to do when you selected these pairs? What were you kind of

looking for when it comes to, you know, a debater that you want to have on our stage and that we're going to go to the time and the expense and the effort, you know, to put on that main stage in front of, in this case, you know, almost 2,500 people in downtown Toronto. Yeah, so one thing, you know, I just want to. to correct you a little bit in that it is not a solo effort. Frederick, you are very instrumental in choosing these debaters, and it's certainly a group effort, and that's something that we're very proud of. But you have the ultimate responsibility to get them to sign the contract,

so I'm glad I don't have that job. That's not fun. So we always try to find people who will compliment each other on stage. And so when it comes to kind of how we decided to go about the con side, we felt that Secretary Pompeo had a lot of experience with Iran. And we knew that that was going to be something that was going to come up a lot. We knew that obviously that was top of mind. And Victoria has a lot of experience on Ukraine, which we also knew would come up a lot. So that was like a –

Geographic. Right. And what was really interesting is actually, as we were casting this debate, we noticed that moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats, of which we pay, of which were Newland and Pompeo actually agreed more than those within their parties. Right. So by that we mean Pompeo and Newland see the world in a more similar way in America's role in a more similar way than. Pompeo would see with someone who was more extreme in his party and the same with Newland. And so

that's really telling. That's like, you know, that's really interesting part of how everything has evolved in America right now. And then when it comes to John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, we struggled. I mean, let's talk to the audience because we like to kind of let them into the conversation here is you really struggled with that side of the debate for a couple reasons. that the non-interventionists, especially in the orbit of Donald Trump, have become, in our view, radicalized to the extent to which there are certain voices, and we can think of them, you know,

out there on the fringes of the right-wing media sphere that, you know, we don't want to have on our stage because we don't think they're particularly credible. And in some cases, they have pretty obnoxious views when it comes to issues of particularly issues around race and, and frankly, in some cases, with some people, you know, statements that are openly anti-Semitic. So it was interesting that that was really a struggle to find a credible voice that had, you know, some institutional heft behind them and hadn't kind of, at least from our perspective, of the type of civil and substantive conversations we want to organize the debates would kind of kick themselves out of our orbit because they were just so radical in their views on American foreign

policy, on kind of American isolationism. That group has now coalesced around the likes of the Candace Owens, the Nick Fuentes, the Tucker Carlson's in many cases. And for us, just to level with our audience, like, that's just a bridge too far. We're not going to platform those types of people because indirectly that means endorsing a lot of other views, which are just, in our view, kind of noxious. Right, exactly. So we thought it would be interesting to have someone from the MAGA wing of the party to argue the America First isolationist view, which wasn't completely articulated by the

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt position. But like you said, it was just, it's really interesting. And again, this is just an observation of where we are. politically, that the preeminent thought that's kind of taking over on both the extreme right and the extreme left come with it such an odious kind of worldview that you can't, you don't feel comfortable platforming it. But the other thing is that also is really interesting is the John Meersheimer and Stephen Walt view of America's role in the world is actually the one, even though it's not, it doesn't

have the governmental experience and credibility that the side of Pompeo and Newland has, it's actually the ascending view. If you look at young people today, they relate more to the John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt view of restraint and America's, you know, role vis-a-vis Iran, China, Russia, and their lack of being. desire to go abroad to fight these wars. Yeah, understandably. And look, we platform that argument in this debate, and we think that's a valid one. It's when that argument veers into, you know, claims of, like,

racial superiority on the part of white Americans, which it does among some elements of MAGA, or it veers into not simply a criticism of Israel, which is legitimate, but, but, you know, open musings about, you know, Jewish conspiracies that are, you know, controlling the world or controlling the United States. Those are views that, you know, we're going to draw a red line. And, yeah, some people listening may say, you know, is that the monk debates promoting free speech? Well, we think there's, it's a balance between free and open debate and civil, civility, and substance. And we're always trying to thread that. I think we did that successfully with John Mir Schimer and Stephen Walt, both who are super respected academics and thinkers in their own right,

but who are also very critical of American use of military and economic power abroad. Ricky, we have a clip, I believe, of what you selected, of what you thought was like one of the most kind of interesting moments of the debate, and I thought we could play that, and then kind of you could explain why you thought this kind of catalyzed precisely why we do these debates and in a sense expressed what we hope this debate would reveal to our audiences. Let's listen to that clip now.

This is what human decency demands. You don't let a radical regime close off the global economy by firing Shahid missiles into nations that did nothing. They're firing into civilians in the United Air Emirates even just this week. That's just

something that the world can accept. And so this monster is worthy of the hunt. You do know, Mike, that we started the wolf. No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Oh, no, no, no. They weren't firing those missiles until Israel and the United States attacked Iran. You do understand it, right?

Welcome to 1979 when the revolutionary regime began to kill Europeans. You do know that we overthrew the democratically elected government in 1954. Just for the record, you were talking about this. You don't think Iran has, you think Iran's forgotten about that? No, I suspect they've not. I don't think Iran remembers that we supported Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war? I know this. You think they've forgotten about this?

I know this. Other countries have history. Do you think Iran is a monster? No. Okay. Okay. I don't think there's, I don't think there's a problem. I'm glad I don't live there.

I think many countries do many bad things, including my own. And I wouldn't call the United States a monster. Do also remember that we wouldn't have had October 7th if we hadn't had Iranian in support for Hamas. I agree. We wouldn't have had October 7th if we'd gotten peace in the Middle East, and that's a much longer story. It is, and every single U.S. President has tried, and we'll continue to.

Not very hard. But it is very important to emphasize there's no evidence that Iran even knew about October 7th, much less cost to. Oh, my goodness. I'm sure it is lovely to live where you live and believe that. There's no evidence in the public record of that. Oh, my goodness. That was just one of many kind of feisty exchanges.

I'll just say as a debate moderator, there's nothing I like more when I get to stand back and watch the debaters go at each other. So why did you choose that clip as being kind of an exemplar of the type of debate that you hope that we would have had with this contest? I thought it so eloquently displayed their different views of the world. I mean, the fact that Stephen Walt does not thank you, is a monster is very telling. Now, also the equivalence he made to the U.S. is very telling.

The fact that he said, well, I think U.S. America has done bad things, but they're not a monster. Well, a lot of people would take issue with that because they would see what America has done is pales in comparison to what Iran has done. Now, it would have been interesting to ask him, does he think Israel's a monster? And we didn't get around to that, but that also would have been very telling. Israel genocide featured prominently in the debate. with Mir Schimer and Walt being explicit that they felt that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Yes, that did come up, as we knew it would.

But the nice thing was it wasn't because I think we all have a little bit of fatigue. And it didn't monopolize the debate, which was nice. So the other thing that was also noticeable in that clip is the fact that one side of the debate has foreign policy has lived foreign policy, and the other side observes it. And you could tell that very, you could tell that throughout the debate, but specifically in that clip when he said, well, I've seen no evidence that Iran, you know, supported the proxies or Hamas that invaded Israel.

Well, Victoria Newland and Mike Pompeo know that, that's true. Right, they've seen the intelligence. They're privy as, you know, senior members, in Mike Pompeo's case, head of the CIA. Right. So it's kind of sometimes easy to be critical of things and quite another to have to lead on them. Yeah, assume the responsibility for it.

Let's just finally talk about the audience. I found it was one of our more raucous debates. I was surprised at the extent to which the audience was loud and engaged, which is great, but also really divided in the hall on all the big issues that were discussed. What do you make of that? I feel like our audience has really changed in interesting ways over the last five years. Before COVID, I think we were maybe a slightly more button-down debate series with a like, a lot of people from Toronto's Financial District, and it was a kind of an evening of kind of learning and reflection.

now the last few debates we've had, Ricky, well, the last one had some protesters, but it's something's happened or something is happening out there. People are coming into the public square with way more energy. I don't think it's a bad thing necessarily, and I think we were able to have a civil and substantive debate, but it's just, I've noticed this trend of a lot more disagreement and people feeling, I guess, in public that they have licensed to, to express. us that. Yes. It's like Twitter come to life. I mean, obviously, to a lesser degree, but I think people feel more passionately about politics and social issues now than they did 10 years ago. They're more engaged now. I don't know if this is probably a result of many

things, including social media. Is it a good thing? Yes, but also it worries me, little bit. Like, it worries me that politics has become an entertainment in a way that it wasn't 30 years ago. Like, I feel like people look to politicians as their source of, of, um, the days, you know, the days headlines that they can go and, and, and, and, and kind of pick a part in the office. Trump's the master of that, right? Right. And, uh, sometimes you just want politics to be boy. Yeah, be nice, wouldn't it? Let's just play a quick clip of some fun that I had, ejecting one person who after, you know, we waited, Ricky. I gave him a couple times to express himself in a way that was disrupting. The audience, the audience was shushing this person. So I was

kind of hoping that it would all sort itself out. But at a certain point, I hit my breaking point, and here's what's happened on the main stage. I just want to, say on your point about... Oh, just... Sorry, hold on a second. The month debates is about civility and substance, and if you're yelling in the hall, sir, you're out of here.

Okay? So I'm instructing the security in the hall that if that gentleman decides to try to interrupt this debate, eject him. He's gone. Sorry. John, go ahead. Again, Ricky, you know,

I'm going to do that each and every time at these debates. If someone doesn't kind of settle down. And again, it's okay. There's booing in our hall. There's cheering. There's whistling. There is the occasional yell. But in a quite, you know, something like that where someone obviously has either lost control themselves or they're actively trying to disrupt our proceedings. I feel very comfortable that our role is, is the debate itself. And we have to protect that. And I'll say on the record, like, we're just not going to tolerate that kind of behavior. Yeah, we have a responsibility to our

audience members who bought tickets to see a debate, not to this one person who feels that it's in their right to heckle and derail it. And furthermore, if you want to engage, which we are always happy when audience members engage with our material, you're free to vote on the resolution. That's what you have that makes our debates different than other. Or as I said to the heckler, you know, whatever, like get the live stream, stay at home, scream at your eye or your television in the privacy of your... Yeah. Go on Twitter like all the other keyboard warriors and yell and scream.

So if that's your... If that's your kink, fill your boots. Just don't come to our hall and expect that you can get away with that. Ricky, let's just wrap up by, you know, you're always under pressure for the next debate. And I think one of the things you and I feel about this series, which is both, you know, a blessing and a curse is it's like Sisyphus with your rock. You roll up the boulder up to the top of the hill. You have your debate and it rolls back all the way down and you have to summit yet again. So we do two debates a year, one in the spring, one in the fall. Do you have some early ideas of what you're thinking about for the autumn?

Yes, although I will say that every time we always start planning our debates like six months in advance. And the debate we end up with has gone through like so many iterations and so many different debates. Or it's completely new and it wasn't even on the list of debates that we were thinking about six months prior. Exactly. Like, you know, we, when, what was it, two months ago that the Iran invasion happened? That's literally when we like pivoted to this. So we try to keep as timely as possible and sometimes it works and sometimes, well, we try to make it work. And so, so when we've been trying to do for so long, which is still,

so topical is this trust in experts. And I think in this day and age, when podcasters had now command so much of public attention, it is more relevant than ever, especially podcasters who, let's be honest, don't have a lot of experience in what they're speaking about. For sure. And so, but, but. Guilty as charge.

No. I'm not referring to you. I'm referring to the likes of a lot of people we see on the extremes of both sides. And, you know, they just bring in guests that suit their narrative without any kind of... And the guests themselves aren't experts. Yeah. But they hold themselves forth as, but the hosts don't know what they don't know. So there's no challenge function.

No challenge. Yeah. And this is happening on, you know, a lot of really important issues from history to... Yes. To science, to, you know, conspiracy theories, which are now talked about in our culture. and as you say, you're right, this kind of, you know, for better and worse, we've lost news as like a professionally curated thing by journalists who generally have like a code of conduct and a series of best practices to news as something that you get from TikTok, from your podcast feed.

And, you know, it's not often clear what the biases are, what the rigor is, what the process. There's no rigor. There's no guardrails. I mean, what they would argue on the other side, and that's why I think it makes a compelling debate, is that they would say, well, we've been misled. Yeah. And it's true. Experts have failed on a variety of, you know, COVID and many aspects of COVID was a big expert failure. Experts, for more, the recession. It's just they feel that people in positions of power have often are led by their own interests.

Yeah, or gas-lining us. Yes. And so, and there is truth to that, too. So that's why it would be an interesting debate. So a debate on experts. Yes. trying. The other kind of ones that we've been thinking about is one that I know you and I really love. It's about the generational kind of fight between boomers and Gen Z and whether boomers should take responsibility

for some of the lackluster prospects that are facing this young. generation and you know they can't buy house their pay is abysmal they're oftentimes graduating into a hopeless job market especially with AI and boobers are kind of live in large live in large right yeah you know it's interesting this week there was this huge debate on Twitter and I'm sorry I have to spend time there but I mean it's a part of your job part of my job Kevin O'Leary posted had had an interview where he said something along the line of, you know, when someone is making, he noticed some of his employees, they make, like,

entry-level jobs are making $70,000 a year some of these people, and they go for lunch every day, and they spend $30 a day on lunch. And he said, you know, what are you doing? Like, put that money aside. You complain about being unable to afford a house, but when you're spending that kind of money every day, well, then you're not going to be able to, right? And so there was this huge pushback on Twitter where people felt like, They'll never be able to afford a house.

So why not spend? Right. And it just brought up a lot of these issues. And I think it's like a debate that really energizes like everyone. Yeah, okay. Two great debates to keep in line. And then we'll just see what the world serves up between now and the autumn. What crazy event or series of events that could happen,

which would require us once again to pivot last minute and put together a debate that's, you know, on the issue of the moment. Yes. Ricky Gerwitz, managing director of the Monk Debates. Thanks for coming on to do this debate debrief. Congratulations on a great debate. And look forward to seeing what you can. And you too, congratulations on another fantastic moderator outing. You really nailed it.

And I think we got some e-bills after the debate from the debaters talking about that and how they felt they were really good hands. Well, after 33 times, Ricky, I think you guys should expect me to be able to have figured this. It's not an easy feat. I think people think that. But practice does help. Practice really does help.

And I, you know, you just, you know, what's that? Malcolm Gladwell, one of our past debaters, 10,000 hours. I haven't had 10,000 hours moderating. Probably had 10,000 hours thinking about moderating over the last 17 years of the Monk debates. But it does, it does help you. kind of think through, you know, from real experience, what makes for a good debate. And just as we saw, again, I'm so thankful to the casting for this debate. You know, when you get to step back as a moderator, you just let the debaters go and you

kind of disappear. That, to me, is mission accomplished and usually a sign of, you know, a great debate on the Monk debate stage. And I think this debate was a great debate. And we urge our listeners and viewers, if you've not watched it. and you are a monk donor and you're at a membership level. What membership level, Ricky, do they start accessing the live stream? Does that begin?

Donor. Donor. Donor supporters and curators can all access it, but you can also purchase a live stream pass for $25 and you can watch the on-demand video for about three months. Okay. Awesome. So again, some of those contribution levels do allow you to access a Canadian charitable tax receipt. The Monk Debates is a Canadian charity.

and we'd really appreciate your support for civil and substantive debate. And just one more thing. If you are a donor, which is $50, you not only get this debate, you get the next debate, plus you get the Friday Focus podcast. There's a lot of benefits to just. Yeah, you bundle it up, and I think you come out ahead, definitely at that $50 membership, and then a portion of that as a charitable tax receipt. So Ricky Gurus, thanks for coming on.

Thank you. And we'll start working on the next day. debate. Already started. Bye-bye, everybody. Bye. The Monk debates are a project of the Aurea and Peter and Melanie Monk Charitable Foundations. Rudyard Griffiths and Ricky Gerwitz are the producers. Be sure to download and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like us, feel free to give us a five-star rating. Thank you again for listening.