Shane Smith Has Questions

Shane sits down in Denmark, immediately following today’s high-stakes US–Danish meetings, with former Danish foreign minister Per Stig Møller for an on-the-ground conversation about why Greenland has become one of the most sensitive geopolitical flashpoints right now. Coming off the press conference and escalating rhetoric between Washington and Copenhagen, Møller draws on his role negotiating a key defense treaty with the United States to explain what the agreements actually allow — and why the current moment has raised fresh alarms.

Shane Smith travels to Venezuela for a special episode of Shane Smith Has Questions, on the ground for the first meeting between U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez — the Trump administration’s first official visit since the regime change. Reporting from Caracas, Shane gets rare access as U.S. officials engage Venezuela’s new leadership and begin shaping what comes next for the country — and its vast oil reserves. He also sits down with Venezuelan journalist María de los Ángeles Graterol and Wall Street Journal South America Bureau Chief Juan Manuel Ferero to unpack the power shift, the stakes for Washington, and whether Venezuela is entering a new chapter — or a new uncertainty. A firsthand look at a country at a turning point.

Shane Smith sits down with Senator Bernie Sanders for a conversation that cuts straight to the heart of America's biggest crisis artificial intelligence. Bernie warns that a handful of the world's wealthiest men are quietly engineering the most consequential revolution in human history, one that could wipe out millions of jobs overnight and leave ordinary Americans with nothing but unanswered questions. Driverless trucks, automated warehouses, AI lawyers and accountants the future is arriving fast, and Congress isn't even having the conversation. Bernie then unloads on the billionaire class fueling this transformation exposing how wealth and power have never been more dangerously concentrated, how money has corrupted American democracy from Citizens United to Elon Musk's $290 million in campaign spending, and why a federal wealth tax may be the last line of defense for working people. This is Bernie Sanders unfiltered and he's sounding the alarm.

The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed, and energy expert Amos Hochstein is calling this the single greatest energy crisis in global history bigger than the 1973 OPEC embargo. With roughly 10 million barrels of oil per day missing from global markets, prices have surged from $60 to nearly $100 a barrel, gas is climbing toward $4 a gallon, and major producers like Kuwait, Iraq, and Qatar have already slashed production. According to Hochstein, if the Strait remains closed for just 10 more days, the economic damage could become permanent and very difficult to reverse.

Ian Bremmer, one of the most connected geopolitical minds on the planet, sits down to explain the Iran crisis in brutally honest terms: why regime change was a fantasy, how Iran is somehow making more money since the war started, and why the real pain at the pump, at the grocery store, in your portfolio hasn't even hit yet. This isn't cable news spin. This is the unfiltered truth from someone who actually talks to world leaders. From Venezuela to Greenland to Lebanon to Cuba. Bremmer maps out a world unraveling in real time, where drone swarms are rewriting the rules of war, disinformation is making reality optional, and one miscalculation in the Strait of Hormuz could tip the global economy into freefall. If you've been watching the headlines and feeling like something massive is being missed you're right. Watch this.

Scott Galloway sits down with Shane Smith to talk through why the system feels off right now and why more people are starting to notice. They get into how wealth keeps concentrating at the top, why the middle class isn’t growing the way it used to, and how big tech and corporate power quietly shape the rules. Galloway lays out why capitalism only works when the middle class is strong and what happens when it isn’t. The conversation moves through monopolies, tax policy, and the incentives driving both business and politics, all pointing to the same question: what actually changes this trajectory? They also touch on global instability, market fragility, and how close we might be to a real economic reset. It’s a blunt look at where things stand and what could come next if nothing shifts.

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan joins Shane Smith for a raw conversation about why California feels broken and what it would actually take to fix it. They discuss the reality behind homelessness, why housing is so expensive, and how bureaucracy and bad incentives have made it nearly impossible to build. Mahan explains how corporate power, regulation, and political complacency have created a system that continually becomes more expensive without delivering better results. Mahan lays out why he believes California is at an inflection point and what a more pragmatic, results-driven approach could look like if anyone is willing to take it on.

What happens when America never learns the lessons of its longest wars? Former Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko joins Shane Smith for a brutally honest conversation about Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Ukraine, corruption, contractors, the military-industrial complex, and the trillion-dollar cycle of endless war. After overseeing more than 700 investigations into waste, fraud, and abuse during the 20-year war in Afghanistan, Sopko explains how America spent trillions, empowered corruption, radicalized populations, and repeated the same mistakes over and over again — while contractors, bureaucracies, and political interests kept the machine running.

After the latest U.S. government release of UAP/UFO files, filmmaker and investigative journalist Jeremy Corbell returns to Shane Smith Has Questions for a deep dive into what may be the biggest disclosure moment yet. Jeremy and Shane Smith break down the new government “data dump,” the whistleblowers testifying under oath, military footage from Syria and the famous Tic Tac encounters, alleged reverse-engineering programs, non-human intelligence claims, and why Corbell believes this is only the beginning.

As tensions between the United States, Israel, and Iran continue to escalate, Shane Smith travels to Tehran for a rare interview with Esmail Baghaei, spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry.

In this episode of Shane Smith Has Questions, Shane speaks with General Davin R.M. Anderson, Commander of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and 1st Lt. Vincent Gasparri, Innovation Team Lead 173rd Airborne Brigade, who leads a new generation of military innovators developing drone systems inspired by lessons from Ukraine, Iran, and modern asymmetric warfare. From AI-assisted targeting systems and autonomous combat vehicles to suicide drones, robotics, quantum computing, and next-generation military communications, Shane embeds with U.S. AFRICOM and the young soldiers building the future of warfare in real time.

What happens when artificial intelligence becomes more powerful than the institutions meant to govern it? Shane Smith sits down with Aza Raskin, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, creator of Infinite Scroll, and one of the leading voices on AI ethics, for a wide-ranging conversation about the future of AI, warfare, work, politics, and humanity itself. Fresh off a trip with the U.S. Army, Shane shares what he saw: autonomous vehicles, AI-enabled systems, and drones that felt like the beginning of a new era of warfare. Together, he and Aza explore the biggest questions facing society as AI rapidly advances.

Shane Smith and Andrew Callaghan sit down with the anonymous creator behind Explosive Media, the Iranian team whose AI-generated LEGO videos became one of the most viewed and controversial media phenomena of the recent Iran-Israel conflict. With a team of fewer than ten people, their videos reached hundreds of millions of viewers and sparked debate about propaganda, AI, meme culture, and the future of information warfare. In this rare interview, the creators explain why they chose LEGO animation to depict war, how a team of fewer than ten people reached hundreds of millions of viewers, and why they believe modern conflicts are increasingly fought through algorithms, social media, and information warfare rather than traditional media alone.

This week, Shane sits down with filmmaker Dan Farah, director / producer of the explosive and highly credible documentary, The Age of Disclosure, which brought about this change and reveals an 80-year cover-up of the existence of non-human intelligent life. The film is now available to rent or purchase on Prime Video. They discuss the impact of the film, the growing push for government disclosure around UAPs, the role of defense contractors, congressional investigations, declassified documents, and the battle currently unfolding inside Washington over what the public should know.

In this conversation, Shane Smith sits down with the legendary filmmaker to talk about much more than documentaries. Together they explore why America feels so divided, whether we're living through another turning point in history, the collapse of shared facts, the changing media landscape, and why Burns believes understanding our past is essential to navigating our future.

For more than a decade, Gelareh Kiazand reported from some of the world's most complicated and misunderstood places. From covering life under the Taliban in Afghanistan to documenting everyday life inside Iran, her work focused on telling stories from the ground — often in places where politics, war, and international headlines rarely capture the full picture. In this conversation, Shane Smith sits down with Gelareh to reflect on years of reporting across Iran and Afghanistan, the realities of covering conflict, and what journalists can learn by spending time with the people who actually live through these events. Featuring archival VICE reporting and footage from recent reporting in Tehran, they discuss war, sanctions, media narratives, daily life, and the challenge of understanding countries that are often reduced to headlines and geopolitics. After decades covering the region, one thing remains true: Showing up still matters.

Sean Penn has spent much of his life going places most people only experience through headlines — wartime Kyiv with Zelenskyy, Chávez's Venezuela, Castro's Cuba, Iran before the Green Movement, and deep inside cartel country in Mexico with El Chapo. In this conversation with Shane Smith, Penn reflects on meeting Volodymyr Zelenskyy in wartime Kyiv, traveling through Iran before the Ahmadinejad era, spending time with Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro, and the infamous journey that led to his meeting with El Chapo while the cartel leader was still on the run.

When did politics stop being about solving problems and start becoming a team sport? Former Republican strategist and The Bulwark host Tim Miller joins Shane Smith for a conversation about the forces that reshaped American politics—from the collapse of the Republican establishment to Donald Trump's takeover, the rise of partisan media, and why our information ecosystem rewards outrage over understanding. Rather than asking who is winning, Shane and Tim explore why politics increasingly feels like entertainment, why Washington failed to understand its own voters, and whether America's institutions can still solve modern problems.

Can one lawsuit change the future of American elections? Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig believes it can. Most Americans blame Citizens United for the rise of Super PACs—but Lessig argues that's not actually what happened. Now, after years of litigation, a new court case could finally give the Supreme Court a chance to decide whether unlimited donations to Super PACs are constitutional at all. If the courts rule in his favor, the decision could dramatically reshape campaign finance before the 2028 presidential election by allowing limits on massive contributions to Super PACs once again.