Host Carol Castiel talks with former US Special Forces officer Mike Waltz, now a Republican Congressman from the state of Florida who serves on the House Armed Services Committee and the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Waltz, who has served in the US military for over 24 years, analyzes the Biden Administration’s policy toward Ukraine, Afghanistan and Africa and speaks of the need to do more to prevent malign actions by China against Taiwan. The second half of the show features an interview with historian and writer, Anne Applebaum, conducted by VOA senior Ukrainian broadcaster, T ..read more

Ambassador András Simonyi, former Hungarian ambassador to the United States and NATO, now senior fellow at the Atlantic council’s Global Energy Center, talks with host Carol Castiel about the significance of Ukrainian resistance to Moscow’s invasion and the need for the western alliance to sustain military and political support to Kyiv. Simonyi also underscores the need for Europe to wean off Russian energy sources and lauds Finland and Sweden’s interest in joining NATO saying they will enhance the Alliance ..read more

Host Carol Castiel talks with Russian born, Anna Borshchevskaya, Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, about the latest developments surrounding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including Moscow’s underestimation of national resistance, the impact of the latest raft of sanctions on Russia, the political and economic implications of the dire humanitarian situation, and how the West’s actions and inactions over the last decade have inadvertently contributed to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ..read more

Carol Castiel and Kim Lewis, talk with Kay C. James, Secretary of the Commonwealth of Virginia. James shares her views about the state, the future of the Republican Party and her upbringing in the segregated south to become an icon of the conservative movement in America ..read more

In honor of Black History Month, Carol Castiel talks with H.E. Patrick Gaspard, former Ambassador to South Africa, now President and CEO of the Center for American Progress about range of domestic and international issues ..read more

Carol Castiel sits down with Congresswoman Elaine Luria, a Democrat from Virginia. They talk about critical domestic and foreign issues such as preserving democracy, combatting Russian aggression against Ukraine, standing up to Beijing and thwarting international and domestic terrorism ..read more

How can the United States strike the delicate balance between its values of democracy and human rights and its national security interests with allies who are backsliding on the former? Host Carol Castiel and VOA senior analyst, Mohamed Elshinnawi, talk with Thomas Carothers, Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, about his new article, “Navigating the Democracy-Security Dilemma in U.S. Foreign Policy: Lessons from Egypt, India, and Turkey,” about the democracy-security conundrum ..read more

On this annual edition of Press Conference USA, host Carol Castiel and co-host, Rick Pantaleo, speak with Amy Webb, CEO and Founder of “Future Today Institute” about the latest biological, technological and metaverse trends for 2022. They will also discuss the impact of the Covid-19 vaccines on future therapies ..read more

On this year-end edition of Press Conference USA, VOA’s Rick Pantaleo brings you excerpts from conversations with some of our most distinguished guests, including former director of the CIA, and Retired U.S. Army General, David Petraeus; Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu of California; Republican Congressman John Curtis of Utah; Amy Hawthorne, Deputy Director for Research at the Project on Middle East Democracy on Tunisia and more ..read more

Host Carol Castiel speaks with the director of the “Governance Lab” and Northeastern University professor, Beth Simone Noveck, about her new book “Solving Public Problems: A Practical Guide to Fix Our Government and Change Our World.” On this encore edition, Noveck tells VOA that citizens and governments can leverage digital technology, data, and the collective wisdom of communities to create solutions to contemporary problems from the Covid-19 pandemic to climate change to social inequality ..read more