Join leading voices in policy, politics, technology and culture at WSJ Opinion Live in Washington, D.C. for two days of thoughtful on-stage conversations examining America on its 250th anniversary.
Featuring programming from WSJ Opinion’s new Free Expression franchise, the event brings WSJ columnists and influential thought leaders together to examine where the nation stands today and what lies ahead. Through informed dialogue and diverse perspectives, the program explores economic policy, governance and global influence at a pivotal time in our nation's history.
U.S. Foreign Policy Under Trump 2.0
Gerard Baker, Editor at Large, Opinion, The Wall Street Journal
Matthew Continetti, Columnist, Free Expression, The Wall Street Journal
Kimberley A. Strassel, Opinion Columnist, Potomac Watch, The Wall Street Journal
Paul Gigot, Editorial Page Editor and Vice President, The Wall Street Journal
Sponsor Session: PMI
The Forgotten Smoker: Navigating the Friction of a Smoke-Free Transition
While the U.S. has seen reductions in cigarette use, many Americans are being left behind. This session explores the challenges of the tobacco industry’s transformation through the lens of the “forgotten smoker” and examines what’s needed to transition them to smoke-free alternatives.
Stacey Kennedy, CEO, PMI U.S.
Willem Marx, Host, The Trust, WSJ
This session was created by Custom Events from WSJ, a unit of The Wall Street Journal advertising department.
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Rahm I. Emanuel most recently served as the United States ambassador to Japan. As ambassador, Emanuel helped deepen the U.S.-Japan alliance, including support for Japan's increased defense spending and expanded military cooperation. He promoted Japan's leadership in Indo-Pacific key security initiatives and participated in the trilateral summit at Camp David that reaffirmed that cooperation between the United States, Japan and South Korea.
Previously, Emanuel was the 55th mayor of Chicago, a position he held until May 2019.
As mayor, Emanuel added four years to a student’s education. He increased the school day by 75 minutes and added more than 200 hours to the school year, taking Chicago from having the least educational time of any large school district in the country to being on par with its peers. He implemented universal pre-kindergarten and full-day kindergarten for every Chicago child, and made Chicago the first city in America to provide free community college.
The mayor’s public safety strategy focused on expanded prevention programs for at-risk youth, smarter policing strategies and empowering parents and communities to reduce violence. Emanuel made it a priority to bring global companies to the city, helping Chicago to lead the U.S. in corporate relocations and foreign direct investment.
Prior to becoming mayor, from November 2008 until October 2010, Emanuel served as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff. In addition to being the President’s top adviser, Emanuel helped the Obama administration secure the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the landmark Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Emanuel was also elected four times as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois’s 5th Congressional District (2002-2008). As chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, he helped pass legislation to raise the minimum wage and authored the Great Lakes Restoration Act.
From 1993 to 1998, Emanuel was a member of President Bill Clinton’s administration, rising to serve as senior adviser to the president for policy and politics. During this time, Emanuel served as a legislative liaison to Congress and spearheaded efforts to pass several of Clinton’s signature achievements, most notably the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and the Balanced Budget Act, which created the Children’s Health Insurance Program that expanded health care coverage to 10 million children. Emanuel also worked closely with President Joseph R. Biden Jr., then a U.S. Senator, to shepherd the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 through Congress.
Jack Hidary is the founder and CEO of SandboxAQ , a leader in Quantitative AI software. Hidary formed SandboxAQ during his six years at Google leading teams in AI and quantum technologies. SandboxAQ spun out of Alphabet and has raised more than $950 million from leading investors in two rounds since the spinout.
Hidary is the author of several books including “AI or Die” and “Quantum Computing: An Applied Approach,” published by Springer. This work, now in its second edition, is one of the leading textbooks in the field and is used both in undergraduate and Ph.D. programs, as well as corporate training sessions. Hidary also co-authored a series of AI research papers with collaborators at MIT.
Hidary has been recognized for his leadership by organizations such as the World Economic Forum and is a member of YPO. He studied neuroscience at Columbia and subsequently received the Stanley Fellowship in Clinical Neuroscience at NIH, where he worked on functional brain imaging and artificial neural networks.
Christian Brose is president and chief strategy officer at Anduril Industries. He is responsible for leading the company’s core growth-related functions, including corporate strategy, business development, government relations, communications and international business. He is also a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, a member of the Aspen Strategy Group and author of “The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High Tech Warfare.”
Brose joined Anduril in 2018 from Capitol Hill, where he served as staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee for four years, managing the committee’s staff and overseeing all programs, policies and resources of the U.S. Department of Defense. From 2009-2014, he served as senior policy adviser to Senator John McCain (R-AZ), supporting his work on the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Prior to that, Brose served as policy adviser and chief speechwriter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from 2005-2008, working as a member of the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff and supporting the secretary on regular foreign travel. He began his career in public service as a speechwriter for Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Russ Vought is the only cabinet official to serve in both of President Trump’s administrations in the same role. He is both the 42nd and 44th director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the President’s policy, management, and deregulatory agendas across the executive branch.
In 2021, Vought founded the Center for Renewing America, an organization that seeks to shift paradigms and turn decades of conservative thought into government action.
Prior to serving in the first Trump administration, Vought spent nearly 20 years working in Congress and with grassroots public policy organizations. He worked on Capitol Hill, serving as the policy director for the House Republican Conference, and as the executive director of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), and as a legislative assistant for U.S. Senator Phil Gramm (R.,Texas). Vought graduated from Wheaton College in 1998, and from George Washington University Law School in 2004. He lives with his wife Michelle and two daughters in Arlington, Va.
Raakhee Mirchandani is anchor and VP, Custom Programming at the Trust, a unit of the Dow Jones commercial department. Raakhee leads custom conversations around cybersecurity, digital transformation and sustainability, leadership, equity, among other topics. Previously, she was the vice president of community at Dow Jones, founding editor for Moneyish, and the editorial director for diversity and inclusion at the Barron's Group. A longtime journalist, editor and columnist, Raakhee is also the award-winning author of nine children's books. She serves on various non-profit and municipal boards including the Hoboken Public Library, Steven's Cooperative School, the Hoboken Shelter and the Children's Book Council.
Just the third team principal in Atlassian Williams Racing's 48-year history, James Vowles is leading the transformation of the team in pursuit of future Championship success.
He joined Atlassian Williams Racing in 2023 from Mercedes, the latest step in a 24-year Formula 1 career in which James has been instrumental in securing nine F1 Constructors’ Championships (with Brawn GP and Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team), eight Drivers’ Championships, and has overseen over 120 race victories for the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Jenson Button and Valtteri Bottas.
James spent 12 years at the Mercedes F1 team, the last four as Motorsport Strategy Director. Before that he fulfilled key engineering and strategy roles at Mercedes and, before joining the German marque, worked at its predecessor teams Brawn GP, Honda Racing and British American Racing.
He played a crucial role at Brawn, overseeing the race strategy that saw Jenson Button secure the 2009 Formula 1 World Championship Driver’s title and the team take the Constructors’ Championship. He stayed at the team’s Brackley base as it transitioned into Mercedes from the 2010 season playing an integral role in the team’s many successes.
Born in the U.K., Vowles attended the International School of Geneva, graduating in 1997. He went on to the University of East Anglia, obtaining a degree in computer science with mathematics in 2000, followed by a master's degree in Motorsport Engineering and Management from Cranfield University in 2001, receiving the Prodrive Award of Excellence.
Jonathan Adashek is IBM’s senior vice president, marketing and communications. He was appointed the head of marketing in January 2022, adding to his previous responsibilities as chief communications officer. He is responsible for overseeing the company’s global marketing, communications and corporate social responsibility organization, which includes full funnel marketing, corporate affairs, and ESG. In addition, he is responsible for federal client business development. Adashek aligned IBM’s marketing and communications efforts under a single brand platform, Let’s create, in support of IBM’s mission to become the leading hybrid cloud and AI company. Before joining IBM, he was employed at Renault Nissan Mitsubishi Alliance in Paris, where he was the alliance global vice president, communications. his prior positions include: chief communications officer at Nissan Motor Co. in Yokohama, Japan; general manager, communications strategy at Microsoft; and executive vice president and global client relationship manager at Edelman – where he worked with a variety of clients including Microsoft, Starbucks, Walmart, and the Abu Dhabi and United Arab Emirates governments.
Gerry Baker is Editor at Large of The Wall Street Journal. He writes a weekly column for the editorial page of The Journal each Tuesday on politics, economics and culture. He also writes a weekly column on US and global affairs for The Times of London every Friday. He appears frequently as a commentator on TV and other news platforms and is
a familiar public speaker to audiences around the world.
Gerry was previously Editor in Chief of The Wall Street Journal. He has been a journalist for more than 30 years, writing and broadcasting for some of the world’s pre-eminent news organizations, including The Financial Times, The Times and The BBC. In 2023 he published his first book, “American Breakdown”, a look at the causes of the crisis of US democracy in the last decade.
Paul A. Gigot is the editorial page editor and vice president of The Wall Street Journal, a position he has held since 2001. He is responsible for the publication's editorials, op-ed articles and Opinion columnists, book reviews, arts criticism, and other Opinion content such as podcasts, videos and documentaries. He is also the host of the weekly news program, the Journal Editorial Report, on the Fox News Channel.
Mr. Gigot joined the Journal in 1980 as a reporter in Chicago, and in 1982 he became the Journal's Asia correspondent, based in Hong Kong. He won an Overseas Press Club award for his reporting on the Philippines. In 1984 he was named the first editorial page editor of The Asian Wall Street Journal, based in Hong Kong. In 1987 he was assigned to Washington, where the contributed editorials and a weekly column on politics, "Potomac Watch," which won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for commentary.
Mr. Gigot is a graduate of Dartmouth College, where he was chairman of the daily student newspaper.
Kimberley Strassel is a member of the editorial board for The Wall Street Journal. She writes editorials, as well as the weekly Potomac Watch political column, from her base in Alaska. She also writes the All Things with Kim Strassel newsletter and hosts the associated podcast.
Strassel joined Dow Jones in 1994, working in the news department of The Wall Street Journal Europe in Brussels, and then in London. She moved to New York in 1999 and soon thereafter joined the Journal's editorial page, working as a features editor, and then as an editorial writer. She assumed her current position in 2005.
Strassel, a 2014 Bradley Prize recipient, is a regular contributor to Sunday political shows, including CBS's "Face the Nation," “Fox News Sunday” and NBC's "Meet the Press." She is the author of "The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech," which chronicles recent attacks on conservative nonprofits, businesses and donors.
An Oregon native, Strassel earned a bachelor's degree in public policy and international affairs from Princeton University. She lives in Alaska with her three children.
Ted Cruz grew up in Texas. His father, Rafael, fled Cuba and came to Texas with $100 sewn into his underwear. He later started a small business in the oil and gas industry, and is now a pastor in Dallas Cruz’s mother, Eleanor, born in Delaware to an Irish and Italian working-class family, became the first in her family to go to college, graduating from Rice University with a degree in mathematics. At Shell, she was one of the few women working as a computer programmer at the dawn of the computer age.
Cruz earned his undergraduate degree from Princeton and his law degree from Harvard Law School. After law school, he clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist and then worked in private practice. In 1999, Cruz joined George W. Bush’s campaign for president as a domestic policy adviser. During that time, he met Heidi Nelson, who also worked on the policy team. They married after the campaign.
After working at the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission during the Bush administration, Cruz moved back home to be the solicitor general of Texas. As Solicitor General, he argued eight cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.. Following his service, Cruz returned to private practice, continued to litigate high stakes cases and argued his ninth case before the Supreme Court.
In 2013, Cruz was sworn into the U.S. Senate. He has authored dozens of legislative measures that have been signed into law, including expanding 529 college savings accounts to allow parents to save for K-12 public, private and religious education, repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, imposing sanctions on terrorist groups who use civilians as human shields, designating North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, targeting Putin’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline through multiple bills that halted construction, reauthorizing and reforming NASA, and ensuring the availability of additional records to help solve civil rights cold cases.
The U.S. businesses of Philip Morris International (PMI U.S.) are focused on accelerating the nation’s transition to a smoke‑free future through investment, innovation, and responsible marketing. PMI U.S. is committed to providing the approximately 30 million legal-age adults who continue to smoke combustible cigarettes with better, smoke-free alternatives and to ensuring the products are marketed responsibly.
PMI U.S.’s leading portfolio of smoke-free products, including ZYN and IQOS, are helping accelerate the shift to a smoke-free America. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized versions of IQOS and General snus as “Modified Risk Tobacco Products,” concluding that to do so is “appropriate to promote public health”. On January 16, 2025, the FDA authorized the marketing of ZYN products through the premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) pathway after an extensive scientific review, making ZYN the first authorized nicotine pouch in the U.S.
Marie Harf is executive director of Perry World House, the University of Pennsylvania's global affairs think tank, and a Democratic commentator on Fox News. Previously, she worked as senior advisor for strategic communications to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and deputy spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State, as the foreign policy director on Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign, and as a Middle East analyst and spokesperson at the Central Intelligence Agency.
Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is a globally recognized authority on American elections and policy as well as global populism. His 20-year record of accurate U.S. Presidential and Congressional election predictions includes calling the 2024 U.S. Presidential race for Donald Trump, while noting Trump could win the popular vote – an outcome that shocked many analysts.
Olsen writes a weekly column on the U.S. midterms for the Washington Post, and biweekly articles on American domestic and foreign policy for National Review Online and the Washington Examiner. He writes biweekly about the U.S.-European relationship and European politics for Brussels Signal.
He hosts two regular podcasts, “Beyond the Polls,” which examines U.S. politics every week, and “Conservative Crossroads,” which explores policy differences among American conservatives every other week. Olsen also teaches in the D.C. graduate program at Hillsdale College, and has previously taught at Villanova University, Arizona State University and the Catholic University of America.
Olsen is the author of “The Working-Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue-Collar Conservatism” and the co-author, with University of New Hampshire Professor Dante J. Scala, of “The Four Faces of the Republican Party.”
Chris Wright is the 17th Secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy. A self-described energy nerd turned entrepreneur, Wright is a humanitarian with a passion for bringing the benefits of energy to every community in the world.
Wright completed an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at MIT and graduate work in electrical engineering at UC Berkeley and MIT. He founded Pinnacle Technologies and served as CEO from 1992 to 2006. Pinnacle created the hydraulic fracture mapping industry, and its innovations helped launch commercial shale gas production in the late 1990s. Wright was chairman of Stroud Energy, an early shale gas producer, before selling to Range Resources in 2006. Most recently, he served as chairman and CEO of Liberty Energy, where his team helped to expand the shale revolution to include oil as well as natural gas. Wright has also participated in an effort to apply shale technology to unlock next-generation geothermal and helped to launch small modular reactors.
Wright was nominated by President Trump to serve as the 17th Secretary of Energy on November 16, 2024 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on February 3rd, 2025. He grew up in Colorado and currently lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Liz.
FICO (NYSE: FICO) powers decisions that help people and businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO holds more than 200 US and foreign patents on technologies that increase profitability, customer satisfaction and growth for businesses in financial services, insurance, telecommunications, health care, retail and many other industries. Using FICO solutions, businesses in more than 80 countries do everything from protecting 4 billion payment cards from fraud, to improving financial inclusion, to increasing supply chain resiliency. The FICO® Score, used by 90% of top US lenders, is the standard measure of consumer credit risk in the US and has been made available in over 40 other countries, improving risk management, credit access and transparency.
Tim Chapman is the president at Advancing American Freedom, a public policy advocacy organization founded by former vice president Mike Pence. Chapman has more than two decades of service in the conservative movement and as an advocate for public policy.
Chapman has served as a principal at P2 Public Affairs, the executive director of Heritage Action, chief of staff at the Heritage Foundation and as an adviser and staff to former senators DeMint, Nickles and senator Hutchinson (R., Pa.)
Chapman’s experience in conservative policy advocacy is extensive as he was a co-founder of Heritage Action – the advocacy arm of The Heritage Foundation – and a former executive director at Stand for America, an advocacy organization founded by ambassador Nikki Haley. Chapman has built and maintained policy coalitions on the right that have helped shape the consensus within the GOP and he has helped craft messaging/activist campaigns that have resulted in policy victories.
With a steadfast commitment to innovation, public health, and corporate responsibility, Stacey Kennedy leads with purpose—advancing PMI U.S.’s leadership in modern nicotine while accelerating the transition to a smoke-free America. She is the driving force behind the company’s investments in the United States, strengthening domestic manufacturing, expanding workforce development, and supporting local communities. Kennedy is a member of PMI’s Global Executive Leadership Team and an officer of the company.
In the U.S., an estimated 45 million people aged 21 and older regularly use nicotine, and nearly 30 million of them still smoke, which remains the most harmful way to consume nicotine. Stacey leads the business’s efforts to improve public health by providing science-backed nicotine alternatives that are a far better choice than combustible cigarettes. This commitment has guided significant achievements under her leadership, including the integration of Swedish Match and its FDA-authorized ZYN nicotine pouches into PMI’s portfolio of U.S. businesses. Her teams are also bringing to the U.S. IQOS, an FDA-authorized “heat-not-burn” device that reduces exposure to harmful chemicals associated with traditional cigarettes.
Known for her entrepreneurial drive, strategic vision, and capacity to engage across geographic, industry, and ideological boundaries, Kennedy has driven growth for PMI across markets in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
Scott Zoldi is chief analytics officer at FICO, responsible for artificial intelligence (AI) and analytic innovation across FICO's product and technology solutions. Zoldi has been listed as an inventor on 122 AI & software patents, in collaboration with other data and analytic scientists, and he is also named on an additional 40 patent applications in process.
Zoldi is an industry leader in the responsible use of AI, generative AI (GenAI), and agentic AI, as well as an outspoken proponent of AI governance and regulation. His groundbreaking work in focused language models (FLMs) for GenAI and a patented use of blockchain technology for AI model development governance has helped propel Zoldi to AI visionary status. His recent awards include Constellation Research Award AI150, Tech Leadership Award from Banking Tech Awards, Tech Influencer Highly Commendable Award from DataIQ Data & AI Awards, San Diego Business Journal - Leaders of Influence in Technology (2025); Tech Leadership - Software & Services Provider from Fintech Futures, MachineCon AI100 Award, Innovator Award from American Banker (2024); Global Finance Innovator Award (FICO) (2023); and Corinium Future Thinking Award (2022).
Emma Camp is a senior newsletter editor at Free Expression. She joined the Journal in 2026 from Reason magazine. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Slate, America and Persuasion. She is a 2025-26 Robert Novak Fellow and her book “Good Boundaries,” on Gen Z and risk-aversion, will be published by Ballantine in 2027. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia. @emmma_camp_
Matthew Continetti is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal’s Free Expression newsletter. He is also the director of domestic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he holds the Patrick and Charlene Neal Chair in American Prosperity. His most recent book is The Right: The 100 War for American Conservatism.
Meghan Cox Gurdon is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal’s Free Expression newsletter and a weekly contributor to the WSJ books pages. At the Journal, she writes about biographies, histories, audiobooks, fiction, technology and social science, with a lively eye to the quirks of domestic life. Cox Gurdon brings to her work a humane sensibility grounded in traditional respect for language and literature. Previously, over two decades as the Journal’s children’s book critic, she commented on cultural trends in books for young people while seeking to highlight works of lasting value.
Cox Gurdon is the author of the forthcoming memoir “Free Range Girl,” which tells of her experiences going “back to the land” in rural Maine with her father in 1976-77. She’s also an ardent and authoritative advocate of reading out loud -– with five children, she’s had plenty of practice –and is the author of 2019’s “The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction,” a prize-winning work of nonfiction soon to be available in seven languages. Cox Gurdon, and her husband, the English journalist Hugo Gurdon, divide their time between Maryland and Maine.
Finley joined The Wall Street Journal in 2009 after graduating from Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree in American studies. She writes for the Journal's editorial pages and the Life Science column, as well as participates in the “Potomac Watch” podcast and “Journal Editorial Report” program on Fox News.
Willem Marx is an experienced print and broadcast journalist who’s worked at some of the world’s most respected news organizations, including NBC, CNBC, CBS, NPR and Bloomberg. Several of the television stories he has worked on have been nominated for Emmy awards, including one that won in the “Outstanding Business and Economic Reporting in a News Magazine” category, focused on a mining project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
His written work has been published by The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Financial Times’ Weekend Magazine, London’s Sunday Times, Billboard, Harpers Magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Departures. An avid photographer, he has also had work commissioned by Men’s Vogue, Paris Match and Der Spiegel magazine.
Kyle Peterson is an Editorial Board Member of The Wall Street Journal. Before joining the Journal in March 2015, he served as managing editor of the American Spectator and reported on local government for a pair of daily newspapers on the South Carolina coast. He is a graduate of Iowa State University.
Scott Bessent was sworn in as the 79th secretary of the U.S. Treasury on January 28, 2025. He oversees economic policy, government finances and national security related to financial threats.
He has 40 years’ experience in global investment management, including as founder of Key Square Capital Management, former CIO of Soros Fund Management, as well as teaching at Yale.
Bessent is active in philanthropy, financial education and lives with his family in Washington, D.C. and South Carolina.
Kate B. Odell is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. She joined the Journal in 2013 as a Robert L. Bartley Fellow. Ms. Odell writes on a range of policy issues, including national defense, health care and taxes. She is a graduate of Hillsdale College and lives in Virginia with her husband and two sons.
Barton Swaim began writing for the Journal as a regular book reviewer in 2012 and began a column on political books in 2017. He came to the Journal as an editorial page writer in 2019, and in 2025 he began a weekly column on politics and culture, Unruly Republic. He was opinion editor at the Weekly Standard from 2017 to 2018. Swaim is the author of “The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics” (2015).
Patrick Ruffini is a founding partner at Echelon Insights, a recognized public opinion and strategic research firm. He authored “Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking of the GOP,” called "the book that predicted the 2024 election" by the New York Times. An authority on political realignment and demographic trends, Ruffini previously led one of the country's premier digital strategy and communications firms, Engage, and served in senior roles at the Republican National Committee and for President George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign.
