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Never Close the Inquiry

Never Close the Inquiry

Auteur(s): Nick Hagen
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Never Close the Inquiry is for pushing back on black and white, us vs. them thinking in politics—for creating dialogue across the aisle, and for demystifying the right for the left and the left for the right. The goal is better conversations, better arguments, better solutions, better relationships, and, maybe, a few giant skips and a jump and a hitch-hike down the line, a better country.

neverclosetheinquiry.substack.comNick Hagen
Politique Sciences politiques
Épisodes
  • The Neophytes: Trump, Emirati Bribes(?), and Why We Decided to Purchase the Remaining 51% of World Liberty Financial
    Feb 4 2026

    Episode 38 - The Neophytes: Trump, Emirati Bribes(?), and Why We Decided to Purchase the Remaining 51% of World Liberty Financial

    I’m not saying it was a bribe.

    It is entirely possible that it makes good business and political sense to provide American-made AI chips to the United Arab Emirates. It is also possible that the rather shady Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the brother of UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and manager of a $1.3 trillion business portfolio, decided to purchase 49% of World Liberty Financial, a fledgling crypto/decentralized finance company owned primarily by the Trump family, out of pure self-interest without any regard for who owned it (oh—just days before President Trump’s inauguration).

    But on a scale of 1 to This Looks Awfully Bribey, the brother of the UAE president sending a $187 million down payment to various Trump family-controlled entities mere months before the Trump administration reverses a Biden administration decision* and agrees to provide AI chips to the UAE is probably an 8.5.

    *For what it’s worth, reversing a Biden administration decision is not necessarily a bad thing, and if I were a Republican I would say it should probably be the default approach. However, the Biden administration’s hesitation on providing the UAE with the requested AI chips stemmed from concerns the chips would make their way to the Chinese; the CEO of G42, the Sheikh’s AI company, is Peng Xiao, born in China, once a U.S. citizen and now a UAE citizen. “Not giving China valuable technology” is a bipartisan concern—we can only assume it was thoroughly addressed prior to the deal being finalized.

    On this episode of the Neophytes, Thomas and I discuss, well, pretty much this.

    For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry

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    1 h et 18 min
  • A Voice in the Conservative Wilderness: Ben Connelly on Venezuela, ICE, and Ice (Greenland)
    Jan 30 2026

    Episode 37 - A Voice in the Conservative Wilderness: Ben Connelly on Venezuela, ICE, and Ice (Greenland)

    Ben Connelly—the podcast’s first non-Neophyte repeat guest!—is a brilliant writer and long-distance runner based out of one of Earth’s Top Cities Where Nick Hagen Once Lived, Charlottesville, Virginia. Though he spends most of his writing time working on the serialized novels, short stories, and essays he publishes on his Hardihood Books Substack, he also writes political essays on his Carrying the Fire Substack under the pseudonym John Grady Atreides.

    Connelly is a self-described fusionist conservative, “fusionism” being the product of the union of libertarianism and traditionalism which dominated the Republican Party for much of the last fifty or so years. Connelly is deeply knowledgeable and thoroughly reasoned; I’m pretty sure he knows my positions better than I do—completely sure, if I’m being honest—and he states his own positions well enough that if the podcast were much longer I might accidentally come out ready to extol the virtues of Donald Rumsfeld.

    Given the current populist, nationalist lean of the Republican Party, Connelly is a man without a comfortable political home, but I think he’s still a man worth listening to; on this, his second visit to the welcoming waters of open, Never-Closed Inquiries, we discussed Venezuela, Greenland, and what we might generically call ICE’s efforts in Minneapolis, plus a whole lot more.

    For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry

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    1 h et 22 min
  • The Neophytes Address Untimely Questions, Like Whether Lobbyists Are in League with the Forces of Darkness
    Jan 23 2026

    Episode 36 - The Neophytes Address Untimely Questions, Like Whether Lobbyists Are in League with the Forces of Darkness

    To be honest, we did speak about Greenland, but our conversation was uninformed even by our standards, so the topics du this jour are impeachment and lobbyists—we will return to Greenland sometime around when the Cuban government is toppled (which, apparently, could be soon?).

    For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry

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    46 min
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