Good Citizen Podcast 

This conversation explores the American outdoor tradition, conservation, and the role of hunters, anglers, and private leadership in protecting land, water, wildlife, and access for future generations. Featuring Bass Pro Shops founder and CEO Johnny Morris speaking to North Dakota Governor Kelly Armstrong, it’s a lively discussion that also touches on children and technology, patriotism, and the experiences that shaped Morris’ life.

One of the nation’s leading presidential historians reflects on Theodore Roosevelt’s life and legacy, and on what history can teach in moments of uncertainty and change. Doris Kearns Goodwin draws on American history to illuminate enduring lessons of leadership, character, resilience, and citizenship.

Why do so few Americans remember John Quincy Adams? Bob Crawford, bassist for The Avett Brothers and author of America’s Founding Son, argues Adams may not have been America’s best president, but he just might have been the greatest ex-president. He describes the election of 1824, with its accusations of corruption bringing rise to a populist leader. And he lays out how Adams’ real story began after the White House, when the former president did the unthinkable: he ran for Congress.

Ted comes to this conversation not just as a host, but as a Roosevelt. And he’s sitting down with two people he’s worked alongside for years: Edward O’Keefe, CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, and Charlie Melcher, CEO of the Future of Storytelling, as they reflect on what they’ve built together. The Library opens its doors on July 4th, 2026,  the nation’s 250th birthday, and these two men are most responsible for bringing it to life. Together they trace the arc from vision to reality, including the moment on a snowy Badlands butte when everything clicked.

Lucas St. Clair grew up off the grid in the woods of northern Maine, with a front-row seat to one of the great entrepreneurial origin stories of our time: his mother’s chance encounter with the beekeeper Burt Shavitz, which grew into Burt’s Bees. With his good friend Ted, Lucas traces that story of selling honey out of pickle jars to building a multi-million dollar company, and his mom’s vision to donate tens of thousands of acres of Maine timberland to create a national park.

Admiral James Stavridis is a retired four-star U.S. Navy admiral and prolific nonfiction author, but it's his newest work of fiction that cuts the deepest. 2084, co-written with former Marine Elliot Ackerman, imagines a world ravaged by climate change and torn apart by a global war orchestrated by A.I. Yet beneath the chaos are difficult human choices and the kinds of love and loss that remind us what's ultimately at stake. It serves as a warning designed to spur action.

Dana Milbank traded the outrage cycle of politics for 60 acres of overgrown Virginia farmland. And as he changed the land, the land changed him. Dana is a political columnist for NOTUS (soon to be “The Star”). He spent 26 years as an op-ed columnist for The Washington Post, where he also wrote about our attempts to "rehumanize" during a time of anxiety and isolation. He describes to Ted his unlikely journey from suburban kid and political columnist to hunter and land steward, and how even brief moments outdoors can give back what screens have stripped away.

What allows a politician to hold to his principles when almost every incentive pulls the other way? In this memorable conversation with Ted, Senator Mitt Romney traces the formative moments with his father that shaped his moral compass, and the specific ways he guards against self-rationalization. Senator Romney also speaks to the outsized power of presidential leadership, and why his legacy won’t rest on any single vote he cast. Plus, he offers a surprisingly simple framework for rediscovering the values most Americans already share.

What if we prioritized relationships over the chase for success? What if we ignored the siren call of social media in exchange for cultivating a sense of purpose? Dr. Vivek Murthy, the 19th and 21st Surgeon General of the United States, has made it his mission to sound the alarm on one of the defining public health crises of our time: loneliness. In his conversation with Ted, Murthy makes the case for a fundamental reordering of what we value, describing a "triad of fulfillment" that's the path to real flourishing. He also reveals his next chapter: a new podcast called Staying Human.

What's really at stake when a community loses its local newspaper? Civic engagement drops, polarization rises, and corruption goes unchecked. But Sarabeth Berman, CEO of the American Journalism Project, is working to reverse that. Sarabeth believes local journalism should be treated like an essential public good, similar to a museum or a food bank. And with the AJP, the first venture philanthropy dedicated to local news, news organizations are rooted in, and supported by, the communities they serve.