Join BigTentUSA on Thursday, January 29 at 12pm ET for a conversation between Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, journalist, and author of Autocracy, Inc. Anne Applebaum, and journalist, lawyer, and founder of the Popular Information newsletter Judd Legum, to examine what happens when American power serves profit over principle.
Recent U.S. military action in Venezuela marked a stunning break from decades of precedent. Ordered without congressional authorization and widely criticized as illegal, the raid signaled a shift away from diplomacy and democracy toward raw power—and private profit.
As the administration embraces “spheres of influence,” billionaires and corporate interests stand to gain massive financial windfalls, raising urgent questions about whose interests U.S. foreign policy now serves. From discounted oil assets to open talk of “running” another nation, the line between national security and personal enrichment is rapidly disappearing.
America’s foreign policy is changing fast, and the consequences will be global.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Anne Applebaum is staff writer for The Atlantic and author of the best-selling 2020 book Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism and her latest book Autocracy, Inc. Applebaum is also a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and the SNF Agora Institute, where she co-directs Arena, a program on disinformation and 21st-century propaganda.
Judd Legum is the founder and author of Popular Information, an independent newsletter dedicated to accountability journalism. Popular Information won the 2020 Online Journalism Award for Excellence in Newsletters, and the 2025 David Nyhan Prize for Public Policy Journalism. Its reporting was credited by Bloomberg for bringing a “political reckoning” to corporate America. Previously, Legum founded and served as editor-in-chief of ThinkProgress, a progressive media outlet. In 2008, Legum was the research director for Hillary Clinton’s first presidential campaign. He is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and Pomona College.
