I didn't like his talks earlier (had only seen parts of a few), don't know why.
but interestingly (to me), this one seems to be good, at least at the start, where I am now.
as the real talk starts after the ads, looking at him, for some reason, I thought he looked like a sinister mafia don wearing a tie. :)
His attitude seems to be that he will interview anyone without pre-judgement, and try to find common ground with them or something. "Woke" people like myself view that as enabling bad actors.
I have listened to some great interviews from him, so it is a mixed bag.
Like you, I found Lex off-putting in that he will platform anyone, and then will just say Love will prevail, I think its incredibly naive.
Why? You are not interested to hear different opinions?
2) Platforming dishonest hacks like Tucker Carlson does the nation a disservice, unless he is going to call out all the lies as they happen. While I have not listened to the Carlson interview, based on what I heard from Joe Rogan, I do not believe Friedman will significantly push back on right wing misinformation, for whatever reason.
So just normal JRE content
If you like podcasts of a very intelligent person interviewing very accomplished guest thinkers, Sean Carroll's Mindcast is slightly higher level: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/ (tho I don't think Donald Knuth has been on that one, lots of other computer folks have).