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Derek is joined once again by guest co-host Alex Jordan to bring you the news. This week: in Israel-Palestine, Israel commences its ground operation in Gaza City (1:50), a UN commission rules that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza (8:14), and Netanyahu touts a “Sparta” model for Israel while Smotrich talks Gaza real estate (9:39); fallout from Israel’s strike in Qatar continues (15:04); nuclear talks between Iran and European nations make little progress (20:39); India’s Maoist rebels suspend their insurgency (23:28); Nepal elects a new interim prime minister via Discord (25:52); the US and China produce a “framework” for the TikTok sale (28:32); Australia commits billions to its AUKUS submarine investment (30:58); the RSF in Sudan advances on Al-Fashir (34:04); Libya’s Tripoli-based government cuts a deal with a hostile faction (37:30); the US and EU clash over Russia sanctions (40:49); the US admits to blowing up at least one more Venezuelan boat (47:32); Trump decertifies Colombia as a drug war partner (52:04); and Trump deploys the National Guard to Memphis while also pushing international changes to asylum rules (55:31).

Check out our ⁠big, beautiful website,⁠ featuring a searchable, categorized archive.

Watch Alex with Courtney Rawlings on ⁠Always at War⁠.

“A People’s Climate” is a new climate podcast by Counterstream Media and The Nation. Hosted by Shilpi Chhotray. 

This isn’t climate talk as usual. This is environmental justice. 

Over nine powerful episodes, we bring together activists, organizers, and movement leaders who are fighting on the frontlines. Every conversation reveals not only why the fight matters, but how communities are already putting solutions into practice and power back in the hands of the people. 

The future we need is being built from the ground up. Not by corporations. Not by billionaires. By us. The people demanding justice, reclaiming power, and rebuilding what’s been broken.

New episodes every Saturday starting Sept 27, 2025.

Learn more at apeoplesclimate.org 

Presented by Counterstream Media and The Nation

Powered by Wildseeds Fund

In suburban DC, southern Pennsylvania and Iowa, Democrats have won special elections by significant margins – and the polls for this year’s upcoming elections for mayor in New York City, governor in Virginia, and redistricting in California show Democrats well ahead. Also: J.D. Vance attacks The Nation. John Nichols comments.

Also: Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT and one of our leading progressives, explains “Why Fascists Fear Teachers” – the title of her new book.

Danny and Derek welcome back historian Greg Grandin to talk about his recent book, America, América: A New History of the New World. In this first part of the discussion, they explore how the Spanish conquest produced unprecedented violence while also sparking debates about human rights, the role of Bartolomé de las Casas and the Salamanca School, how English settlers dealt with their own brutality, and the emergence of social democracy in Latin America. They also discuss the Monroe Doctrine, the Panama Congress, and the Mexican-American War as early flashpoints in US–Latin American relations.

Yolanda Díaz, Spain’s high-profile labor minister, has managed a tightrope walk unthinkable in the country’s recent history. Much to the astonishment of her critics, she’s mitigated inflation while staving off the far right and delivering material improvements for the people of Spain.

Can her model of leadership and reform be adopted by a broader leftist international movement, as she hopes?

Labor journalist Sarah Jaffe wrote about Díaz in the latest issue of The Nation and joins us to discuss these questions. Shortly after we recorded this episode, the Spanish parliament shelved Díaz's proposal to shorten the workweek by two and a half hours.

Matt Duss, vice-president of the Center for International Policy, wrote an excellent review for The Nation of Bob Woodward’s book War, which is a celebration of Joe Biden as a foreign policy sage. Duss is rightly skeptical of the book. We discuss Biden’s actual record on Ukraine and especially Gaza. Matt’s essay on this topic for Foreign Policy is also worth reading.

While Danny remains in talks with Russia, Alex Jordan again helps Derek bring you the headlines. This week: Israel targets Hamas negotiators in a Doha strike (3:30), effectively ending ceasefire talks (8:43); the IDF orders the evacuation of Gaza City (13:11) while reports emerge that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation hired an anti-Islam biker gang for “security” (15:42); in Russia-Ukraine, Russian drones entered Polish airspace, prompting an Article 4 NATO meeting (18:36); Iran and the IAEA announce a tentative deal to resume inspections (22:41); Nepal sees mass protests over a social media ban, leading to the resignation and disappearance of its prime minister and the army being deployed in Kathmandu (25:42); Donald Trump suggests he will repair ties with India amid tariff disputes and fallout over a Russian oil deal (30:15); Japan’s prime minister Ishiba resigns after electoral losses (33:23); ICE raids a Hyunda-LG plant in Georgia, detaining hundreds of South Korean workers (36:41); In Mali, JNIM militants blockade fuel routes to Bamako (42:22); France ousts yet another prime minister over austerity, with Macron appointing Sébastien Lecornu and facing mass protests (44:38); Brazil awaits a Supreme Court verdict on former president Jair Bolsonaro’s coup case, and Trump threatens retaliation if he’s convicted (49:26); and in these United States, the Department of Defense changes its name to the Deaprtment of War (53:34), a New York Times report reveals covert attacks on fishermen in a failed North Korea operation in 2019 (56:16), and new details emerge about last week’s strike on a Venezuelan boat (62:12). 

Don’t forget to purchase our Welcome to the Crusades: The First Crusade miniseries!

Catch Alex and Courtney Rawlings on the Quincy Institute’s Always at War podcast! 

Paris Marx is joined by Aaron Benanav to discuss his vision for a multi-criterial economy and how it would alter the type of technology our society creates. It’s a plan to center human experience through democratic discourse while driving true social and technological innovation.

⁠Aaron Benanav⁠ is an Assistant Professor at Cornell University and the author of ⁠Automation and the Future of Work⁠.

Trump had four major court decisions against him in a single week last week: on tariffs, defunding Harvard, sending troops to LA, and deporting Venezuelans, different courts and appellate panels said he was violating the law. Erwin Chemerinsky comments – he’s Dean of the Law School at Berkeley.

Also: The new film “Caught by the Tides” by Jia Zhangke, considered worldwide to be the most important director in China: Over the last 30 years, his great project has been to tell stories that show the radical transformation of Chinese life by capitalism and the state. John Powers explains – he’s critic at large on Fresh Air with Terry Gross. The film is streaming now on the Criterion Channel

Danny and Derek welcome actor Morgan Spector (The Gilded Age, The Plot Against America) to the show for a conversation on politics, Hollywood, and capitalism. They trace his political development from the Iraq War and Obama era to Bernie Sanders and democratic socialism, discuss his documentary The Big Scary “S” Word, and reflect on how Hollywood politics skew liberal but not radical (particularly when it comes to Palestine). They also explore Spector’s role as a Gilded Age robber baron, how today’s tech oligarchs compare with the 19th century’s builders, and the need for a new political vision in the age of financialization, AI, and the climate crisis.

On August 27, journalist Taylor Lorenz reported for Wired on a dark-money project funded by

anonymous Democratic Party donors to shape social media. Her article documented that,

"In a private group chat in June, dozens of Democratic political influencers discussed whether to

take advantage of an enticing opportunity. They were being offered $8,000 per month to take

part in a secretive program aimed at bolstering Democratic messaging on the internet.

But the contract sent to them from Chorus, the nonprofit arm of a liberal influencer marketing

platform, came with some strings. Among other issues, it mandated extensive secrecy about

disclosing their payments and had restrictions on what sort of political content the creators

could produce."

I talked to Taylor about her article and the considerable backlash it provoked from the people

she wrote about. We also discussed why Republicans have done so well on social media and

why this latest effort is both morally dubious and ineffective.

Danny is in talks with the Kremlin to unfreeze his accounts, so Derek is joined instead by the Quincy Institute’s Alex Jordan to bring you the news. This week: a new study warns that the Atlantic circulation system could collapse (2:32); Ukraine introduces AI-driven drone swarms, raising the prospect of autonomous killing machines (5:55); in Israel-Palestine, Israel declares Gaza City a “dangerous combat zone” (9:45), The Washington Post details the “Trump Riviera” plan (13:50), more European states move toward recognizing a Palestinian state (18:20), and Israel appears to be building a new nuclear reactor (24:44); the IDF assassinates the Houthi prime minister in Yemen (26:57); Indonesia sees mass protests over egregious political perks (30:25); Russia replaces the Wagner Group with the Africa Corps in the Central African Republic amid pushback (32:47); the Congo River Alliance/M23 accuses the DRC government of violating their ceasefire (36:57); lawyers sound the alarm about five men trafficked from the US to Eswatini (39:12); as Russia-Ukraine peace talks drag on, the focus shifts to “security guarantees,” with Moscow rejecting any foreign military presence in Ukraine (41:43); Donald Trump boasts about “obliterating” a Venezuelan boat that may have carried migrants instead of drugs (47:39); US appeals courts rule against Trump’s tariffs and deportations (51:33); and in a New Cold War update, Xi Jinping makes a statement at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit and V-J Day military parade (54:33).

Catch Alex and Courtney Rawlings on Quincy’s “Always at War”! 

Grab one of the last few “Robo Washington Crossing the Delaware” posters!

Paris Marx is joined by Brian Merchant to discuss whether the AI bubble is about to burst and how bosses are deploying AI tools to kill jobs and degrade work.

Brian Merchant is the author of ⁠Blood in the Machine⁠ and writes a ⁠newsletter⁠ of the same name.

At a time when almost everything seems to be going wrong, Bill McKibben sees one thing that is suddenly going right – a really big thing: solar power, and wind, which now provide cheaper electricity than fossil fuels. Bill’s new book has the wonderful title “Here Comes the Sun” – he says solar is “A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for civilization.”

Also: historian Eric Foner provides some historical perspective on what seems like the unique threat Trump poses to our freedoms. His new book, a collection of almost 60 essays, is titled “Our Fragile Freedoms.”

Danny and Derek welcome back to the program historian Udi Greenberg to discuss his reinterpretation of modern Christianity in The End of the Schism: Catholics, Protestants, and the Remaking of Christian Life in Europe, 1880s–1970s. They explore the alliances Catholics and Protestants forged under the pressures of fascism, the Cold War, and decolonization, and how both Christian Democracy and radical left-Christian movements were shaped as much by expedience as reconciliation.

The Iran-Israel conflict in June was terrifying but brief: it lasted 12 days. But that war is not

over. Trita Parsi, vice president and cofounder of the Quincy Institute, has been warning that

both the United States and Israel are planning for another round, with their European allies

providing the groundwork. I spoke to Parsi about the likelihood of war, the rationale behind the

current sabre-rattling, and ways to stop the impending catastrophe.

Danny and Derek get in one last news update before Danny moves to an undisclosed American Prestige satellite campus. This week: In Israel-Palestine, the IPC formally declares a famine in Gaza (3:21), Israel bombs Nasser Hospital (6:34), and Trump hosts a White House “day after” meeting (13:25); Europe moves to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran (16:16); Trump’s 50% tariff on Indian goods goes into effect (12:04); changes to de minimis rules force postal services to suspend US-bound shipments (27:23); South Korea’s Lee Jae-myung visits DC and avoids the Zelensky treatment (29:45); in Sudan, RSF forces advance around Al-Fashir (33:15) as an Anne Applebaum Atlantic article sparks outrage (35:43); peace talks between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and M23 finally resume (38:36); Trump promises Ukraine continued security help, but there is still no end to the war in sight (39:50); the Danish government summons a US diplomat over Greenland (44:23); Trump might be preparing to oust Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro (47:00); and the Pentagon is interested in an AI propaganda tool (50:42).

Danny on Hasan Piker’s show

Derek and Eleanor Jangea on The Majority Report

The AP Discord

Paris Marx is joined by Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay to discuss the geopolitics behind China’s investments in green tech and electrification, and how it presents the prospect of a new development model based on renewables instead of fossil fuels.

Kate Mackenzie is an adjunct fellow at Macquarie University. Tim Sahay is co-director of the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab at Johns Hopkins University. They are the co-writers of the ⁠Polycrisis newsletter⁠ from Phenomenal World.

What is Trump’s strategy in deploying the National Guard to L.A., then D.C., and now probably Chicago and New York? Does he want the military in the street of blue cities for the midterms next year? They will still elect Democrats to the House. John Nichols comments.

Also: ‘Huckleberry Finn’ is America's great anti-slavery novel, but there's a secret behind it: Mark Twain, the author, wasn't always anti-slavery and anti-racist; in fact he fought, briefly, for the Confederacy. Adam Hochschild explains how Twain changed his mind. (Adam reviewed Ron Chernow’s new bio of Twain in the latest issue of The Nation magazine.)

Danny and Derek welcome historian Rashid Khalidi back to the program, this time to talk about Columbia University’s agreement with the Trump administration. They discuss the university equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism, the school bringing in outside monitors, bipartisan U.S. support for Israel despite shifting public opinion, and how donor influence and neoliberal management are both reshaping universities and eroding the humanities. They also preview Dr. Khalidi’s upcoming free public lecture series on Palestinian history.

Subscribe now to skip the ads and hear the full interview on the Bolivia election.

Don’t forget our Welcome to the Crusades and Of This World series!

Derek took away Danny’s iPad, so now Danny has to help with the news. This week: the great Trump-Putin summit takes place (1:39) as Zelensky visits the White House (5:44); Hamas accepts the newest ceasefire (9:39), the IDF appears to have begun its Gaza City operation (12:44), and the Israeli government approves the E1 settlement in the West Bank (15:46); Wang Yi of China visits India in a sign of improving relations, as US-India relations are worsening (18:48); the Myanmar junta schedules an election (21:49); the DRC-M23 negotiations continue to falter (23:11); the US sends warships to Venezuela (25:26); and Derek goes into detail with Olivia Arigho-Stiles about the results of the Bolivia election (27:08).

Read Olivia’s piece in Jacobin, “Is This the End of MAS?”

Paris Marx is joined by Cecilia Rikap to discuss how countries’ dependence on US tech companies is harming them and why they need to get serious about digital sovereignty.

Cecilia Rikap is Associate Professor in Economics at University College London and Head of Research at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.

In The Nation’s interview with Zohran Mamdani, he talks how he won the New York City Democratic primary for mayor, by addressing the city’s affordability crisis—and what the Democrats can learn from his victory. Katrina vanden Heuvel and John Nichols, who conducted the interview, introduce our excerpts and set the stage.

Also: It’s time to take a step back from the daily barrage of bad news to look at the big picture of the strategy Trump has been following: David Cole explains how he’s exploited the power of the federal government, not just to attack his political opponents – the Democratic Party - but to weaken the institutions of civil society, which form the bedrock of democracy.

Danny and Derek Davison welcome to the program economist Glenn Loury, host of The Glenn Show, to talk about the re-release of his 1994 book Self-Censorship. They discuss the reasons he originally wrote the book, including self-censorship among intellectuals in late 1980s Eastern Europe as well as the response to Glenn’s critiques of US debates on race and civil rights at the time. They then tie these themes to postwar economics, current debates about “wokeness,” discourse around Gaza, and academic freedom.

In April, the Liberal Party of Canada, under the leadership of Mark Carney, won an election that heartened opponents of the right-wing. Carney had run on the promise of fighting Donald Trump’s threats to annex Canada and also to bolster the Canadian state to deal with issues like affordable housing. But in office, Carney has been delivering something different than his rhetoric suggested: he has been servile to Trump and is promoting austerity. The journalist Luke Savage has written about Carney’s turn-around for both The Baffler and the Toronto Star. I talked to Luke not only about Carney’s policies but also why centrist technocratic liberals are so inept in fighting the far right.  

Don't forget to check out our series "Welcome to the Crusades" and "Of This World."

Danny and Derek’s The Life of a Go-Go Boy album is shelved indefinitely. Meanwhile, in world news: Armenia and Azerbaijan sign a U.S.-brokered peace deal (1:35); Israel prepares for an operation in Gaza City as it continues its search for countries willing to take in expelled Palestinians (8:36); Australia announces plans to recognize Palestine (12:59); Iran hosts an IAEA representative (14:58) as European states prepare to reimpose sanctions (16:45); the Thai-Cambodian border sees two new incidents (19:34); a Sudanese military leader meets with a Trump envoy (22:08); the president of the unrecognized state of Somaliland will reportedly visit the U.S. (24:12); the DRC-M23 peace talks appear to collapse (26:47); Trump agrees to a summit with Putin, leaving Ukraine and European leaders concerned, and Russia makes a breakthrough in the Ukrainian defensive line (29:19); a preview of the upcoming Bolivian election (34:55); Trump orders military force to be used against Latin American drug cartels (38:27); and the U.S. and China agree to extend their tariff détente (40:09).

On a special edition of American Prestige, Mohammad Alsaafin, journalist at AJ+, returns to the program to discuss recent events concerning Palestine. He and Derek talk about journalists killed by Israel in Gaza, including Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif; the broad dehumanization of Palestinian journalists by many mainstream outlets; the planned military occupation and potential ethnic cleansing of the Strip; the use of starvation as a weapon; why certain countries are re-recognizing a Palestinian state at this moment; and much more.

In WWII, Denmark rescued a larger proportion of their Jewish population than any other country – 95%. How they did it suggests how we can resist Trump’s attacks on undocumented residents. Sarah Sophie Flicker explains – she’s an organizer who’s a co-founder of the Women’s March on Washington.

Also: Donald Trump is demanding that UCLA pay a $1 billion fine for antisemitism on campus – in addition to the $584 million in cuts to medical and scientific research already imposed by his administration. But one Billion? Why not one Trillon? David Myers will comment – He’s a distinguished professor at UCLA who teaches Jewish history.

In lieu of a typical Tuesday episode this week, we are happy to present the first episode of our new miniseries with Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, ⁠⁠Of This World

.⁠Subscribe now⁠ at the annual tier for access to this series and other AP series going forward.

First, Danny Bessner speaks with Daniel about what inspired this series. In the episode itself (6:25), Daniel speaks with Carlo Invernizzi Accetti about his recent book (published in Italian) Twenty Years of Rage: From No-Globals to Trumpism. Topics include the crisis in democracy and liberalism, grievance politics, Peter Sloterdijk's concept of the modern loser, the materialist causes of modern anger, attempted remedies like populism and technocracy, and why anger can be useful.

(Recorded in December 2024)

Almost everyone who is on line or even has a cell phone has encountered a familiar and

perplexing nuisance: an email or text with a job offer to make lots of money while working from

home. These messages seem like obvious scams but how do they work? Alexander Sammon, a

feature writer for Slate, conducted a personal experiment to find out by taking one of the jobs

he was offered. The result is a hilarious article detailing not just what it’s like to be ripped off

but also illuminating the new grift economy that flourishes in the internet age as Donald Trump

pursues his agenda of deregulation and the promotion of crypto currency. I had enormous fun

both reading Alex’s article (which I can’t recommend highly enough) and talking to him about

his strange experiences.

Don't forget to ⁠purchase our "Welcome to the Crusades" miniseries⁠!

The AP team will wear formal Tevas to the new White House ballroom. Otherwise, in this week’s news: Danny and Derek reflect on the 80th anniversary of the US dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima (1:46); in Israel-Palestine, Netanyahu announces his “full occupation” plan (8:24) as the US expands the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (13:58); the Lebanese government moves to disarm Hezbollah (16:48); the US looks to host an Armenia-Azerbaijan peace summit (20:51); Trump punishes India for purchasing Russian oil (24:20); Thailand and Cambodia agree to the deployment of ceasefire monitors (27:49); in Sudan, the RSF carries out a new atrocity (29:50) and the military accuses the United Arab Emirates of hiring mercenaries (32:37); a new report details sexual violence in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia (35:06); in Russia-Ukraine, Steve Witkoff visits Moscow ahead of a Putin-Trump meeting (37:28) as the US nevertheless plans to impose tariffs on Russia (40:34); El Salvador’s legislature removes presidential term limits (41:57); and in US news, America makes a new “third country” trafficking agreement with Rwanada (43:15), the State Department starts a new program forcing travelers to pay bonds to the US government (45:23), and NASA plans to put a nuclear reactor on the moon (46:50). 

Paris Marx is joined by Matt Pearce to discuss how Google’s use of generative AI is sending far less traffic to all manner of websites, but especially news publications, and what that might mean for the future of journalism.

Matt Pearce is Director of Policy at Rebuild Local News and a former reporter at the Los Angeles Times.

How do we face how bad things are now, while also understanding the reasons for hope, and the opportunities for action? Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, will comment.

Plus: Robert Reich says the origin of our troubles with Trump and MAGA go back to the sixties; he says it started with the sixties movements – which created “a giant political void that would eventually be filled by Donald Trump’s angry, bigoted cultural populism.” His new memoir is “Coming Up Short.”

Michael Albertus, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, joins the program to talk about his book Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn’t, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies. The group explores notions of land from archaeological evidence thousands of years ago, the enclosure movement of the medieval era, the European mindset vs those of indigenous peoples in the era of colonization, South Africa land redistribution, gender in Canadian homesteading, how changing notions of land play into larger histories of race, the postwar of concept of “land to the tiller,” and much more.

Writing in The New Republic, Greg Sargent called attention to Zohran Mamdani’s highly

effective media strategy which has allowed him to reach many voters that have been drifting

away from the Democratic Party, especially young people and immigrants. In punchy, short

videos, Mamdani has offered an optimistic message that celebrates big city life and diversity

while showing how government policies can help make life better.

I talked to Greg about the lessons of the Mamdani campaign. We also talk about strategies for

investigating the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, a subject he wrote about here.

Don’t forget to purchase our “Welcome to the Crusades” special series!

Danny and Derek are monitoring the Liam Neeson-Pamela Anderson situation. Otherwise, in this week’s news: a new study says most countries are exploiting groundwater aquifers at an unsustainable rate (2:26); in Israel-Palestine, another Gaza ceasefire breaks down (4:56), Israel’s “humanitarian pause” has little effect on the starvation in Gaza (7:22), the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is under scrutiny (10:13), West Bank violence is once again on the rise (12:23), and several European leaders float the idea of recognizing a Palestinian state (14:11); Trump threatens to bomb Iran again (17:45); POTUS relaxes sanctions on Myanmar while considering a mineral deal (20:12), plus that country’s military junta lifts the state of emergency (23:55); Thailand and Cambodia agree to a ceasefire for the moment (25:32); the Trump administration cancels interactions with Taiwan (28:32); the Sudan “quartet” meeting is cancelled after a dispute between Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (31:56); Trump shortens the deadline for Russia to end its war in Ukraine (35:01); and this week’s trade news includes the US reaching deals with the EU and South Korea (38:09), imposing a 25% tariff plus “penalties” on India (41:16), hitting Brazil with a 50% tariff (43:14), plus Trump suggesting no future deal with Canada (46:01), and a deal with China remaining in limbo (47:32).

Paris Marx is joined by Jacob Silverman to discuss Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire’s Islamophobic attack on Zohran Mamdani, what it tells us about the state of tech’s politics, and how Donald Trump is enriching himself through crypto scams.

Jacob Silverman is a journalist and the author of the forthcoming book Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley.

Six million Democrats who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 did not vote in 2024. What’s wrong with them? Pollster and strategist Celinda Lake explains who they are, and what it would take to get them back to the polls in the 2026 midterms – and in 2028.

Also: a suggestion for summer reading: M: Son of the Century is a 750-page historical novel about the rise of Mussolini, by Antonio Scurati. John Powers, critic-at-large for NPR’s Fresh Air, says the book suggests some parallels between 1920s Italy and Trump’s America. The book is out now in paperback.

Great Power Week continues here at American Prestige as historian Michael Brenes joins the show to talk about how prolonged competition with China threatens democracy, peace, and prosperity. They compare Biden and Trump’s respective approaches to China, whether the national security establishment is trying to manufacture an existential threat out of The People’s Republic, whether there is any national interest in a new Cold War, the degradation in American leaders, why rivalry is bad economically, erodes American society’s social fabric, and leads to violence, and alternatives to the great power framework.     

Read his book on the matter (co-authored with AP regular Van Jackson), The Rivalry Peril: How Great-Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy.

Don’t miss the companion episode with Stacie Goddard from Sunday, “The Era of Great Power Competition.” 

Since 2015, Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized the American foreign policy establishment

for being too belligerent and unwilling to negotiate with adversaries. But in office, Trump has

carried out a foreign policy that has all the vices he has criticized and been even more inclined

to risk war or get into new wars. In a recent essay in The New York Times, Stephen Wertheim,

a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for

International Peace, has written an incisive critique of Donald Trump’s foreign policy

incoherence emphasizing how the president’s ad hoc response to problems and his excessive

faith in his own deal making ability prevents any systematic change from the status quo.

Stephen and I have a wide-ranging discussion on the over-stretched American empire and why

Trump is just making things worse.

Don’t forget to buy our “Welcome to the Crusades” miniseries!

Danny and Derek also rail against the war pigs, but lack the heavy riffs. This week: the International Court of Justice rules that wealthy nations must take action on climate change or bear responsibility (1:20); clashes escalate on the Thai-Cambodian border (4:08); a ceasefire holds in Syria’s Suwayda province after clashes between Druze and Bedouin groups (9:06); in Israel-Palestine, Gaza’s starvation reaches catastrophic levels (13:19) as ceasefire talks barely limp along (16:23); Iran is reengaging with the International Atomic Energy Agency (20:49); the Democratic Republic of the Congo and M23 militant group sign a declaration of intent (23:05); in Ukraine, a new round of peace talks achieves little (25:24) while Zelensky responds to protests over corruption (28:27); Venezuela, the US, and El Salvador carry out a prisoner exchange amid accusations of torture (31:38); the Japan House of Councillors holds an election while PM Ishiba looks likely to resign (33:32); and Japan, the Philippines, and Indonesia make trade deals (36:10).

Paris Marx is joined by Dan McQuillan to discuss the political push by global governments towards rapid AI adoption at all costs, and how citizens can critically rethink not only our dependence on these technologies, but imagine a collective future that benefits everyone.

Dan McQuillan is a lecturer at Goldsmiths College, University of London and the author of Resisting AI.

A federal court in LA has stopped ICE from detaining people for deportation because they look Latino – that’s racial discrimination, and it’s unconstitutional, the court said. Mark Rosenbaum of Public Counsel will explain what’s next as he government appeals the case to the Ninth Circuit.

Also: How does a movement build support when large parts of the country are opposed to its goals? How do you connect with people who disagree with you? For some answers we’ll turn to long-time organizer Michael Ansara -- his new book is “The Hard Work of Hope.”

Hugh Wilford, professor of history at California State University, Long Beach, is back on the program to conclude the discussion of his book The CIA: An Imperial History. In this episode they talk about figures like Edward Lansdale and James Angleton, “regime maintenance,” counterinsurgency, the agency’s use of publicity, the effect of the War on Terror on the CIA, and more. 

Listen to Part 1 here⁠!

Tech lords such as Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are among the richest humans who have ever

lived and have an enormous sway over the American political system but even that isn’t enough

for them. They also want a compliant media, one that echoes their ideas, doesn’t investigate

their business practices, and goes after their enemy. This is the subject of a new book by Eoin

Higgins: Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left. I

talked to Eoin about two of the major figures in this story, Peter Thiel, a plutocrat who is eager

to abandon the human species and Matt Taibbi, a onetime anti-establishment voice who now

has become a standard reactionary.

Derek is in the shop for maintenance, so Danny presents the news with the Quincy Institute’s Alex Jordan. This week: Israel bombs the Syrian Defense Ministry in Damascus (0:39) as Netanyahu’s corruption trial carries on (7:05), plus US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee condemns settlers killing a US citizen (10:24), and the Hague Group coalition meets in Bogota to decide how to hold Israel accountable for its crimes (16:02); the saga of Trump’s flip-flopping on Ukraine military aid continues (20:29); Trump announces more tariffs while affected countries struggle to make a deal with the US (28:30); the US Navy is constructing facilities to repair and maintain Philippine military vessels (33:35); the UN releases a report detailing how militant violence in Haiti has killed 5,000 people in the last 9 months (37:48); and the French army has withdrawn its last troops from Senegal (42:48). 

Be sure to watch and listen to Alex and Courtney Rawlings on the Quincy Institute’s Always at War podcast. 

Paris Marx is joined by Nathan Grayson to discuss the latest round of Microsoft layoffs and how the company’s ambition to remake the video game industry around its streaming service has had significant consequences.

Nathan Grayson is a co-founder of Aftermath and author of Stream Big: The Triumphs and Turmoils of Twitch and the Stars Behind the Screen.

There’s trouble in Trump world: Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is launching a Third Party to challenge Trump’s Republicans in the midterms and maybe in 2028. Maurice Mitchell, National Director of the Working Families Party, explains why Musk will fail.

Also: Trump’s executive order abolishing birthright citizenship – guaranteed by the 14th Amendment – has been blocked for a second time, this time because of a class action suit. David Cole explains why Trump will lose this case at the Supreme Court.

Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, rise ‘n grind, and find your calling as we welcome historian Erik Baker to the program to talk about his book Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America. The group explores the Protestant work ethic and Jeffersonian yeoman farmer, influential figures like Henry Ford and Frederick Winslow Taylor, the seeds of entrepreneurialism in Harvard Business School, how it came to be seen as an American value during the Cold War, “entrepreneurial modernity,” postwar liberalism’s failure to provide meaningful work for the professional-managerial class, self-help writers, and much more.

Be sure to check out Issue Fifteen of The Drift, where Erik is a senior editor.

Donald Trump’s foreign policy has been as unstable as the man himself, shifting quickly from

pushes for restraint to escalating wars in the Middle East. This volatility is a function not just of

Trump’s personality but the contradictions and competing factions that are gathered under the

term America First, as well as the continued power of the foreign policy establishment that

Trump has claimed he defeated but which maintains a strong capacity to shape policy. To talk

about Trump’s foreign policy and the factional battles that have bedevilled his administration, I

spoke to Justin Logan, director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. 

In particular we take up the attacks on Elbridge Colby, the under-secretary of defense for

policy. Colby was the subject of a Politico hatchet job which claimed he was running a rogue

foreign policy. Justin critiqued this analysis here.