Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:This week, Trump made a dangerous announcement on Truth Social: “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis.”Chemical engineer Ivana Nikolić Hughes joins Useful Idiots to debunk Trump’s claim that other countries have conducted tests, and more importantly why doing our own tests could lead to catastrophic disaster. Or, in her words: “Nuclear winter.”Useful Idiots: What if someone were to say, ‘What’s wrong with a nuclear test? It’s just a test. And shouldn’t we know whether these systems are working? What’s the problem?’Ivana Nikolić Hughes: The word test, actually, is just the wrong word for what took place in these more-than-2,000 full-blown nuclear explosions. The largest test that the United States ever conducted was called the Bravo Test. And it had the energy yield equivalent to a thousand Hiroshima bombs. So Hiroshima flattened the city, this thing was a thousand times more powerful and had a mushroom cloud twenty five miles high and sixty miles wide. There was nothing “testy” about this. This was a full blown monster .And the fallout was tremendous. There was destruction of cities, but the radiation has been absolutely devastating. Generations have been impacted by it in the US. We think of the Cold War as having had no victims. But in fact, the victims were created by their own governments. It wasn’t Soviet people being killed by US nuclear weapons. It was American citizens being killed.Useful Idiots: According to people like House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senator Tom Cotton, having a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons ‘keeps the peace’ and preserves global stability.Ivana Nikolić Hughes: My response is that nuclear deterrence might work until the day it doesn’t. I always want to tell people we’re not exaggerating this thing. It’s going to be the end of the world as we know it. People write comments when I speak about this, they go ‘Oh but Hiroshima and Nagasaki are just fine today.’Which they are. In 1945, one country had three nuclear weapons. Today, nine countries have twelve and a half thousand of them.Useful Idiots: So going back to Trump’s statement, he seems to confuse testing a nuclear-capable missile versus testing a nuclear weapon itself. But he also seems confused on what the powers of the Pentagon are. Because he says, I’ve directed Secretary Hegseth to carry out testing, but is it as simple as that? Can he just direct the Pentagon to test a nuclear weapon?

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:New York Times investigative reporter Ken Vogel’s new book, Devils’ Advocates: How Washington Lobbyists Get Rich Enabling Dictators, Oligarchs, and Arms Dealers, unearths the shrouded power that lobbyists hold over the US government, from AIPAC, Soros, and Kushner to powers you’ve never even heard of.We begin with the president’s son-in-law, who was just revealed by Vice President JD Vance to be the “investor” behind the ethnic-cleansing “reconstruction” of Gaza.Useful Idiots: Jared Kushner doesn’t have an official role in this White House, but yet is overseeing arguably the biggest geopolitical issue in the world, and that is the crisis in Israel-Palestine. Steve Witkoff made a reference to a “master plan” for Gaza devised by Jared Kushner.Talk to us about how Kushner has gone from serving in Trump’s first term to his time out of the White House, making a lot of lucrative deals, including in the Middle East, and now being described by J.D. Vance as the “investor” in Trump’s peace plan in Gaza.Ken Vogel: You’ve got to go back even before he entered the first Trump administration when he was in New York real estate. And his biggest project was a massive boondoggle, giant building in Manhattan. And he got bailed out by the Qataris.And then he comes into the Trump administration and he’s helping to navigate this blockade that the Saudis and the Emiratis had on the Qataris. They don’t shy away from it. Maybe in the first term they were a little bit more bashful, but then as soon as the first term ends, Kushner hangs out his shingle, Affinity Partners, and gets a $2 billion investment from the Saudis.On 60 Minutes [this week], Leslie Stahl asked Kushner and Witkoff, “Isn’t this a conflict of interest? You have all this business in the region.” And Kushner said, “Well, we actually consider it a strength. We consider it experience and trusted relationships.” There’s certainly plenty of situations where there is US policy being set in a way that favors business partners of the Trump family or the Witkoffs or Massad Boulos and his family that is arguably not in the best interest of the American people and does seem to be a conflict of interest in the favor of the people who are putting money in the president’s family’s pockets.There are laws and norms that are intended to prevent that kind of thing. And the Trump folks in the second term seem to be fairly emboldened to just test those norms and openly defy them.Useful Idiots: Trump recently gave a speech at the Israeli Knesset where he openly flaunted the fact that he did the bidding of Miriam Adelson, who gave him more than $100 million. How does a group like AIPAC, whatever you think of them, how do they avoid registering as a foreign agent?

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:This week we’re speaking to two Useful Idiots return guests: Mouin Rabbani, co-editor at Jadaliyya and non-resident fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, and human rights attorney Craig Mokhiber, who resigned from the United Nations over its failure to act on Gaza.Useful Idiots: What is your response to Trump’s so-called peace plan?Mouin Rabbani: Well, just to say it’s not a peace plan. It’s a proposal to achieve a ceasefire. If you look at the proposal closely, it doesn’t include any enforcement mechanisms, even for those elements that have been agreed. And most importantly, it doesn’t say anything about Palestinian rights. And therefore, if it’s entirely successful, it will at best take us back to October 6 [2023].Craig Mokhiber: It’s not a peace plan. It’s not a plan for ending the conflict. It’s not a plan that responds to the genocide. It addresses none of the root causes of the situation in Palestine. It is absolutely lawless.This was created in the dark, back rooms of Washington. It makes no reference to international law, and some of the provisions of the plan actually violate international law. Things like conditioning humanitarian aid, implicit threats of collective punishment if Hamas doesn’t agree to something, the explicit denial of Palestinian self-determination, and restrictions on political rights for some Palestinians. It tries to return to a situation where Palestinians have to negotiate for their human rights with their oppressors. And it fails to seek any accountability for Israeli crimes, including genocide. This ceasefire has been repeatedly violated already by Israel. They immediately destroyed the water treatment plant, they killed several Palestinian civilians, and blocked some of the aid that’s supposed to be coming in.It is a certain relief in terms of the amount of bombs and bullets that are flying in Gaza, it allows some aid in, and it has allowed for some Palestinian prisoners to be released from horrific Israeli torture camps. But beyond that piece of the ceasefire agreement, there is nothing here to celebrate.For the full interview with Craig and Mouin debunking terrible takes from Katie Miller and Kamala Harris and explaining the real reason why Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, please subscribe to Useful Idiots.You’ll also get our Thursday Throwdown: Cory Booker’s Israel Panic Flub Turns Into An ‘Arrested Development’ MomentWatch the full episode here:

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:Useful Idiots fan-favorite David Sirota returns this week with a new book that dives into the dark money plot for elites to take full and final control of mainstream media. Subscribe for the full interview with David on Bari Weiss’s takeover of CBS News, the rise of tech oligarchs in America, and David’s message for disgruntled leftists.Here’s a preview of our chat:Useful Idiots: You have this great new book out called Master Plan: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America. It’s really relevant to so much of what’s happening today when it comes to media conglomeration, but it’s also relevant to a scary lawsuit that’s being headed by Vice President JD Vance that could have a damaging effect on some of the last campaign finance laws in this country.David Sirota: Master Plan tells the story of the fifty year secret plot to legalize corruption in a systematic way: deregulate the campaign finance system and make it nearly impossible to prosecute bribery. This plot started in the early 1970s with the Powell Memo, a memo written by Lewis Powell before he became a Supreme Court Justice. He was worried about corporations and oligarchs losing power, and he wrote this call to arms about how corporations, oligarchs, and the like had to invest in politics to make sure, essentially, that democracy didn’t continue to get ‘destroyed.’There were secret meetings in which some of the most powerful people in the country laid out how they were executing the Powell Memo. There was an effort to take over media, which we’re now seeing culminating in the Paramount-Skydance takeover with Donald Trump and Bari Weiss.Powell writes these memos that have never been seen before: he engineers a ruling extending constitutional protection for money as speech. Money is speech. Right now, as we speak, JD Vance is spearheading a low profile but huge case at the Supreme Court to try to give the now 6-3 conservative court an opportunity to eliminate all of the remaining limits on campaign contributions directly to candidates. Useful Idiots: So what’s the playbook for selling all this to the public? As a victory for the working class? For freedom? JD Vance fashioned himself as being pro-working class, but I don’t see anything in his record that supports that. So is this just an effort to push this through and hope nobody notices? Or is there a massive propaganda campaign to get people to buy into this agenda?David Sirota: I think their theory is: ‘We don’t care.’ There is no public-facing argument in the effort to deregulate campaign finance. They are making a straight up First-Amendment-legalistic-technical-argument to the Supreme Court, hoping the Supreme Court gives them what they want, because once they get what they want, then it unleashes unlimited spending for them.I don’t think they’re going out to the public saying, ‘hey, we’re deregulating campaign finance. We’re making sure the anti-bribery laws can’t be enforced. We’re doing this for some higher purpose.’ They’re doing this expecting that the media and the public will not follow the ins-and-outs of campaign finance law and anti-bribery law, knowing that if they’re successful, it will give them more power under the law to spend as much money as they want, making the political discourse and public policy whatever it is they want.Subscribe for the full interview with David Sirota. Order his new book Master Plan here.And don’t miss this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Fmr Congressman Reveals What Happens at Closed-Door AIPAC EventsThanks for supporting independent media, watch the full episode here:

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This episode is free to all. Please help us share Diana Buttu’s important message.Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu returns to Useful Idiots, joining us from Haifa, Israel, where she’s based. Diana breaks down Trump’s “peace plan,” which is in no way a peace plan, debunks Israeli talking points, and urges us not to give up, but rather to “disrupt, disrupt, disrupt!” until Palestine is free.We begin our conversation asking about the Global Sumud Flotilla, which, once again, sailed through international waters in an effort to break Israel’s starvation siege on Gaza, this time getting closer than ever before! On Wednesday and Thursday, the IDF kidnapped over 450 Flotilla members including Greta Thunberg and former Useful Idiots guest Thiago Ávila.Useful Idiots: What is your reaction to this news?Diana Buttu: We’ve been spending the past two years watching a live stream genocide. And here we watched 450 people being kidnapped and acts of piracy! And still nobody is doing anything about it. It shows you the lengths to which Israel is willing to go to actually starve the people of Gaza.Useful Idiots: Polls in the US now show that more Americans sympathize with Palestinians than they do with Israelis. After decades and decades of pro-Israel propaganda in the US, which now is only intensifying with pro-Israel oligarchs buying TikTok, CBS, Paramount, and possibly even CNN, a majority of Americans oppose U.S. military support to Israel. But in government, there’s so much to overcome. This week, Trump unveiled a new so-called peace plan to Netanyau. It’s basically a complete surrender for Palestinians. And one of the demands that Netanyahu made was an end to what he called lawfare: no more taking Israel to the International Criminal Court. As a Palestinian attorney, what is your response to this?Diana Buttu: This model of thinking of putting conditions on freedom, there’s a word for that. It’s called colonialism.That model ended a long time ago and the fact that they’re still trying to revive it when it comes to Palestinians is really quite repugnant. The Americans have always treated Palestinians by patting us on the head, like, ‘if you’re good Palestinians, if you do exactly what we say, then maybe, just maybe we will give you the things that you want.’ It shouldn’t be a question of what the United States wants, what Israel wants, or what anybody wants. The fact that the country that has perpetrated genocide and the country that is funding the genocide have anything to say about what Palestinians do is so abhorrent. That’s number one. Two is I absolutely insist that these war criminals be held to account. It is step number one!Useful Idiots: I want to talk to you about Israel’s crimes. There’s a pretty scary statement that was tweeted out by Israel’s so-called defense minister, Israel Katz:The IDF has completed the capture of the Netzarim axis up to the Gaza coast, effectively dividing Gaza between north and south.This is the last opportunity for Gaza residents who wish to do so to move south and leave Hamas terrorists isolated in Gaza city itself, facing the IDF’s ongoing operations at full force.Those who remain in Gaza will be considered terrorists and terror supporters.The IDF is prepared for all possibilities and is determined to continue its operations. So this is ominous. What is your response to this statement?Diana Buttu: They’re openly saying that they’re just going to kill everybody.There are hundreds of thousands of people living in Gaza City. There’s a number of hospitals there. There are old people, there are young people, there are people who are ill, who are in hospital. There are people who are disabled. There’s just a whole range of society. And what he’s saying is, ‘if you remain, you are a fair target.’Again, it’s like flipping this idea of international law on its head, but they’ve done it now for the past two years. In the way that Israel has been operating, anybody in Gaza equals Hamas. They’ve said this. They’ve warned against this. We’ve been tracking their statements. That’s why it’s genocide. And now they’re coming out very clearly and saying, ‘if you remain in Gaza City, we’re going to treat you as Hamas, and therefore we are going to get rid of you.’ I don’t think they’ve made it any clearer than that.Please share this episode to spread Diana’s important words. Thanks for supporting Useful Idiots and independent media.And don’t miss this week’s Thursday Throwdown: “No More Beardos”: Hegseth’s New ‘Professional’ Military Standards Just Dropped This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:Useful Idiots: Let’s talk about what’s happening on the ground in Gaza. Israel bombed a food distribution site. Doctors at Al-Shifa Hospital in North Gaza are warning of total collapse. And this follows Israel destroying high-rise buildings in the last livable area left in Gaza. So amid all the atrocities that it’s currently committing, what is Israel’s strategy in Gaza right now?Norman Finkelstein: It’s perfectly obvious. It’s gotten the green light from the White House to try to empty out Gaza. The UN report that just came out two weeks ago did the right thing by [dispensing with] the language of the laws of war. The problem in Gaza is not that Israel is committing “disproportionate attacks.” The problem has not been that Israel is in even an egregious breach of the laws of war... The problem is that Israel is acting out the logic of genocide. And that’s very different because ultimately, if you use the framework of the laws of war, then what’s tacit in using that framework is that Israel ultimately wants to achieve a military victory.If you take, for example, the period from March 18th of this year, when Israel terminated the ceasefire, until the end of August, do you know how many Gazans have been killed in that period? The estimate is 12,000. You know how many Israeli soldiers were killed in that period? 50.The ratio is 1 to 240. Does that sound like a war, or does that sound like an extermination?Useful Idiots: That makes it striking how ridiculous it is to call this a war.Norman Finkelstein: Israel’s apologists have a funny argument right now. They say, ‘If you really believe there is a genocide in Gaza, then why don’t you advocate opening up the border [which would be ethnic cleansing]?’Well, I have another idea. How about if I really believe there’s a genocide in Gaza, how about taking out the…While we would love to share Norman’s idea with you, we worry it could get our entire YouTube channel demonetized or even removed… So we posted it exclusively on Substack HERE.

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:In the aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, we speak to Chris Hedges, the leading chronicler of America's slide into authoritarianism and how a society that's built around empire fuels an internal decay.Useful Idiots: Where are you seeing the country now in the response to Charlie Kirk's murder?Chris Hedges: As soon as Kirk was assassinated, he was elevated within the canon of his movement to the status of a martyr. That was instant. Even before they had apprehended Robinson as the suspect, you had Trump declare him a martyr. You had flags lowered and half-mast. He was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom instantly. I've watched this before in other conflicts, and it's very dangerous because the martyr is really the lifeblood of radical movementsAny kind of dialogue, any kind of compassion with the opposing movement is a betrayal of the sanctity of the martyr. It is to essentially collaborate with people who, through the eyes of the radical movement that you're in, have killed the martyr. And that's, of course, precisely what's happening. They are deadly serious, and they will use the death of Kirk to essentially sanctify this crusade against what is left of our open society.Useful Idiots: You talked about the sanctification of Charlie Kirk when it comes from the right, but I'm curious what you think of it when it comes from the liberal side. Ezra Klein, who is a prominent liberal columnist for the New York Times, the paper of record, wrote an article called Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way.Chris Hedges: Well, that's why I don't read Ezra Klein. That's ridiculous.Charlie Kirk was fomenting hate and demonization. Let's begin with the kinds of things he said about Muslims, the kinds of things he said about people of color, in particular Black people, the kinds of things he said about the LGBTQ community, the kinds of things he said about feminists. This was really vitriolic hate speech. And it is, like all hate speech, giving license to people to act upon that hate speech. When I heard about the assassination, I was appalled and horrified, not because I have any love for Kirk, but because I know how it would be weaponized. And in all totalitarian states, vigilante groups are vitally important. And they serve this strange purpose: at once, the formal structures of power. They have a kind of deniability because it's not them. It's one step removed. On the other hand, the vigilante group carries out a lot of the dirty work that whatever police state or totalitarian state wants carried out.Useful Idiots: What do you make of the fallout on the right when it comes to the issue of Israel? A number of sources reported that Charlie Kirk was shifting a little bit on Israel after some unpleasant experiences with pro-Israel donors, including Bill Ackman, and Charlie Kirk was insisting that he was going to keep on giving space to people like Tucker Carlson. The Trump Administration is so completely beholden to the Israeli agenda, and Charlie Kirk, whether it's accurate or not, is being upheld now as a voice of dissent on that. What do you make of that?

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:This week we’re joined by California Congressman Ro Khanna, one of the only members of Congress willing to appear on shows that are to the left of the Democratic Party. Our conversation spans from working with “bad guy” Republicans on releasing the Epstein Files, protecting Medicare, stopping Trump’s regime change operations in Venezuela, and taking on AIPAC:Useful Idiots: You've been spearheading an effort to get Trump to recognize Palestinian statehood. Can you tell us more about this effort and any new developments around it?Rep. Khanna: We have twenty six signatures to officially recognize a Palestinian state. Now people say, ‘Is this just moral preening? Why does it matter?’ First of all, it obviously matters to Netanyahu and it matters to AIPAC because they have been very opposed to it. So there is real value in recognizing the humanity of the Palestinian people and their national aspirations.Secondly, the Palestinians need some hope, a horizon of hope to overcome the destruction and extremism that they are seeing. And third, the reality is that the United States recognizing a Palestinian state, unlike all the other countries, really matters because we have the ability to have consequences based on our aid and our support.Useful Idiots: So when you bring this pitch to your colleagues in Congress, what kind of pushback are you getting? Why are they not on board with this yet, even though it's supposed to be U.S. policy to support a Palestinian state in just twenty two percent of their homeland?Rep. Khanna: The reality is that when you have the United States actually do it, it sets a marker that says ‘if Israel is not committed to actually taking steps to recognizing a Palestinian state, then there are going to be consequences.’ And that is a red line for AIPAC. It's a red line for Bibi. And so members of Congress have been reluctant to get on.Subscribe for our full interview with Rep. Ro Khanna on AIPAC ousting progressive members of Congress, why he’s teaming up with GOP Reps Massie, Mace, Greene, and Boebert to release the Epstein Files, and why even though he doesn’t support Maduro he is fighting Trump’s regime change operations in Venezuela.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Putin-Xi-Modi Summit Causes Neocon PANIC on CNNWatch the full episode here:

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:Useful Idiots takes to the High Seas this week.We’re looking at two ships: the Venezuelan boat that was bombed by the Trump Administration (which the U.S. Government claimed was carrying drug-smuggling terrorists), and the US Veterans Boat which joins the Freedom Flotilla headed to Gaza in an attempt to break Israel’s deadly and illegal blockade.Calling in from the Freedom Flotilla, which took off for Gaza during our conversation, is former Army Ranger Greg Stoker, who relates what is happening in Gaza to what he saw as a soldier:“I did four combat deployments in the Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment, which is the U.S. Special Operations Unit to Afghanistan,” he tells us. “I was there in tactical operations centers watching Obama's drone strike campaign play out and kind of got radicalized into an anti-imperialist position.There was just no standard of proof for who we were killing. Basically if a guy ended up in the wrong contact list on someone's phone, could have been a Taliban sublieutenant's baker, he was probably going to eat a hellfire missile.And I thought that was bad enough. I just have never seen anything like what Israel's done. As horrible as what we did during the global war on terror, kill millions of people in five different countries, this is completely beyond the pale. And the entire world is less safe because of the precedent set in Gaza over the past two years, a complete disregard for international law and humanity.”The louder we amplify the voices in the Freedom Flotilla, the better chance they’ll have of breaking the siege, Greg explains:I hope everybody watching this supports us because we don't have any diplomatic, economic, or military support. We are a humanitarian effort and we will be confronted by a rogue genocidal actor. The only cover that we get is global engagement.What we're going to try to do is wage an information war against Israeli military propaganda to call out different actions that they will take in the global forum and try to make them politically non-viable. So we appreciate your support and engagement over the next two weeks as we try to break the siege. Because y'all's engagement is the only cover we're getting.But first we talk to historian and journalist Vijay Prashad after the White House posted a video this week allegedly attacking a ship in what they’re calling a huge drug bust against Venezuelan cartel smugglers.To find out why Vijay “scoffs” at the Trump administration’s “ridiculous” story and calls it a joke, please become a paid subscriber. Your support keeps us independent.You’ll also get this week’s Thursday Throwdown: David Pakman PANICS After Dark Money Dems Scandal RevealedThanks for being part of the Useful Idiots community. Watch the full episode here:

This episode is free to all. Please help us share Marwan Barghouti’s story:This week, we’re looking at the case of Marwan Barghouti, the Palestinian political prisoner widely regarded as the most popular Palestinian leader alive. And for this reason, Israel has kept him imprisoned for more than two decades.Useful Idiots is proud to be joined by his son, Arab Barghouti.Throughout an unimaginable 23 years in prison, Marwan Barghouti has been subjected to brutal abuse. In a recent video, fascist Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir went out of his way to visit Marwan Barghouti in his prison cell and film himself threatening Barghouti and the Palestinian people.Ben Gvir tells Barghouti that Israel is going to “wipe out” the Palestinian people.This is the first image that we've seen of Marwan Barghouti in many years, looking visibly gaunt from years of Israeli abuse and torture. This was a provocative move by Ben Gvir designed to further humiliate Palestinians at a time when they're enduring a genocide in Gaza and routine pogroms and terror in the occupied West Bank.Everyone in the world should know the name of Marwan Barghouti. He cuts through so many of the caricatures that we get of Palestinian resistance in the West: he's a longtime advocate of a Palestinian state, thereby accepting the fact that Israel stole Palestine, but he's willing to compromise and accept 22% of Palestine’s historic homeland. And even though he supports the Palestinian right to armed resistance against military occupation, Barghouti has advocated nonviolence as a tactic and opposes attacks that target Israeli civilians. The fact that Israel has made such a dogged effort to silence him, to keep him behind bars, and recently humiliate him, speaks to the power he has and the fear in the heart of the Israeli government of the Palestinian struggle for freedom. Check out the documentary Tomorrow's Freedom about Marwan Barghouti, and please share our interview with his son Arab Barghouti.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Fox News Somehow Hits New Low on Israeli Hospital Strike Justification This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

Plus: our fundraiser for the Middle East Children’s Alliance is almost at $20k! Help us hit our goal to get aid to the children of Gaza. To donate, click on the video above and find the fundraiser next to the Youtube video.We love your support!!! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:Useful Idiots has another Double Header this week as we look at Gaza and Ukraine.First up we speak with Dr. Omar Abdel-Mannan, founder of Health Workers 4 Palestine, about the State Department’s heartless decision to pause all visitor visas for people from Gaza. This policy shift came after Jewish-supremacist, right-wing-conspiracy-theorist, and self-described “proud Islamophobe” Laura Loomer took to Twitter (and tagged Secretary of State Marco Rubio) to expose the fact that “Islamic invaders” were infiltrating the U.S. from Gaza. Of course, what was really happening is that children injured in Gaza with weapons from (and/or paid for by) the U.S. were coming to the states for medical treatment (at no expense to U.S. taxpayers) thanks to the non-profit HEAL Palestine.Dr. Omar knows how important it is to provide children from Gaza with medical treatment in England, where he lives. He himself has worked tirelessly to bring children wounded in Gaza by UK weapons, into the UK.He also reacts to propagandist outlets like Bari Weiss’s The Free Press, which engages in the most disgusting whitewashing of Israel’s crimes: starving children to death isn’t that bad because most of the ones dying have pre-existing conditions. Phew! What a relief.Plus, we ask Dr. Omar: is Palantir selling your health data to Israel?Next we speak with Professor Richard Sakwa to discuss the latest in Russia-Ukraine after Trump’s controversial summit with Putin.We ask Sakwa: what are Putin’s true motives? Does he see Ukraine as a real country? Does he want revenge on the US and UK after Biden and Boris Johnson colluded to push Ukraine out of peace talks? And is Trump treating Putin as his equal, conning him into taking a worse deal, or bowing down to him just like he does with Netanyahu?

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For nearly 40 years, journalist Tim Weiner has closely covered the CIA, speaking with retired officials and gaining the trust of people with classified information. And his latest book, The Mission, does something we’ve never seen before:It gives an in-depth history of the CIA without any anonymous sources. Everyone’s on the record. We don’t know how Tim did it, but he joins Useful Idiots to share what he’s learned from 40 years of digging.Useful Idiots: You spoke to former CIA Director Richard Helms, and you wrote: “He wanted me to understand that the agency hadn't dreamed up the idea of overthrowing Iran or killing Fidel Castro. Every president since Truman had commanded the CIA to intervene with guns and money to control the fate of nations when sending in the Marines was not an option.” Did you get the sense that the CIA was always just unquestioningly following orders?Tim Weiner: It took me a while to understand this simple but important point: the CIA is an executor of American foreign policy. It doesn't dream up coups and plots and other nefarious covert activities. With rare exceptions, it does what the president tells it to do.It's not like a couple of CI officers were sitting around drinking martinis in 1960 saying, ‘Hey, I got a good idea. Let's go kill Fidel Castro.’ Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy and President Kennedy's brother, Bobby, wanted Castro gone.When it came time to investigate the first twenty five years of the CIA, the Church Committee in the 1970s dove deep into this: Frank Church, the senator who ran them, wondered aloud if “the CIA has become a rogue elephant trampling people and nations.”But, we later find out, after the hearings, Church amended his statement: “When the elephant tramples people and nations, it's not the elephant's fault. It is the fault of the mahout, the elephant driver.” And that was the President of the United States.The Church Committee, and even the torture report about CIA secret prisons that the Senate finally released ten years ago, really tiptoes around this question of presidential authority for violations of the laws of God and man and the Geneva Convention by the CIA. It's the president's outfit. And it is a unique expression of presidential power to order the CIA to go and kill people or torture them or throw them in secret prisons for the rest of their lives, never to see the light of day.Useful Idiots: Your book tells the story of the great lengths to which the CIA went to cover up for torture. You have this controversy over an attempt to destroy videotapes of torture at a CIA secret prison in Thailand. And then you also have the CIA spying on the Senate as the Senate is investigating the CIA's torture program.Tim Weiner: Two unhappy stories. The first is rather dramatic.The CIA set up this base in Thailand where two of its first so-called high value prisoners were taken and tortured. Present at the base for one of those prisoner tortures was Gina Haspel, who later became the CIA Director in the first Trump Administration.An order is written. Haspel transmits the orders. The videotapes are destroyed.And they are actually under a judge's subpoena to preserve all evidence concerning these matters. When Gina Haspel becomes the CIA Director ten years later under Trump, all anything anybody knows about Gina Haspel is that she was at the CIA base when the torture was conducted and she transmitted an order from her boss to destroy the tapes.Well, it turns out Gina Haspel, when she became the CIA director for the last three years of Trump, was pretty effective at defending the CIA from Trump. Trump hates and fears the CIA. He sees it as the capital of the deep state.Your second question about the torture report. It is a fact that the CIA launched a counterintelligence investigation into the Senate staff during the final year of the publication, before the publication of the torture report.Useful Idiots: Let me stop you there. Is that legal for the CIA to launch an investigation of Americans, especially American politicians?Listen to or watch the episode for our full chat with Tim Weiner. Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Bill Maher Goes FULL PROPAGANDA Bot For IsraelThank you for supporting Useful Idiots and independent media! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:For nearly 40 years, journalist Tim Weiner has closely covered the CIA, speaking with retired officials and gaining the trust of people with classified information. And his latest book, The Mission, does something we’ve never seen before:It gives an in-depth history of the CIA without any anonymous sources. Everyone’s on the record. We don’t know how Tim did it, but he joins Useful Idiots to share what he’s learned from 40 years of digging.Useful Idiots: You spoke to former CIA Director Richard Helms, and you wrote: “He wanted me to understand that the agency hadn't dreamed up the idea of overthrowing Iran or killing Fidel Castro. Every president since Truman had commanded the CIA to intervene with guns and money to control the fate of nations when sending in the Marines was not an option.” Did you get the sense that the CIA was always just unquestioningly following orders?Tim Weiner: It took me a while to understand this simple but important point: the CIA is an executor of American foreign policy. It doesn't dream up coups and plots and other nefarious covert activities. With rare exceptions, it does what the president tells it to do.It's not like a couple of CI officers were sitting around drinking martinis in 1960 saying, ‘Hey, I got a good idea. Let's go kill Fidel Castro.’ Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy and President Kennedy's brother, Bobby, wanted Castro gone.When it came time to investigate the first twenty five years of the CIA, the Church Committee in the 1970s dove deep into this: Frank Church, the senator who ran them, wondered aloud if “the CIA has become a rogue elephant trampling people and nations.”But, we later find out, after the hearings, Church amended his statement: “When the elephant tramples people and nations, it's not the elephant's fault. It is the fault of the mahout, the elephant driver.” And that was the President of the United States.The Church Committee, and even the torture report about CIA secret prisons that the Senate finally released ten years ago, really tiptoes around this question of presidential authority for violations of the laws of God and man and the Geneva Convention by the CIA. It's the president's outfit. And it is a unique expression of presidential power to order the CIA to go and kill people or torture them or throw them in secret prisons for the rest of their lives, never to see the light of day.Useful Idiots: Your book tells the story of the great lengths to which the CIA went to cover up for torture. You have this controversy over an attempt to destroy videotapes of torture at a CIA secret prison in Thailand. And then you also have the CIA spying on the Senate as the Senate is investigating the CIA's torture program.Tim Weiner: Two unhappy stories. The first is rather dramatic.The CIA set up this base in Thailand where two of its first so-called high value prisoners were taken and tortured. Present at the base for one of those prisoner tortures was

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:This week we cover not only Israel's starvation siege of Gaza but also another area that has been overshadowed by the genocide: the West Bank, where Israel continues its campaign of terrorism and murder.Journalist Jasper Nathaniel, who has spent time in the West Bank, talks to us about a recent murder of a Palestinian activist. And Palestinian-American Human Rights Lawyer Huwaida Arraf and Jewish-American activist Bob Suberi join us from Palestine where they're planning what's next after having been captured and arrested while aboard the Handala, the civilian ship carrying aid for Gaza.Jasper tells us about Yinon Levi, who was sanctioned by the Biden Administration after repeated attacks in the West Bank. Trump lifted the sanctions, setting Levi loose on the people of the West Bank once again. And sure enough, on July 29, Yinon Levi murdered another Palestinian: Awdah Hathaleen, an activist and teacher who worked on the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land. After a short house arrest, Jasper tells us, Levi was set free, once again.Huwaida and Bob talk to us about Israel's latest illegal interception of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and why they refuse to stop sailing to Gaza. They also update us about the IDF's brutal arrest and beating of labor activist Chris Smalls who, not coincidentally, was the only Black participant on the ship. Coincidentally, Bob joined us from Umm al-Khair, the Masafer Yatta village, where Hathaleen lived and was killed. Hathaleen's friends and family are trying to mourn his death despite continued raids by grenade-throwing settlers.Subscribers get access to a chat in which Jasper who reveals what really happened to Shai Davidai, the disgraced Zionist Columbia University Business professor who left the school under mysterious circumstances, after harassing and doxxing pro-Palestinian students.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Fox News Accidentally Reveals Anti-Mamdani Blackmail Plot Live on AirThanks for supporting independent media, watch the full episode here:

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This episode is free to all. Please help us share the stories of Mohamed, Ahmed, and Mosab:For this week’s episode of Useful Idiots, we’re focused on the moral issue of our time: Israel’s genocide and starvation siege against the people of Gaza.First up is our interview with two doctors, Dr. Mohamed Nour and Dr. Ahmed Twaij, who recount the horrifying methods of torture Israel uses against other doctors and nurses who have bravely attempted to give care in Gaza.Doctors and nurses have to go through these checkpoints. And some of them would get picked out of the line. They would be made to go wait in another holding area. One of them, I remember he said to me, “I got taken behind the building. I remember seeing two hundred men all completely naked with their hands in plastic cuffs on and blindfolded. They took all of my belongings, made me naked, no boxers, nothing. I remember sitting there for hours. Then they took us into a building and we were just beaten for another couple of hours.”Then they get transported to a prison in Israel: “We got packed into the truck. It was like we were chickens. We weren’t picked up and sat down, just shoved in the back of a truck.”When they get to the prison, the plastic cuffs get changed to metal cuffs. And the blindfold stays on. They'd be given a small area, one meter by two meters. And they get put in a certain position. And they stay in that position, like on their knees, essentially, for twenty hours a day. “We were allowed to lie down for four hours a day.”There's one toilet between, I don't know, a hundred of them. I asked, “How did you go to the toilet?”“They picked us up and took us to the toilet with our cuffs. There's no kind of tissue, no water, nothing. And we had to pull our pants back up ourselves and then go back and sit down.”Another said to me, “I remember we got to have a shower once a week and it was always cold water. I'll never forget that because one day a prisoner cried out, ‘Why is it always cold? Why is it always cold water?’ And then we heard him scream because they'd thrown boiling water over him.” And no one's checking, right? Who's going there to check what's going on in the Israeli prisons?But outside of the Israeli torture prisons, life isn’t much easier. Pulitzer-Prized Poet from Palestine Mosab Abu Toha says that worse than the bombs, the violent soldiers, and the machine guns is the hunger.The ‘aid’ they're getting from the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation [a fake humanitarian organization set up by Israel and the US] includes massacres because Israelis and mercenaries have been shooting at people. These are death sites.People go to these sites in the very early hours of the morning before they open, hours and hours there waiting for the gates to open. Then the people who are running these sites would turn on a light which is a signal that now it's time to go. And they would go in, and then there would be another sign that it's shut. So anyone who stays there for five minutes, for ten minutes, they would be shot at, they would be killed.They tell me: “The problem now is not the airstrike, it's not the drones, it's not the bombs, it's just that we don't have food.” People want to eat, even if they are going to be killed. They can't stop the killing, but they can't just stay in their tents while their children are crying out of hunger. Can you just imagine you're sitting in a tent and there are F-16s and drones in the sky that could drop a bomb and kill you, and you're sitting there for twelve hours and there is no food, there is no water. What do you do?I was listening in the background when Samah, six years old, was in a tent with my mother-in-law in Gaza City. She was crying. She said, ‘I want to eat. I'm hungry. I'm hungry.’ And then my mother-in-law told her, ‘Samah, just be patient. When it's sunset, we will have some food. Just try to drink some water.’Little babies had to fast for twelve or fifteen hours because the fathers and the brothers are outside looking for food knowing that they could not come back with anything or they could not come back at all.A takeaway that was highlighted in both interviews was what we could do to help, not just as journalists, activists, poets, or doctors, but as people in our everyday lives. Mohamed explains:I don't think it's okay for people not to talk about this. When I say people, I mean the general public. People who are going to work, watching Netflix, going out to the theatre, whatever. In years to come, being silent on this issue is going to be something people will really, really regret. The fact that we should at least have spoken about this.We should be talking about it everywhere, at work, at schools, wherever, to say this is not acceptable. And so at the very least, we can all say, ‘look, we spoke up against this. We did as much as we could do for this issue, and we tried our best.’ I think everybody should be able to say that.Thank you for supporting independent media. Help us tell

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:Larry Charles, who’s worked on some of comedy’s most influential and successful projects, from Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm to Borat and Bruno to The Arsenio Hall Show, tells everything about his forty years of blood, guts, and laughter in the new book Comedy Samurai.Including the juicy stuff, which he shares with us on Useful Idiots: as an activist against genocide and for Palestinian rights, what is it like to work with notorious Zionists Jerry Seinfeld, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Bill Maher? And as a Jewish writer in Hollywood, how did he escape the Israel propaganda machine when his friends didn’t?Useful Idiots: You're very political. Do you ever struggle with making sure your politics don't get in the way of comedy?Larry Charles: Well, I think my bottom line is it needs to be funny. And I bet I've been exploring that relationship between things that aren't supposed to be funny that I would then rise to the challenge of trying to make funny. And of course, political issues are amongst them.Working on Fridays as my first job plunged us into the political world. Some sketches were more successful than others in terms of funniness and/or in terms of insight, but we were not at all censored. And I never have felt since that time that I was censored in terms of exploring politics through comedy. I love the idea of trying to bring those two worlds together, even when they're not on the surface supposedly funny, because there's always an angle.I was a big political cartoonist fan and I did political cartoons in high school. So I've always been looking for that juxtaposition, that interesting synthesis between politics and humor.Useful Idiots: You have visited Palestine, and you've been very vocal on the issue, especially since Israel started attacking Gaza after October seventh. Now, you've worked with some people who have made some of the most influential comedies ever: on Seinfeld with Jerry Seinfeld, Borat and Bruno with Sacha Baron Cohen, and others too who have very different views than you when it comes to the issue of Palestine. I'm curious how you navigate that, how incredibly creative partnerships can not transcend to being in alignment on really fundamental political issues.Larry Charles: The propaganda machine is able to seduce you, you get sucked in very easily. And you believe that Israel is your birthright. And those kinds of things were not questioned at all when I was a kid. And I'm sure for Bill Maher or for Jerry or for

Useful Idiots is an audience-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:We have another Useful Idiots Double Header this week: former CIA officer and whistleblower of the CIA’s torture program John Kiriakou on the Jeffrey Epstein hoopla; and Visiting Assistant Professor at Clark University’s Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Marta Havryshko, on why she believes that Ukraine is becoming a dictatorship.First up is John Kiriakou, the only person to serve jail time for the CIA’s illegal torture program. He didn’t participate in the program, he only committed the crime of telling the public about it.Now, John is focusing his sleuthing skills on the Jeffrey Epstein case. If anyone’s got the dirt, it’s John Kiriako.Useful Idiots: You said that you feel material was probably destroyed. Can you elaborate on that?John Kiriakou: At the CIA, even though there are laws like the Federal Records Act, which specifically says you cannot destroy documents, they destroy documents all the time.After Congress specifically told the Director of Central Intelligence that he had to preserve the MKUltra documents, he went back to headquarters and they destroyed eighty percent of the tens of thousands of pages of documents that they had. So now we don't really know what is true about MKUltra.Same thing at the CIA with the torture videos. As soon as word leaked that there were videos of Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed being tortured, [CIA Director] Gina Haspel put them in an industrial grinder and destroyed them.So why would we think that the FBI would be any different, especially when it comes to allegations that some of the most powerful and some of the wealthiest men in the world are implicated in the scandal? I could absolutely see the FBI destroying documents.Useful Idiots: What is the relationship between Epstein and Israel? And what do we know about who was on the plane, and who engaged in sex crimes?John Kiriakou: Alexander Auctions of Maryland got the Epstein Black Book. They didn't say who had it, but they put it up for auction. It has everybody in it. Why in the world would that be in private hands? Why is that not in the FBI, being investigated and poured over? Why are the the manifests for the Lolita Express not being poured over? Why are they not questioning every single person who flew to the island?The real question in my mind is who was Epstein working for? And I've thought about this a lot. I can only conclude that

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:Is Donald Trump afraid of Zohran Mamdani?This week we’re chatting with two journalists who have followed Mamdani’s campaigns since 2020: Ted Hamm, whose new book Run Zohran Run! looks inside Zohran Mamdani’s sensational campaign to become New York City’s first Democratic Socialist mayor, and Liza Featherstone, a journalist at Jacobin who focuses on student and labor activism.We hear their takes on why Trump and the establishment are getting nervous about the rise of Mamdani, and why this could harvest success in November’s election, but also danger and threats from both Democrats and Republicans for the young mayor candidate.Here is an excerpt of their take. Subscribe to hear Ted and Liza’s full analysis of the NYC mayor race and its national implications:I'm pretty optimistic that a lot of the attacks on Zoran and the failure of the Democratic leadership to stand up for him and get behind him, even though he is overwhelmingly the Democratic nominee, in many ways actually help him. Just because I think that people are mad.And the crazy attacks by the Trump administration on Zoran worry me a lot because they could just arrest him and send him to El Salvador.And so I'm honestly more concerned about that in some ways than the election. Because I think their threats to deport him are so outrageous. The things they say about him are so appallingly racist. This is New York City! I think people are really offended by all of that. But great instincts of a body or a population can exist, they just have to be organized into being.This great consensus behind Zoran has been organized into being, and I think it's going to be really hard for them to stop it.Subscribe to hear the full interview where Liza and Ted discuss whether Cuomo even wants to be NYC Mayor, proof of how the NY Post manufactures outrage against Zohran, and if a Mayor Mamdani could have any real success making New York affordable with government-run grocery stores and rent freezes.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Aaron Maté & Katie Halper Demand Meeting with “Fraudfather” ADL CEO Jonathan GreenblattThanks for supporting independent media. Subscribe for the full interviews here:

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:The US-Israel-Iran conflict is changing fast with civilian strikes, ceasefire talks, sneak attacks, and coverups. And Western media is as war-mongering and dishonest as they have been since the beginning of the genocide and were during the Iraq War. Narges Bajoghli, Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, helps sheds light on the reality in Iran and parse through the propaganda.Useful Idiots: The big debate right now in Washington is the Trump administration claiming, ‘Yeah, we basically obliterated Iran's nuclear program.’ And the media saying, ‘No, you didn't.’ And that's the debate, not whether the U.S. had the right to do that, or whether it was right for Trump to pretend to engage in diplomacy just to help Israel kill a bunch of people in Iran, including many civilians. As you're watching all this unfold in Washington, what is your sense of what is missing from the public discussion?Narges Bajoghli: First of all, this was an unprovoked war that Israel launched inside of Iran. And as much as the framing around it by mainstream media was that Israel was just targeting military infrastructure, military officials, and nuclear facilities, from day one they were targeting civilian infrastructure. Lots of civilians ended up losing their lives in this twelve day war that we had. So the erasure of that and the focus on the civilian infrastructure in Israel, that is important to pay attention to.The other is that we still talk about nuclear energy as if nuclear energy can only be used to create a bomb. Not only did the IAEA and all US intel agencies say that they had no evidence that Iran was going for a bomb. But what we were not discussing is that nuclear energy is actually used for medical research, it's used for cancer research, it's used for electricity, it's civilian infrastructure. And so targeting civilian infrastructure in this way actually violates international law.Useful Idiots: There's a lot of talk right now about a ceasefire. Is there a ceasefire?Narges Bajoghli: So far, there's a ceasefire in the sense that both sides have ceased firing at one another. Trump’s base turned against him so publicly, so loudly that he could not risk starting another war or else he would have to risk losing his base. So it seems like he's put some pressure on the Israelis as well. But Israel is not known for abiding by and honoring ceasefires. I think to date with the ceasefire in Lebanon, it's already violated it over a thousand times. So I know that there's a lot of trepidation about how long this will actually hold. But for the moment, this is where we are.Subscribe to hear the full interview with Narges Bajoghli on the impact of US sanctions on working people in Iran, whether sanctions should be considered a war crime, what we can predict about Iran by analyzing the regime change operation in Syria, and a weird CNN propaganda video fear-mongering about Iranian sleeper cells in the US.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Trump Thinks He’s Hotter Than Zohran MamdaniThanks for supporting independent media. Subscribe for the full interviews here:

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Watch our full, unpaywalled interviews with Sina Toossi and Negar Razavi here:As Israel ramps up its Trump-backed, unprovoked war on Iran, warmongering U.S. politicians, Western media, and the “experts” they turn to are revealing that they have no idea what they’re talking about.So we at Useful Idiots decided to do something crazy and interview people who actually do know what they’re talking about: Iranian-American analyst and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy Sina Toossi and Iranian-American Associate Research Scholar at Princeton University's Iran and Persian Gulf Center Negar Razavi. We are releasing them unpaywalled so their messages can be heard.Useful Idiots: What do you think is the most important thing for people to know right now about what is happening [with Iran, Israel, and the United States]?Sina Toossi: This is a completely unnecessary, unjustified war. It is objectively a war of aggression on Israel's part. Iran had just done five rounds of negotiations with Trump, and Trump was adamant that he wanted a deal. And all of a sudden, they're surprise-attacking Iran. So this is a war of choice.This could be potentially catastrophic for American interests and stability in the Middle East and the world. And it is entirely due to the recklessness and impunity by which the Israeli government has been acting.Useful Idiots: I want to show you a headline from the New York Times. This is just shocking: “Israeli strikes kill civilians across Iran.” After a year and a half of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, a headline like this, just a straightforward, factual headline that applies agency to Israel as it kills civilians is a rarity. It's almost unheard of. What are your thoughts on this and the overall media climate in this Israeli assault on Iran?Negar Razavi: The fact that we are all shocked by this headline is in itself shocking. We have come to expect the mainstream media to always center Israeli lives when they are lost and to always put the losses of Palestinian lives, Lebanese lives, Yemeni lives, and now Iranian lives in the passive tense. They have somehow died without the aggressor being named.The fact that this was just given straightforward, and then they took one step further and interviewed fifty people inside Iran to actually add some texture to those losses and tell the stories of the people who have been killed, this is unprecedented. And the fact that we are starting with this and remarking on how exceptional it is in itself, it tells us a lot about the Iran discussion and the Iran debate.Useful Idiots: Here's a video of Netanyahu: “The nation of Iran and the nation of Israel have been true friends since the days of Cyrus the Great. And the time has come for you to stand up for your freedom from an evil and oppressive regime. This is your opportunity to stand up and let your voices be heard. Woman, life, freedom. Zan, Zendegi, Azadi. Israel's fight is not with you, the brave people of Iran, whom we respect and admire. Our fight is with our common enemy, a murderous regime that both oppresses you and impoverishes you. Brave people of Iran, your light will defeat the darkness. I am with you.”Okay, so I know it's laughable. I heard you laughing. It's like we're watching a standup routine. But what are your thoughts on this [standup] set?Sina Toossi: It's ISIS with nukes with the backing of the entire West: They're religious fanatics, they engage in genocidal slaughter, they're trying to destabilize the region. I don't think there's that much moral difference between what they're doing.And so Netanyahu right now is acting like he's liberating Iranian women. I saw a tweet that said that they're liberating Iranian women from their lives.Check out the full episode, completely free. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe for more extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and other bonus content.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Trump Outsources Iran WMD Lies to Israel This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:Hours after we spoke to Johns Hopkins Professor of Advanced International Studies Vali Nasr, Israel killed multiple Iranian military officials in a strike against “Iranian nuclear sites.” Both Israel and the United States threatened “even more brutal” attacks to come.Professor Nasr, whose latest book is Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History, explains why Israel benefits from attacking Iran, and why they can’t do it without US assistance and consent.Useful Idiots: Are you expecting some sort of military strike from Israel against Iran?Professor Vali Nasr: I don't think Israel is actually able to take out Iran's nuclear facilities on its own without US assistance. It could perhaps hit Iran and then hope the Iranians would retaliate and then bring the United States into a war with Iran. But even in order to get to Iran, Israel cannot surprise the US. It has to go through US radar lines. This idea that Israel would attack Iran on its own without telling the United States, without US cooperation or US support, is just not credible.Useful Idiots: From Iran's perspective, can you explain why enrichment is a red line? Why they insist on what they see as their right to enrich and how they would respond to an argument from the outside saying, ‘Why can't you meet your energy needs through some other means that doesn't include enrichment, which could put you one day on the path to a nuclear weapon?’Professor Nasr: They view it as an inherent right. To say that Iran does not have a right to enrich is basically singling out Iran as a special case in the international community. There are other signatories to the non-proliferation treaty agreement, which also enriched uranium. So the Iranians are basically saying, ‘We're happy to give you inspections, we're happy to be transparent with the inspections, but this is an inherent right.’Secondly, the Iranians have spent billions of dollars over two decades building essentially an industrial capacity enrichment program. And it's now very much embedded in Iran's economy with tons of companies, businesses, et cetera, tied to it. And thirdly, I think they believe that if they gave up enrichment, the United States would not abide by any deal that is signed. They have zero trust in the US, particularly given that this is the very president who walked away from the previous deal. What guarantee do they have that after they gave up all of their enrichment that any country will supply them with their fuel? And then the United States says, ‘OK, we took everything out of Iran. Now let's renege on the deal like last time, reimpose maximum pressure sanctions on them, and then go after the regime.’So for varieties of reasons, they don't think it's a good idea to give up the right to enrich. And that's their red line.Subscribe to hear the full interview with Professor Vali Nasr on the validity of the claim that Iran’s aim is to destroy Israel, whether Iranian tensions would cease if Palestinians were freed from Israeli occupation, and the true nature of Iran’s relationship with Russia and China.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Trump Claims No One Wants to Protest His Birthday Parade (but threatens them just in case)Thanks for supporting independent media. Subscribe for the full interviews here:

Useful Idiots is an audience-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:On this week’s show, you’re getting two scoops.It’s a Useful Idiots double header, with former CIA Agent Barry Eisler, who left the CIA to become a spy-thriller novelist (get his latest book The System at barryeisler.com), and Ben & Jerry’s Cofounder Ben Cohen, who was arrested recently for interrupting RFK Jr.’s congressional testimony to protest US funding of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.First, Barry Eisler explains his role as a covert operative in the CIA, and the truth it taught him about American tribalist politics.I spent three years in a covert position in the CIA. It taught me a lot about the culture and machinations of the U.S. government and what some call the deep state. And it became great fodder for a guy who then went on to become a full-time thriller writer.What I found there is in some ways a microcosm of tribalism politics in America. And it's this.A lot of people think, ‘oh, is it a bunch of liberals there? Or is it a bunch of conservatives?’ But the fundamental, underlying, and much more meaningful political culture in the CIA is the belief that ‘Hey, America is a force for good in the world. And everything we do, whether it's traditional espionage or shading off into coups or even invasions and occupations, that's all just to make the world a better place.’It's that more fundamental thing where they really believe that America is a force for good in the world and that our mistakes are just innocent mistakes, rather than something much more nefarious.Subscribe for the full interview with Barry Eisler, where we discuss Russiagate from a CIA perspective, watch Palantir’s Alex Karp let slip that his AI kills people, and the connection Barry’s spy thrillers have to Aaron’s nonfiction writing.Next we talk to Ben Cohen, cofounder of Ben & Jerry’s.After disrupting a Senate testimony from RFK Jr. to protest US funding of weapons for Israel’s mass assault on Gaza, he was hauled out by police and arrested. He explains why he did it:Everybody has their breaking point. I was reading about the slaughter of all these innocent children in Gaza. And then I read another article in the paper about another outbreak of lead poisoning in Milwaukee. Lead poisoning creates irreversible brain damage and there's nothing you can do about it.And we know how to prevent it! It's chipping lead paint and lead in plumbing pipes and we could fix it, for a minuscule five percent of the Pentagon budget!And so those two things: we’re making a conscious decision to provide the bombs as a gift to Israel that they use to kill kids in Gaza. And we're kicking kids off Medicaid and not preventing lead poisoning, an easily preventable permanent disease.So I said, I’ve got to make my voice heard. I’ve got to take the most serious action that a citizen can take, which is an act of civil disobedience. And so that's what I did. Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Ukraine Proxy Warriors Have Second Thoughts about WWIIIThanks for supporting independent media. Subscribe for the full interviews here:

Join Katie in Vienna at the first Jewish Anti-Zionist Congress on June 13-15: https://www.juedisch-antizionistisch.at/enUseful Idiots is an audience-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

Watch the full, unpaywalled interview with Muhammad Shehada here:Palestinian writer and analyst Muhammad Shehada returns to Useful Idiots once again to give an update on Gaza, Israel’s cynical and sordid fake aid scheme, and how the US is benefitting from keeping the genocide going.Useful Idiots: Among countless Israeli atrocities in Gaza, there was the emergence of this so-called aid mechanism, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, basically an Israeli front group setting up a site in Southern Gaza to give meager amounts of aid to Palestinians desperate for food. We saw these horrific scenes that were reminiscent of the Nazi Holocaust, people caged, people being fired at, Palestinians reportedly being kidnapped while going to wait for this aid. What should people know about this whole fake aid mechanism?Muhammad Shehada: To put it mildly, if you combine together the movies Mad Max, Fallout, Minority Report, and Black Mirror, you would get exactly this scenario. It's basically a fenced concentration camp that is run by American mercenaries surrounded by the IDF. They established a number of checkpoints leading up to these concentration camps. Whenever I ask any friend in Gaza, ‘Would you go there?’ they said, ‘You would have to be completely out of your mind to step a foot into that trap.’ They saw it as bait rather than anything to do with humanitarian aid, because to get there, you have to cross a number of Israeli checkpoints where you can be kidnapped or detained at any moment without any explanation. And that's the last your family would ever hear of you.Useful Idiots: Why did Israel create the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation?Muhammad Shehada: The way this organization functions, it establishes four heavily militarized fenced hubs or concentration camps, all in the very south of Gaza. This is the most obvious exploitation of food as a way of luring people away from northern Gaza, as a way of forcible transfer, or mass expulsion. And it coincides with them saying that they have plans to conquer all of Gaza and concentrate the entire population beyond the Morag corridor, basically on the borders with Egypt.Another concern is the clear risk of mass internment. And that is something that the United Nations and every single humanitarian organization has warned member states: Do not fund this ploy. Do not fund this Israeli shield organization.They explicitly say there is a clear, credible risk of mass internment in which Israel would confine people in inhumane conditions, in fenced cages. What we saw in pictures, basically people being herded like cattle into feeding pens under the boiling sun of the desert, surrounded by sand dunes and IDF tanks and troops and mercenaries, waiting endlessly. Either you get a package of food, or you get shot dead, or you get kidnapped, or you get maimed.Useful Idiots: What are you hearing from your friends and family who are still in Gaza?Muhammad Shehada: I get messages everyday from colleagues, from family, from friends, literally begging me for an answer. When is this coming to an end? Is there any hope soon?And I try to make up things. I try to give them some false hope from time to time. But I ran out after twenty months of telling them, ‘Okay, Netanyahu's government is about to collapse.’ ‘The EU is about to speak up.’ ‘Trump might be convinced otherwise.’ And then they see it ten times not happening. I lost words. The worst sentence that I can say to someone in Gaza is ‘stay safe.’ It feels insensitive, obtuse, and cruel. It's like mocking them because there's literally nothing to do to stay safe.Everyday I see another report where someone walking on the street got hit in the head with a loose shot fired by Israel or someone got hit by shrapnel. And with all of this, the worst part is to know that there's no end in sight. I had a conversation with an Israeli journalist recently. I asked her, “If Hamas is dismantled, the hostages are returned, and Gaza is fully disarmed, would Israel lift the blockade on Gaza?” And her response was, “You think that Israel would feel safe living next to Gazans after everything we've done to them? Now they have a revenge incentive.”Our full discussion with Muhammad is unpaywalled. Help spread his important message by sharing this interview, and follow Muhammad on Twitter @muhammadshehad2Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: CNN Claims ‘Free Palestine’ Protests CAUSED Israeli Embassy Staffers ShootingUseful Idiots is an audience-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:Two Israeli Embassy staffers were shot and killed on Wednesday evening by a man who yelled “Free Palestine.” The man allegedly wrote a manifesto, and it isn’t clear yet what his motives are, his mental state, if he was a lone actor, or as our guest today puts it: “crazy.”That guest is Useful Idiots fan-favorite Professor Norman Finkelstein, who gives his analysis of the shooting, beginning with a historical connection he made in his initial reaction.Useful Idiots: Let's start with the top news in the US: the shooting of two Israeli embassy officials outside an event in Washington, DC. What we know so far is that the alleged shooter chanted Free Palestine. There's also a manifesto that's been purported to be written by him, although we haven't confirmed that. With so much going on in Gaza, atrocities day by day, it feels a little inhuman to talk about two deaths in Washington when there's thousands of deaths going on in Gaza. But what is your reaction?Norman Finkelstein: Well, my first reaction is that you have to have the facts and make a careful evaluation on the basis of the facts. When I first read about it this morning, I thought it had occurred at the Israeli consulate. And I assumed it was a Palestinian who had committed the action. And my first reaction was to remember the [Polish Jewish] fellow Herschel Grynszpan, who assassinated the second-level diplomat in the German legation in Paris in 1938.He reacted in sheer horror at what was being done to the Jews. And he did an act. Of course, the Germans called it an act of terrorism, and that's what triggered Kristallnacht. I'm not aware of any [historians] who condemned him for the act, even though you could say it was not a very smart thing to do because it triggered Kristallnacht.So that was my initial reaction. But then that turned out to be wrong because of two things. It didn't occur in the Israeli consulate. It occurred in front of a Jewish museum in Washington. And secondly, it's unclear at this point whether the alleged perpetrator was even aware that these two people worked in the Israeli consulate. So that throws a large number of variables into the equation. There seems to be this big disconnect between a sophisticated manifesto and a fellow just going randomly in front of a Jewish museum in Washington and attempting to assassinate two people who presumably he thought were Jewish.So everything remains foggy now. I would say for me, the bottom line is it could have been a nutty guy. That's always possible. It could be a smart guy with a crazy project. It could be a crazy guy with a crazy project.Useful Idiots: Let’s talk about Israel itself. You have Israeli politicians openly talking about how every baby in Gaza is our enemy. And unfortunately, these views are widely held. What are your thoughts on Israel right now in terms of its place as a unique society on the spectrum of lunacy, of collective insanity in the same way that Nazi Germany was an example of outright collective insanity? Where do you situate Israel in that right now?Norman Finkelstein: All the demons in Israeli society, which they had to repress, all the demons rose to the surface after October 7: they had moral license to publicly espouse. It was there. If you scratch the surface with any Israeli, their loathing and contempt for Arabs in general and Gazans in particular, it was there. So there was a veneer of being civilized and what October 7 did was it enabled the Israelis to free themselves from that veneer and for all the demons to rise to the surface.On the other hand, I would say Israelis, unlike Nazi Germany, don't have the pretense or the pretext that they didn't know what was happening. Now, I'm not saying Germans didn't know. They may not have known about the death camps. They knew about the concentration camps. Did they know about the systematic extermination? There is debate about that.In Israel, everybody knows. Israel has the highest usage of the Internet of any country on Earth. The Israelis were posting on social media what they were doing. The Israeli soldiers were posting and boasting of what they were doing. Every Israeli knew and knows exactly what's happening. What has happened since October 7, it is incorrect to describe it as a state project. That's incorrect. It's a national project.Every poll taken since October 7 has shown that roughly 95% of Israelis believe that Israel is using enough or too little force in Gaza. I do think that at least in the current world, let's say since World War Two, this is in a class all its own. The sheer numbers, since the twenty-first century, it's unique in every category. There's just nothing like it.Subscribe to hear the full interview with Norman Finkelstein – 50 MINUTES longer. Norman reveals the “main enabler” of the genocide, calls out the New Y

Thanks for supporting independent media. Your subscription keeps us going. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:During Trump’s weird Middle East trip this week, in between fawning over US-labeled terrorists, receiving lavish gifts, and spilling the tea on his cute new crush, he made an interesting speech that perked up the ears of anti-war activists.“A new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflicts and forging a future where…people of different nations, religions, and creeds are building cities together, not bombing each other out of existence. We don't want that.And it's crucial for the wider world to know this great transformation has not come from Western interventionists or flying people in beautiful planes giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs.No. The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neocons, or liberal non-profits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Kabul, Baghdad, so many other cities. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves.”We spoke with award-winning journalist and media critic Sana Saeed to ask: Is any of this actually true? Will Trump really end the era of neocons, and does his refusal to include Israel on this trip signify a change in policy? Subscribe to hear our full conversation with Sana, and find a preview of our talk above.Useful Idiots: What are your thoughts on Trump's recent visit to the Middle East and the idea that this is a new era, that Trump is circumventing both neocons and Israel, and that things are really shifting?Sana Saeed: Israel is not on the back burner. Even Trump himself has said everything that's happening here is actually good for Israel. This whole idea that Trump is no longer interested in Israel as an ally is an interesting thing to say as we still continue to aid the bombs that rip apart Palestinian families in Gaza. Palestinians continue to be starved by the Israeli government, backed and supported by the U.S. government. And we continue to see the repression of speech, pro-Palestine speech, anti-genocide speech, here in the United States.And so people are really missing what is happening here: Zionists are not being pushed to the side. They're being brought back in, but it's going to be through a way which is normalized and clandestine initially. Just give it a few weeks, maybe a month, and it's going to be obvious what's going on.Useful Idiots: Trump said interventionists and neocons have not helped free the Middle East. And that's the extent of his critique of them. He doesn't, for example, explicitly call them out for destroying societies by invading them like the Iraq invasion. He said we don't want bombing in the Middle East but he's supporting bombing people out of existence in Gaza. It doesn't sound to me like the sea change that some people are taking from this.Sana Saeed: I'm old enough to remember when President Obama gave the Cairo speech. He was saying what the future of the region could look like, what the relationship between the United States and Middle Eastern countries could look like. I think words are nice, sure, but nothing that Trump is actually saying is accurate.We have to understand that intervention is not simply military. Intervention looks like a lot of different things, including economic intervention. Trump is saying ‘no Western intervention, no nation builders coming in and telling you how to run your countries.’ That's also a very clear message that we're not going to tell you how to treat your citizens. We're not going to tell you how to treat the dissidents in your countries. We're not going to tell you what to do with all these weapons that we're selling to you and giving to you. We're not going to tell you to do any of that because so long as we have a business agreement, we're good. So long as you've normalized with Israel, we're good.The purpose is to assure regional Gulf allies, in particular the UAE and Saudi Arabia, that don't worry, we’re not coming for you on human rights abuses. We're just interested in the bottom dollar line. I get the desire for excitement, but we have to remember that these countries are not allies on our side either. If our side is anti-imperialist, is anti-genocide, is for Palestinian liberation, these are not the countries that are on that side.Subscribe to hear the full interview with Sana Saeed on how the New York Times skillfully justified Israel bombing a hospital this week, a media critic’s guide to reading an IDF propaganda tweet, and an explanation of the unfolding conflict between Israel-backed India and Pakistan.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Meet Trump's Awkward New CrushThanks for supporting independent media. Subscribe for the full episode here:

Join our fundraiser to support MECA, the Middle East Children’s Alliance which is organizing aid for children in Gaza. Click on the video link above and find the Donate button on the right side of the page.Thanks for supporting Useful Idiots and independent media. Your support keeps us going! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

Watch our full, unpaywalled interview with Freedom Flotilla organizers Huwaida Arraf and Thiago Ávila here:The Conscience, a civilian ship that is part of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was attempting to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza when it was was attacked by drones last week. Greta Thunberg, who was scheduled to board the ship on its way to Gaza, as well as organizers of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and Israeli media, blamed Israel for the attack. Israel, for its part, has not denied responsibility.We spoke with Freedom Flotilla organizers Huwaida Arraf and Thiago Ávila who explain the mission of the Conscience, describe the attack, and their commitment to breaking the ilegal and inhumane siege on Gaza.Useful Idiots: There were calls from the ship during the attack. Were you guys scared at this point that people were potentially going to die?Huwaida Arraf: We lost contact with them for many hours and we knew that the ship was bombed and that it was taking on water. So we were very concerned. We organized people to take a couple of boats and sail out to them, but they were prevented from reaching them twice. The Maltese authorities prevented them from reaching the ship. We were pressuring the Maltese authorities to let them get the people off the ship. And the requests continue to be inexplicably denied.The vessel right now is still in the place where it was bombed. We are still asking the Maltese authorities to let us in. But the crew all remains on the ship for now.Useful Idiots: Have you confirmed that this drone attack was carried out by Israel?Thiago Ávila: It has come to light that just hours before Israel bombed our ship, there was an Israeli military plane in Maltese airspace that flew right over the area where the ship was bombed before going back to Israel. And there are a lot of other factors that indicate that there are other countries that knew.We have a situation where not only is the United States obviously fully on board with what Israel is doing and enabling it, but other countries are not only not living up to their obligations under international law, but they're also hampering civilian efforts to do something about it. People should ask themselves ‘why should civilians try to organize a boat and aid and try to confront the Israeli military to make their way into Gaza which is illegally besieged like this, when countries should be doing this?’ But not only are countries not putting aid on ships and insisting on getting into Gaza, they are doing Israel's work by trying to sabotage our efforts.Huwaida also recalls being on another ship in 2010 which suffered a lethal attack from Israel that killed nine humanitarians.Huwaida Arraf: The reason why the flotillas exist is because the people of Gaza are suffering a genocide and they're under illegal Israeli blockade for eighteen years. And now for more than two months without a single bottle of water entering Gaza. So that's why people are not with their families here on the flotilla, because we are here for a purpose, to serve as a solidarity mission to the Palestinian people.Watch our full, unpaywalled talk with the Freedom Flotilla organizers where we watch video of the crew during the attack, Thiago explains the role that President Lula’s Brazil has in Israel’s destruction of Gaza, and Huwaida lays out a plan for their next attempt to get aid past the siege.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Here’s What We Found Inside Harvard’s Antisemitism ReportUseful Idiots is an audience-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

Useful Idiots is an audience-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:The new podcast Dystopia Now, hosted by comedian Kate Willett and philosopher Émile Torres, has been unveiling a disturbing new story from the tech world that comes straight out of The Matrix. It involves transhumanism, a tech-bro update to eugenics, in which billionaires can digitize their minds with AI, transcending humanity and achieving immortality.If this sounds disturbing, just wait until you hear our full chat with Kate and Émile.Useful Idiots: Can you define transhumanism?Émile Torres: The key idea is this techno-utopian vision. And transhumanism is this ideology that says we ought to develop advanced technologies to radically re-engineer the human organism, ultimately creating a new and supposedly superior post-human species. Elon Musk is a transhumanist. His company Neuralink is all about merging our brains with AI. Mark Zuckerberg is a transhumanist. Peter Thiel has invested millions and millions of dollars into radical longevity research. The goal then would be to attain immortality.Useful Idiots: Can you talk about network states?Kate Willett: They wanted to have these little anarcho-capitalist communities. It was all about getting out of the United States to do this. But what seems to have changed recently is that a lot of these billionaire dudes seem to have decided that maybe the best way for them to realize their illiberal, anti-democratic vision of running the government more like a business is making the United States that versus leaving. Curtis Yarvin talks about this idea he calls RAGE: Retire All Government Employees. And now we have DOGE, which is also a four-letter acronym for getting rid of the administrative state. It just seems like these dudes are making a lot of progress. Their previous vision was leaving somewhere and having these little tech utopias, network states. Now they're trying to do it here.Émile Torres: DOGE seems to be RAGE in action.Useful Idiots: What are some of the craziest, scariest ideologies, that come out of this movement?Émile Torres: The one thing I would want people to know is that part of what it means for us to bring about utopia, to transition from our current human era to this paradisiacal post-human era, is for our species to be disempowered, marginalized, or eliminated. I think that at the heart of this ideology is a pro-extinctionist view. They say once we create post-humans, our digital successors, then we should bow out. Because we're just going to be inferior beings that are using up valuable resources on Earth. So really, at the heart of this idea is this eschatological end times vision that we're going to transition from a biological world to a digital world. And our species is going to disappear.Subscribe for the full interview with Kate and Émile where we discuss the pseudo-utopian autocratic book Abundance by the New York Times’ Ezra Klein and the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson, how older billionaires are cryogenically freezing themselves to be revived once the immortality AI is ready, why that tech may be ready a lot sooner than we think, and what the relationship is between transhumanism and Zionism.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Morning Joe Comes Out as a Bernie BroThanks for supporting independent media. Subscribe for the full episode here:

Useful Idiots is an audience-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe