The Democratic Party has lost to Donald Trump and MAGA twice, and is continuing to lose working-class voters by clinging to corporate power, militarism, and a leadership class increasingly disconnected from its base. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Norman Solomon about his new book, The Blue Road to Trump Hell, and the reality that the right can only be stopped by both confronting Democratic failures and rebuilding a grassroots politics rooted in class, peace, and social movements.


Guests

• Norman Solomon is the cofounder of RootsAction.org, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, and the author of numerous books, including War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death; War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of the Military Machine; and The Blue Road to Trump Hell: How Corporate Democrats Paved the Way for Autocracy.

Credits

• Producer: Rosette Sewali
• Studio Production: David Hebden
• Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

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With Cuba’s electric grid collapsing this week, the inhumane results of the Trump administration’s oil blockade continue to pile up and strangle Cuba and its people. In this urgent episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with American activist and co-founder of CODEPINK Medea Benjamin about her latest trip to Cuba, the extent of the devastation caused by the US-imposed blockade, and the twisted motivations behind it. 

Medea Benjamin will be sailing to bring humanitarian aid to Cuba with the Nuestra América Flotilla on March 21, 2026. 

Guests:

• Medea Benjamin is co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace. She is the author or co-author of numerous books, including: War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict; Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran; and Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control. 

Additional links/info: 

• Democracy Now!, “Report from Havana as Trump threatens to “take” Cuba & pushes for ouster of Cuban leader”
• Michael Fox, Under the Shadow / TRNN, “Trump’s war on Cuba: Crisis made in the USA | Under the Shadow S2E7”
• Marc Steiner, The Marc Steiner Show / TRNN, “SOS: The US is manufacturing a humanitarian crisis in Cuba”

Credits:

• Producer: Rosette Sewali
• Studio Production: David Hebden
• Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

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President Trump’s catastrophic decision to plunge the US into a war with Iran is following a depressingly familiar playbook to those who lived through—and those who served in—the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with military veteran, author, and peace activist Rory Fanning—who served two tours in combat as an Army Ranger in Afghanistan—about the reality of what the US military has done in the Middle East, and about the veterans who are speaking out against the US-Israeli war with Iran. 

Guests:

• Rory Fanning is a war resister, military counter recruiter, and writer living in Chicago, IL. Fanning served two deployments with the Second Army Ranger Battalion in Afghanistan, and he is the author of Worth Fighting For: An Army Ranger's Journey Out of the Military and Across America. 

Credits:

• Producer: Rosette Sewali
• Studio Production: David Hebden
• Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-marc-steiner-show--4661751/support.

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Urged on by Israel and neocon war hawks, President Trump has brought the US to the verge of a war with Iran, amassing more American military forces in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Trita Parsi, co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, about the disastrous ramifications such a war would have—and what options remain to avoid it. 

Guests:

• Trita Parsi is an Iranian-born Swedish writer and policy analyst and the co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He is an award-winning author and the 2010 recipient of the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. He is an expert on US-Iranian relations, Iranian foreign policy, and the geopolitics of the Middle East. He has authored four books on US foreign policy in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Iran and Israel. 

Additional links/info:

• Trita Parsi, Common Dreams, “How does this end? Even a ‘small’ US strike on Iran by Trump would be disastrous”
• Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “Jeremy Scahill: Prospects for avoiding US-Iran war ‘remain fragile’”

Credits:

• Producer: Rosette Sewali
• Studio Production: David Hebden
• Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-marc-steiner-show--4661751/support.

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Bending to economic coercion and political pressure from the Trump administration, once-venerable institutions like Columbia University have compliantly become third-party collaborators in the assault on our constitutional rights. In this episode of the Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Amy E. Greer and Zal K. Shroff, two members of former Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil’s legal team, about how the persecution of Khalil and other Palestine solidarity protestors is reshaping the future of free speech in America.

Guests:

• Amy E. Greer is an associate attorney at Dratel & Lewis, and a member of Mahmoud Khalil’s legal team. Greer is a lawyer and archivist by training, and an advocate and storyteller by nature. As an attorney at Dratel & Lewis, she works on a variety of cases, including international extradition, RICO, terrorism, and drug trafficking. She previously served as an assistant public defender on a remote island in Alaska, defending people charged with misdemeanors, and as a research and writing attorney on capital habeas cases with clients who have been sentenced to death.
• Zal K. Shroff is an assistant professor at CUNY School of Law and director of the Equality & Justice In-House & Practice Clinic. Shroff is a civil rights lawyer and has been a lead attorney in more than two dozen impact cases across the United States spanning police and prosecutorial accountability, voting rights, First Amendment protest/political speech, race and religious discrimination, conditions of confinement, and poverty discrimination.

Additional links/info:

• Marc Steiner, The Marc Steiner Show / TRNN, “Trump’s government hasn’t won its case against Mahmoud Khalil—yet”
• Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “‘Call Amy!’: Lawyer for Mahmoud Khalil reveals how he won his freedom”

Credits:

• Producer: Rosette Sewali
• Studio Production: David Hebden
• Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-marc-steiner-show--4661751/support.

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The Trump administration is deliberately plunging Cuba into a national and humanitarian crisis, and the US-imposed blockade of oil imports is wreaking havoc on daily life for Cubans. In this urgent episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Cuban journalist and documentary filmmaker Liz Oliva Fernández about the unfolding nightmare in Cuba and what the international community can do to stop it.

Guest:

• Liz Oliva Fernández is a Cuban journalist with the outlet Belly of the Beast, and she is the presenter of documentary series The War on Cuba, for which she won a Gracie Award. Apart from her journalism and filmmaking, Oliva Fernández is a dedicated anti-racist and feminist activist.

Additional links/info:

• Belly of the Beast website, Facebook page, Instagram, and YouTube channel
• Belly of the Beast, The War on Cuba
• Al Jazeera Staff & Reuters, Al Jazeera, “Waste piles up in Cuba as US-imposed fuel blockade halts collection trucks”
• Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, ““Policy of aggression”: Cuba’s U.N. ambassador denounces U.S. oil blockade, push to topple government”

Credits:

• Producer: Rosette Sewali
• Studio Production: Cameron Granadino
• Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-marc-steiner-show--4661751/support.

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Hospitals in Gaza have been destroyed, medical supplies blocked, and doctors killed or detained—leaving children amputated without anesthesia, patients dying from infections, and families facing starvation and freezing conditions. Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle, Dr. Nidal Jboor, and Dr. Maysa Hawwash, founders of Doctors Against Genocide, explain what’s happening inside Gaza and the West Bank, why silence from governments and medical institutions is enabling mass death, and how doctors are organizing globally to end genocide.

Host: Marc Steiner
Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

Produced by The Real News Network

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-marc-steiner-show--4661751/support.

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The Third Circuit Court of Appeals handed the Trump administration a victory this month in its ongoing attempt to deport Syrian-born Palestinian activist, husband, father, and former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil. Khalil remains in the country for now and the legal battle is far from over, but the future of free speech in the US hangs in the balance. This week on The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Amy Greer, an associate attorney at Dratel & Lewis and a member of Mahmoud Khalil’s legal team, about the status of Khalil’s case.

Guest:

• Amy Greer is an associate attorney at Dratel & Lewis, and a member of Mahmoud Khalil’s legal team. Greer is a lawyer and archivist by training, and an advocate and storyteller by nature. As an attorney at Dratel & Lewis, she works on a variety of cases, including international extradition, RICO, terrorism, and drug trafficking. She previously served as an assistant public defender on a remote island in Alaska, defending people charged with misdemeanors, and as a research and writing attorney on capital habeas cases with clients who have been sentenced to death.

Additional links/info:

• ACLU Press Release (1/15/26): “Appeals court in Mahmoud Khalil’s case decides federal court lacks jurisdiction until immigration court proceedings complete”
• Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, “‘Call Amy!’: Lawyer for Mahmoud Khalil reveals how he won his freedom”

Credits:

• Production: David Hebden
• Post-Production: Stephen Frank

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-marc-steiner-show--4661751/support.

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The Trump administration has said that the “second phase” of the ceasefire in Gaza is now in effect, but the fire has yet to cease. “What's happening now is that we are still being settled silently, we are still being killed slowly, away from the world's cameras,” Eyad Amawi, a father living in Gaza and a representative of the Gaza Relief Committee, tells The Marc Steiner Show this week. “That's the real meaning of the ceasefire.”

Follow The Marc Steiner Show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Credits:
Studio Production: Cameron Granadino
Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-marc-steiner-show--4661751/support.

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Marc Steiner speaks with Geo Maher, abolitionist scholar and author of We Created Chávez: A People's History of the Venezuelan Revolution, about the untenable goals behind President Trump’s invasion of Venezuela, and what the US bid to reassert imperial dominance in the Western hemisphere reveals about its declining place on the global stage.

Additional links/info:

• Geo Maher Facebook page and Instagram
• Geo Maher, Duke University Press, “We Created Chávez: A People's History of the Venezuelan Revolution”
• Geo Maher, Verso Books, “Building the Commune: Radical Democracy in Venezuela”
• Mike Fox, Under the Shadow / The Real News Network, “The Americas will never be the same”

Credits:
Production: Cameron Granadino
Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-marc-steiner-show--4661751/support.

Follow The Marc Steiner Show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

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