Gerald Horne, Johnathan M. Katz join Paul Jay: Trump’s ICE killings in Minneapolis have exposed deep splits inside the Trump camp and among business and political elites, many who now see him as dangerously unstable for capitalism itself. These fractures create a rare opening: massive street protests and sustained organizing can push harder than ever, while progressives use the crisis to run bold anti‑ICE, pro‑worker campaigns and turn elite disunity into real electoral gains.

Mark Carney’s Davos speech was widely praised as a bold stand against the breakdown of the so-called “rules-based order” and the rise of naked great-power politics under Trump. But speeches do not change power relations. In this wide-ranging analysis, Paul Jay argues that Trump did not rupture the global order so much as strip away its cover—exposing a U.S. system in internal crisis, increasingly authoritarian at home and openly coercive abroad. From hemispheric dominance to trade war and militarization, Jay situates Canada inside that system: deeply embedded in U.S. military strategy, financial capitalism, and projects like missile defense and Arctic militarization. Without a break from those foundations, talk of sovereignty and middle-power independence risks becoming performance rather than substance. The issue is not tone, but whether Canada—and others—will challenge the economic and military structures of U.S. power, or merely bargain for a safer place within them.

Director Paul Jay discusses his upcoming documentary How to Stop a Nuclear War, featuring Daniel Ellsberg's final interviews before his death. In conversation with Cole Smith, a former Air Force nuclear missile operator, Jay explains why Ellsberg's journey from Cold War hawk to whistleblower provides the perfect lens for understanding our current nuclear crisis. The discussion covers Cold War lies, the risks of AI-controlled nuclear systems, and concrete steps toward disarmament, including phasing out ICBMs and ending launch-on-warning policies.

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Cole SmithIt's a privilege to be here, obviously, in a space that's strange for me because I used to work in these silos or ones that were very similar to these. For five years, I was a nuclear missile operator in the Air Force from 2012 to 2017, during which time many journalists, including Geoff Brumfiel, who's here somewhere, did fantastic reporting on some of the shortcomings of the missile force. Anyway, that's a whole other story.It does strike me after the last panel that what we've moved into after lunch is something that is sort of a tone shift in some ways. There's an old quote that you might have heard that a lot of people attribute to Damon of Athens, which is, "Show me the songs of a people, and I care not who writes the laws." I think in some ways, that is not to say that policy is not important, but that one of the ways that we have to move forward on this subject is through the stories that we tell.So, Paul, if you could begin by telling us where you're at with your film. If you could also just catch us up on how you came into your career to be a filmmaker on this subject.Paul JayHi. I think it's a brilliant idea to have the meeting here. Seeing that missile out there. I grew up at a time when I was... I have a young son, he's 13. He's actually up here. I made a deal with him. If he sat through all the panels, he gets to go trail riding in Bentonville.Cole SmithCan I get in on that deal?Paul JayAbsolutely. Please, because I won't get on a bike. He could use some company. So I was around his age during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I was well aware. I was into newspapers when I was six, seven years old, so I was as scared to death as everyone was during that time. By the time I was in high school, I had quit in grade 10 and never went to university because I was absolutely sure I'd be dead by the age of 20.It's interesting because my film features Daniel Ellsberg. When he worked at RAND Corporation, he was offered a pension, and he laughed and said, "I'm not putting money into a pension fund. We're not going to be here."But by the '90s and the end of the '90s, I was pretty much in as much denial about the risks of nuclear war as most others. Then, in around 2018, I read Dan Ellsberg's book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, and that book scared the shit out of me. I said to myself, "This is the most important book I've ever read in my life because of what's at stake." So, I interviewed Dan, and eventually he agreed that I could make a documentary film featuring him, and so the more I get into the topic, the more I realize how dangerous the moment is.Before we watch the trailer, I would like a promise from everyone. Of course, you're not going to make it, but I'm going to ask anyway. Can everyone please stop saying, since the end of the Cold War? It did not end. The Cold War wasn't just about the Soviet Union. The Cold War was about suppressing domestic dissent, weakening workers' unions. It was about exaggerating the external threat, whether it was the Soviet Union or now China.Listen to the rhetoric of President Trump. Is it different than McCarthy's? Is it different than the 1950s? How about Joe Biden saying he's going to defend Taiwan and risk nuclear war? How is that different than what we heard all throughout the Cold War? The Cold War didn't end. We are in the midst of it, and most of us are looking at the world through the filters that we were taught as children, a fabric of lie after lie after lie.If I had more time, I could give you the whole history of the lies, but Dan Ellsberg asked us with this film, he said directly, he said he thought we had the opportunity to do what the Pentagon Papers did, which is uncover the lies of the nuclear era. And then we also want to propose solutions, which you'll see a little bit teased in the trailer, because I am a clinical optimist. Every rational bone in my body says there's nothing to be very optimistic about, and we'd better face up to this.You know, the danger of the moment we're in, yes, since the Cuban Missile Crisis, and probably far more dangerous because maybe we'll talk a bit about AI. We're at a convergence of the existential threat of climate, the existential threat of nukes, we don't know about new pandemics, and the financial architecture. '07, '08, if you listen to the business community that really knows, '07, '08, it was a whisper of what's coming. It's all coming at the same time.So are we humans going to make it? Well, every rational bone in my body says, probably not. As I said, I'm a clinical optimist, and I really do think we can make it, but we'd better face up to this crazy fabric of bullshit that we swim in.Cole SmithTo pivot back to you, Paul, a trusted voice to me, and obviously to you as well, one of the most trusted voices in terms of patriotism to this country, for me, is Daniel Ellsberg. But one of the things that I come up against as a former nuclear missile operator is when I talk to people under a certain age and tell them what I used to do, they look at me like, "What are you... People still do that?"Not to be disrespectful, but Daniel Ellsberg may fall into that category as well for a lot of Americans, where it's become a name that means a lot to maybe fewer amount of people, which, of course, is all the more reason to make a film about him. But I wonder if you could speak a bit about Daniel Ellsberg, and the question that every filmmaker gets is, why now? And so why is it important to lead into this conversation with his voice, specifically at this point in time?Paul JayWell, first of all, it's not a film about Daniel Ellsberg. It's a film about our current moment, what's at risk, and what we can do about it. My approach, my belief is we cannot really face up to the reality of the risk and what solutions are if we don't get past our Cold War mentality. Because we have such a built-in belief system that's been deliberately fabricated, promoted, and inculcated in Americans, in Canadians, and Europeans, right from 1945, '46, at the very least. The reason Ellsberg is a good way to tell the story, part of the story, is because he was a true believer. Ellsberg was the most militant Cold Warrior you could possibly find. I don't know if you know who Curtis LeMay was, but he was almost on the same page. He didn't want to launch. Curtis LeMay was, for people who don't know, the head of STRATCOM, the guy who actually firebombed Japan, ordered the dropping, and actually engineered the dropping of the nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ellsberg was on his page.And then over the course of his time working at RAND Corporation, advising the Pentagon and the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he started to realize this is all based on lies. They lied about the bomber gap. They said the Soviets had 1,000 nuclear bombers, when the Americans only had about 300, 400. The truth turned out to be completely the opposite.Then they had, and out of that, by the way, I'm going to cover some things pretty fast here, but if you want to know more, I'm around. They created something called the SAGE Radar System that came out of the bomber gap, where, "Oh, they're going to come get us with bombers. We're going to have a radar system in Northern Canada that's going to have BOMARC missiles. When they come in, we're going to shoot them out of the sky because they have the advantage; they have more bombers."First, it was a lie. There were no bombers. Second of all, the bloody thing never worked because they never figured out how to deal with radar jamming. But get this, and how come none of you... Raise one person who has ever heard of the SAGE radar system before. Maybe Matt. Not even Matt. Okay, here's one. Oh, two, three. That's remarkable. I almost never get-Cole SmithYou're in good company today.Paul JayI don't know if you know this, but the SAGE Radar System... Now, the Manhattan Project was the biggest industrial project in the history of the United States, and SAGE cost three times more than the Manhattan Project. Did you know that? I didn't know that until recently. It was a boondoggle. It was a scam. It never worked.Then they have the missile gap. You saw it here. "Oh, they have a thousand. We only have 40." It turned out the Soviets had four. But out of that, they created a program called BMEWS, B-M-E-W-S. This was linked to SAGE, and it was going to have a system that could knock out ICBMs on the way in. Never worked. The whole thing was nonsense. Another in today's dollars, billions and billions of dollars.It's been lie after lie, and you can draw a line from this lying right to the Golden Dome, because the anti-ballistic missile systems... I mean, my line about it is, "It's not about the dome, it's about the gold." These are boondoggles, but they're very dangerous boondoggles because they can destabilize the whole balance of nuclear power. Because the problem... I'm jumping way faster, but we don't have much time. The problem with the Golden Dome is that it's SDI of Reagan, but with AI.So, is it possible, and you know that they've always said it's impossible to hit a bullet, meaning an incoming missile, with a bullet, meaning a missile. Now they're saying, "Oh, no, with AI, now we can hit a bullet with a bullet." But it's an entire lie, because even if you can,

Venezuela’s oil industry has long been a site of struggle—between national sovereignty and foreign control, between social development and extraction for profit. In this wide-ranging conversation, Gregory Wilpert situates today’s crisis in that longer history, from the Chávez government’s effort to reclaim PDVSA for Venezuelans to the current U.S. strategy of tying sanctions relief to oil exports. As Washington pushes Caracas to increase production and redirect crude away from China, Wilpert examines whether interim leadership in Venezuela is navigating an impossible economic bind—or whether the country’s oil and sovereignty are once again being bargained under coercion.

Richard Sakwa and Volodymyr Ishchenko on what is misunderstood about this war — and why it matters for the peace we need so badly. 

In Part Two, Sakwa and Ishchenko turn to NATO’s expansion, Russia’s internal politics, and the peace proposals now being pushed. Sakwa dismisses the claim that NATO is merely defensive and rejects the idea that Russia poses a serious military threat to Western Europe. He traces the crisis to post-war settlements that shut Russia out of Europe’s security order — even after Moscow sought NATO membership. Ishchenko argues that Central European states joined NATO less out of fear of Russia than from a desire to become “European,” while Putin’s own political fears at home partly shaped the invasion. Both are skeptical of existing peace plans — yet argue that Trump’s blunt proposal, however imperial, may come closer to confronting reality. The priority: stop the killing, save as many people as possible, and prevent the ultimate catastrophe.

Richard Sakwa and Volodymyr Ishchenko on why peace was lost—and who helped destroy it.

Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine did not come from nowhere. In this first of two parts, Richard Sakwa and Volodymyr Ishchenko cut through the common narrative that reduces the war to Putin alone, without excusing the invasion itself. The failure — and in key moments, US sabotage — of an inclusive European security order after the Cold War helped lay the ground for conflict. Inside Ukraine, post Soviet class conflicts led to the weaponization of language, identity, and nationalism. And the far right used the threat of violence to block President Zelensky’s early efforts to pursue peace. Sakwa and Ishchenko show that understanding history is not justification — it is indictment.

President Donald Trump entered office backed by fossil-fuel executives, hedge-fund financiers, and the AI-military industrial complex, then used sanctions, military pressure, and trade coercion against Venezuela to dismantle national control over its oil sector—culminating in a $2 billion crude deal that redirects Venezuelan exports from China to the United States and rewards major political donors. Prof. Steve Ellner and Journalist, Ricardo Vaz explain, this outcome is not an aberration, but rather the latest chapter in a long-standing struggle over PDVSA, oil sovereignty, and U.S. hemispheric dominance—where economic warfare supplants diplomacy and state power is deployed for private gain.

Following overnight U.S. airstrikes on Caracas, the seizure of President Nicolás Maduro, and President Donald Trump’s declaration that Washington will take control of Venezuela’s oil and effectively run the country, analysts Steve Ellner and Ricardo Vaz warn that the operation constitutes an unlawful use of force. They cite the combination of military assault, extraterritorial abduction, resource seizure, and alleged extrajudicial killings at sea as violations of international law and Venezuelan sovereignty.

Paul Jay and host Barry Stevens analyze rising progressive movements, from Mamdani's victory in New York City to Sanders and AOC drawing massive crowds in red states, and why working-class consciousness has always been the real threat to American elites. They discuss why fossil fuel companies have known about the climate crisis for decades but chose denial, why AI could plan a sustainable economy, but is being used for profit and war. They examine the specific dynamics of Christian nationalism, the role of Silicon Valley in the authoritarian turn, and why the 2026 midterms could see significant progressive breakthroughs.

Paul Jay rejects the false choice between  "Putin as a new Hitler" and the anti-NATO Left's defense of Russia. Under the UN Charter and Nuremberg principles, Russia's invasion is a war of aggression — there was no imminent threat and no "sphere of influence" justifies it. At the same time, NATO expansion was provocative and deceptive, and the U.S. refusal to take it off the table helped set the stage for war.

The discussion highlights:

•The Ukrainian people's right to self-determination and to overthrow their own oligarchy;

• how the Iraq War normalized lawless aggression and weakened global norms;

• the role of Russian, Ukrainian, U.S., and European oligarchies in prolonging the conflict;

• why parts of the Left blur first principles by excusing one imperialism to oppose another;

• China's strategic interest in sustaining the conflict;

• Ukraine and Gaza serve as "battle labs" for AI weapons and companies like Palantir.

• NATO functions as a "protection racket," getting Europe to increase military spending to 5%.

• and why a negotiated peace — even with territorial concessions — may be necessary to create space for democratic struggle against oligarchic power on all sides.

With host Barry Stevens.