Useful Idiots

After striking Iran in the middle of peace negotiations, murdering its leader, massacring over 100 young girls in an elementary school, bombing a hospital, and targeting civilian populations, Israel and the US took to Western media to accuse Iran of unprovoked attacks on US bases when they retaliated.

From propaganda-soaked leading questions by news anchors from CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox News, to the warmongering lies of politicians and government officials in both political parties, this weekend’s Sunday news shows were a rat-infested cesspool of corporate scams.

Don’t watch them without Katie and Aaron and the Useful Idiots community. It’s just too awful.

It’s as big of a lie as we’ve ever taken on here at Useful Idiots. Which means this Monday Mourning is an EXTENDED episode! Watch it here so you can laugh instead of cry at it all.

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The big question hanging over the world right now is whether Trump, the guy who campaigned against endless wars, especially in the Middle East, is about to launch another endless war in the Middle East, assembling the largest military deployment there since the Iraq War and threatening to bomb Iran.

There have been indirect talks in Geneva between the US and Iran, but the Trump Administration is still talking as if it wants to go to war because it sounds a lot like the Bush Administration when they were making the case to go to war with Iraq.

Just this week, Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff claimed, without evidence, that Iran is a week away from having enough uranium for a nuclear weapon. Which means the WMD hoax is back in full swing.

To understand all this, we spoke with Iranian journalist Ali Alizadeh, host of the excellent YouTube show Jedaal.

Useful Idiots: There has just been a third round of indirect talks held between the US and Iran in Geneva. Based on what you’ve heard so far, what is your assessment of these talks?

Ali Alizadeh: Americans have claimed they don’t want Iran to ever reach nuclear weapons, and Iranians have provided something which can give them such guarantee.

But then if you just listen to the Americans, just before the two sides were supposed to sit at the negotiation table, it seems that they are cheating. Vance talked about the fact that the president has all the options on the table, and again threatened Iran militarily. Marco Rubio suddenly said Iran’s missiles and navy are a threat to the peace and security of America.

Since when has Iran’s navy has been a threat? Iran has a navy in its own waters, which is called the Persian Gulf, and it’s been called that since 2,500 years ago.

And then your navy and your aircraft carriers have come from 15,000 kilometers away to their land. So how can the Iranian Navy be a threat to your security? And so they are constantly adding pressure and trying to squeeze other things into the negotiation, which in my opinion can sabotage the deal.

Useful Idiots: Do you think there’s a chance of an actual deal being reached?

Ali Alizadeh: If Iran and America were sitting at a negotiation table, I think Iran could have given Trump something which was stronger than the JCPOA and would send him home happy so he could sell it to his people that he did something better than Obama.

But is Iran negotiating with the United States? Or is it negotiating with Israel? Who is Steve Witkoff? Who is Jared Kushner? Because it seems that Israel has a completely different agenda, which is constantly pushing Trump. And now Trump, I think because of his lack of expertise in diplomacy and politics, despite what he thinks of himself, has badly cornered himself.

Useful Idiots: You spoke about how you think that Trump miscalculated the strength of the Iranian government and how he’s actually strengthened the government, because the actions of the United States and the actions of Israel, flaunting the role of foreign intervention in people’s faces, has actually rallied the masses around the government. Can you talk more about that?

Subscribe to watch our full interview with Ali Alizadeh on what actual Iranians want to change about their government, Nancy Pelosi’s murderous threat to working-class Iranians, and an update on the Geneva talks from an Iranian official.

Plus, don’t miss our weekly recap of the craziest moments in corporate media, the Friday Free-for-All: Let’s talk about the Democrats who gave Trump a standing ovation for bombing Iran

Thanks for supporting independent media. Watch the full episode here:

“No war with Iran,” Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted on Tuesday. “The American people want President Trump to focus on making life more affordable for working families here at home, not sending our military into another endless war in the Middle East.”

The resistance lives! No more forever wars! No more regime change! Help struggling Americans! No more suffering! Go Elizabeth Warren!

So later that night, we hoped, at Trump’s State of the Union Speech, surely Senator Warren would stand by these antiwar values and protest Trump’s warmongering against Iran, right? Right?

“These are horrible people,” Trump says. “After Midnight Hammer” (the illegal operation in which the US and Israel attacked Iran in the middle of peace negotiations, “they were warned to make no future attempt to rebuild their weapons program,” which, according to the Trump administration’s own report, they haven’t, “and are at this moment again pursuing their sinister ambitions.” Not true.

He continues with the lie: “We haven’t heard those secret words that we will never again pursue a nuclear weapon.”

And she’s up! Not protesting or booing but applauding, a standing ovation from the Massachusetts senator, alongside other Democrats Chuck Schumer, Amy Klobuchar, Chris Coons, John Fetterman, and more.

Trump continues. “One thing is certain. I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror, which they are, by far, to have a nuclear weapon.”

And they’re up again! Democrats and Republicans alike, cheering on the president’s lies, no different than the WMD hoax of the Iraq War.

Luckily Katie and Aaron are here to mock the warmongering senators as they cheer.

Also in this week’s Friday Free-for-All: JD Vance is still blaming Joe Biden for Americans suffering in poverty, Dr. Oz announces new sweeping cuts to Medicaid, and Bill Maher rolls around in a big pot of slime while talking about Ilhan Omar.

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There’s a lot of words that Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff doesn’t want to use… but will use anyway.

“The president is – I don’t want to use the word frustrated – but he’s curious as to why Iran hasn’t – I don’t want to use the word capitulated – but why they haven’t capitulated.”

This comes as Trump is threatening another regime change war in the Middle East, ordering the largest US military deployment since the Iraq War. “Why,” Witkoff continues, “with the amount of naval power we have over there, haven’t they come to us and said ‘We profess that we don’t want a weapon’?”

In the Obama-era nuclear deal that Trump withdrew from, Iran professed they didn’t want a nuclear weapon. Last year, Tulsi Gabbard released a report showing that Iran has no current nor future intention to build a nuclear weapon. Iran’s government has a fatwa against building a nuclear weapon.

With all the evidence there, it is clear Witkoff and the US don’t actually care what Iran wants. They want to instead treat Iran as their child. And if his ‘capitulation’ line wasn’t condescending enough for you, wait until you hear this one:

“They’re probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material,” Witkoff lies, following his talking points from Prime Minister Netanyahu exactly. “We can’t have that. This is something that they have to stick with until they prove to us that they can behave.”

Also in this Monday Mourning: Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro backs regime change in Iran, the Trump admin gets caught in a lie about tariffs, and Mike Huckabee goes on Tucker Carlson to give the most insane Biblical defense for Israeli genocide yet.

It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Subscribe to our show to support independent media!

We love your support!

We’ve got two interviews for you this week: first up we’re talking about Iran.

Trump is threatening another regime change war in the Middle East, ordering the largest US military deployment since the Iraq War. To get an understanding of what’s happening in Iran, we spoke with independent journalist Bushra Shaikh.

Bushra went viral for a video from a recent trip to Tehran in which she walked through a rally without wearing a hijab. She explains that this is a common occurrence, and that so much of what we hear about Iran in Western media turned out to not be true.

Bushra Shaikh: This picture that’s created in the West is more of a very old-school type of Iran. There is a movement in Iran that is taking shape. And it’s purposely being censored from the West.

I was walking in that rally. It was such an amazing place to be because there were hundreds of thousands of people coming out in support of their government. I was there without a hijab on. And honestly, it was it was just one of those experiences that I thought I would never have. And given the propaganda in the West, I was even confused because when I got there, I was like, ‘Bushra, you’ve been propagandized.’

So having that experience for myself really was an eye-opener.

Useful Idiots: And what do you think is happening on the ground?

Bushra Shaikh: What’s happening on the ground is you have a large community at the moment who are very worried about the prospect of a war, of being illegally attacked in their country.

One of the main concerns that a lot of people spoke about were the sanctions. They told me, ‘We just want to live good lives and we want to prosper and we want to be able to enhance our economy, build good ties with other countries. And these sanctions need to be lifted.’

So most of people’s real concerns were sanctions. It wasn’t changing who’s in charge of their country.

For our second interview, we’re discussing the life and message of civil rights icon Reverend Jesse Jackson, who died this week at the age of 84. He worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He then ran for president in 1984 and 1988, pushing to cut the Pentagon budget while increasing domestic spending on education, housing, and healthcare.

Jackson was also active in international struggles and campaigns, ranging from the anti-apartheid movement to supporting rights for Palestinians. Jesse Jackson also visited Palestine, and of course he was criticized for defending Palestinian rights.

To hear firsthand stories of the Reverend, we spoke with Eric Easter, former press secretary to Jesse Jackson for the National Rainbow Coalition, and Albert Mokhiber, who worked on Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign in 1984.

Watch or listen to our full, unpaywalled interview with these great guests. Thanks for supporting independent media. If you’d like to help keep us running, please consider supporting us with a subscription.

If you do, you’ll get our weekly recap, the Friday Free-For-All: We Can’t Take the Risk of Not Going to War with Iran

Useful Idiots is an audience-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

“Could our soldiers be hit in the region? Absolutely they could. Can Iran respond if we have an all-out attack? Absolutely, they can.”

In what sounds like the beginning of the worst inspirational speech in history (‘Will tens of thousands of people needlessly die? Sure! But will this increase the possibility of world-ending nuclear war? Yes!’ and so forth), Senator Lindsey Graham gave a saber-rattling rant in Tel Aviv this week to echo Hillary Clinton in begging President Trump to bomb Iran.

He continues: “I think the risk associated with that is far less than the risk associated with blinking, pulling the plug, and not helping the people as you promised.”

So… it’s more risky NOT to go to war with Iran than blinking, taking a breath, and considering diplomacy? Terribly enough, this viewpoint has become the norm among our politicians across the political spectrum.

Joining Graham and the aforementioned Clinton in warmongering bomb-pushing are Democratic Senator Mark Warner, former top Biden official Brett McGurk, and the nation’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. We watch clips of each of them as they parade their missiles on the world stage.

Plus, Mike Huckabee’s getting nervous that the ICC might arrest him, actor Ethan Hawke joins the list of artists who now claim that art isn’t political, and Trump’s got a crush on a new boy from Paraguay.

It’s all this, and more, on this week’s Friday Free-for-All. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:

"Give the Ukrainians tomahawks, give them more missiles for their patriot defense systems, allow them to inflict more damage beyond the border into Russia." Kill! Kill! Kill!

Hillary Clinton was at the Munich Security Conference this week imploring President Trump to send the most powerful weapons yet to Ukraine so that they could bomb Russia’s nuclear sites, a move that could challenge Russia into a nuclear war.

And while this may sound like a reckless, warmongering, dangerous, and stupid tactic, we at Useful Idiots like to look at the bright side of things:

After all the vitriolic name-throwing, cheating accusations, and Russiagating since the infamous 2016 election, we think that the true way to heal the divides in our nation would be for Trump to let Hillary Clinton fire the first tomahawk missile into Russia.

Sure, it might start a world-ending nuclear war, but wouldn’t it be nice for all the bipartisan warmongers to just get along?

Also in this Monday Mourning: Hakeem Jeffries gets humiliated on an independent media podcast for defending ICE, Border Czar Tom Homan mumbles out some really dangerous threats of what he plans to do to undocumented people, and Marco Rubio goes full global dictator at the Munich Security Conference.

It’s all this, and more, on an overflowing episode of Useful Idiots. Thanks for supporting independent media, please join our community here:

Help Mohammad document settler attacks in West Bank

Israel has recently announced new measures that allow it to steal more Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank. Check out how this was covered in Israeli media vs US media.

Can you guess which is more honest in its coverage?

First, Israeli media writes this:

They explain that the Cabinet intends to further their annexation, or theft, of Palestinian land, which is at least honest in its intention.

In contrast, here’s the New York Times:

Israel gives itself more control over occupied West Bank?? We’ve never seen this euphemism for theft before. It seems the subservient New York Times has become more creative than ever in its linguistic gymnastics to avoid any legitimate coverage of Israeli crimes.

Reminds us of the classic from 2014 when a missile, seemingly shot by no one, ‘found’ Gazan civilians watching the World Cup:

To check in on how things are going for the Palestinians who live in the land that Israel is giving itself more control over, we’re speaking with Mohammad Hesham Huraini, an independent journalist from Masafer Yatta, the same West Bank community depicted in the 2025 Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land.

We ask Mohammad: did winning the Oscar have any benefit for your community? With one of the directors already murdered by settlers and the rest facing constant threats of terror, his answer is depressing.

Please share this interview to get Mohammad’s reporting out to the world. Thanks for supporting independent media, join our community here: