Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté

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There is chaos in West Asia as a result of Trump continuing his war on Iran:

The latest US strikes on Iran hit near a children’s cancer hospital, forcing patients to flee; Israel continues to break the MOU by destroying and stealing more land in Lebanon; and Iraq is back in the picture as Trump cuts off its money in an attempt to break their support of Iran.

In order to make sense of the pandemonium, we spoke with veteran journalist and war correspondent Elijah Magnier, who gives his analysis of the expanding conflict, reacts to JD Vance’s thinly-veiled callout of Trump for getting tricked by the Israelis to oppose diplomacy, and explains why Trump is powerless when it comes to taking the Strait of Hormuz or Kharg Island.

Elijah Magnier: Threatening to occupy an island is very easy for US forces to do with a heavy bombardment on several days. But they can’t stay because the cost will be extremely heavy: Iran has the ability to bomb this island or to bomb the Strait of Hormuz or anywhere in the Gulf. Therefore, this plan is actually not feasible.Donald Trump doesn’t have an offer to really propose to end the war in a way that everybody comes out not a loser. He wants to be the winner, and the Iranians aren’t allowing him to be. Iran doesn’t need to win. Iran is not losing because it’s defending itself.And by Donald Trump threatening Kharg Island or the Strait of Hormuz, it means he doesn’t really know the consequences and, militarily speaking, what can be credible or not. His plan in this way is not credible because he can’t hold on to what he potentially can occupy. And then he cannot face the Americans with such a heavy bill.

Watch or listen to the full interview with Elijah Magnier where we react to Trump getting called out in JD Vance’s Joe Rogan interview, mocking Syria’s President (and former al-Qaeda founder) Ahmed al-Sharaa to his face, and embarrassing Iraq’s Prime Minister over the Trump-ordered assassination of an Iraqi military leader.

00:00 Intro

02:34 The Massie Amendment STOPS Aid to Israel

05:09 The Dems Who Voted PRO-ISRAEL

08:45 Worse than Netanyahu

13:07 Elijah Magnier interview

17:12 Fmr CENTCOM Commander wants Trump to take the Strait of Hormuz

45:08 Trump's disastrous meetings with foreign leaders

54:16 JD Vance throws Trump shade on Joe Rogan

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This week we have a powerhouse panel on Useful Idiots: Professor Sami al-Arian and investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill of DropSite News, who join us to analyze Trump’s wars in West Asia.

The breaking news is that Trump is renewing the bombing of Iran, insulting its leaders, and threatening to take out more civilian infrastructure, all while Israel is allowed to continue its genocide in Gaza as well as steal and destroy land in Lebanon.

Useful Idiots: Trump has said the deal is likely over. So where are we with the state of war against Iran?Sami al-Arian: The deal was basically an admission by the United States that it’s been defeated. It is surrender in all points. And I think the Zionists have upped the pressure against this administration, which has been beholden to it for whatever reason. They were trying to find justification to renege on this deal.But regardless, there is nothing that the US could do to defeat Iran. There is nothing that it could do to achieve its objectives, which is basically regime change, regime collapse, breakup of the country, and to reverse its advanced scientific achievements in nuclear power or in missiles or even to stop its support of its allies in the region.None of these objectives were reached in the first thirty-nine days of the war and they are very unlikely to be reached again.Jeremy Scahill: What we’ve seen since Trump took this deal is that he has not been able to effectively spin his victory-narrative on this thing. This is the latest iteration of the Trump pattern, which is that he’s flailing around like a child throwing a tantrum and threatening.And the more he escalates it, the more it becomes clear that he is in the quagmire of all quagmires in this situation. One thing that we have to be always concerned about is that Trump is a very erratic character. I wouldn’t put it past him to authorize a much more significant escalation of the bombing against Iran.My understanding from Iranian officials is that if that happens, if a Rubicon is crossed and it becomes a full-blown war again, that Iran’s response to this in the Persian Gulf and aimed at Israel is going to exceed what it did in the initial weeks when it fought the United States and Israel to a point where Trump was the one essentially begging for some kind of a deal.

Watch our full, unpaywalled interview with Professor Sami al-Arian and Jeremy Scahill. Please consider subscribing to support our work and watch the ad-free version of the show.

00:00 Intro

01:05 Aaron's new book

03:16 CNN manufactures a scandal with Netanyahu to hurt Michigan's el-Sayed

09:35 Jeremy Scahill and Sami al-Arian interview

15:38 Could Israel use its nukes?

28:08 Jeremy's sources in the Iranian government

42:56 Who really benefits from this war?

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Watch Abby Martin's new film OUT TODAY: https://createsend.com/t/i-96F446CD3620EF692540EF23F30FEDED

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Friend-of-show Abby Martin, journalist and filmmaker behind the Empire Files, Gaza Fights for Freedom, and Cuba After Castro, returns to Useful Idiots on the premiere day of her bold new film: Earth’s Greatest Enemy.

The new documentary examines how the Pentagon, exempt from international climate agreements or emissions laws and rarely scrutinized in mainstream reporting, is the world’s single largest institutional polluter—spewing carbon, contaminating water, and scarring landscapes across the globe.

Martin went deep into Washington as well as into the communities and ecosystems it destroyed in order to expose the truth about the US military and put pressure on its most powerful conspirators, from bought-out politicians like Nancy Pelosi to squirming army officials to corporate profiteers like Palantir’s Alex Karp.

In this interview, Abby recounts the most shocking discoveries she and her team made while unraveling the story and filming where the military didn’t want them to be filming. She also reveals bonus secrets she uncovered that aren’t in the documentary, explains why a movie on such a serious topic is filled with biting gallows humor, and the real way that AI data centers are “going to literally kill us all.”

To watch our full interview with Abby Martin on what she found on her reporting trip to Israel (and the most racist Israelis she caught on camera), the truth about the US history of violence on Cuba and how she became the first US journalist to be granted a sit-down interview with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, and what Israeli military officers are doing in Venezuela after the US coup and a devastating earthquake in Caracas, please subscribe to our show.

00:00 Intro

04:12 Jake Tapper Humiliated for Zohran Mamdani Meltdown

08:16 Fraudfather Jonathan Greenblatt gets mocked for antisemitism rant

09:27 Abby Martin interview

13:08 Confronting Nancy Pelosi

19:53 Palantir's Alex Karp wants to kill the Earth

27:56 Exposing the most RACIST ISRAELIS

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On this week’s show we’re analyzing the Mamdani Sweep in New York City where progressive, populist, pro-Palestine candidates, backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, won important elections across the board in a huge rebuke to AIPAC and Israel.

So as AIPAC and the entire Democratic establishment freak out about the electoral loss, we’re speaking with journalists Ross Barkan and Liza Featherstone to dissect what went right for the left and how progressive stars like Mamdani and Hasan Piker can leverage this victory into a more controlling stance in the Democratic Party.

Useful Idiots: What’s your one-sentence takeaway from the elections?Ross Barkan: It was a great night for Zohran Mamdani and he is emerging as the new political boss of New York politics.Liza Featherstone: I wondered whether the left should have gone even bigger. Zohran won every single race that he endorsed and DSA won almost all of them. None of their incumbents were taken out and almost all their challengers won. If you’re not losing more, are you really trying hard enough?Useful Idiots: Establishment Democrats are freaking out about these progressive winners, including Congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier who sparked controversy with a now-deleted tweet saying “Fuck Kamala Harris.” What’s your response to this?Liza Featherstone: I would just like [these establishment Democrats] to actually spend a day gathering petition signatures for a candidate. When I did that for Zohran Mamdani in Bed-Stuy, a Democratic stronghold, the biggest obstacle was people saying, ‘fuck the democrats.’I would lead with ‘are you a registered democrat?’ and even normie, middle-aged ladies, white ladies, black ladies, you know, who are normally the base of the Democratic Party, would be like, ‘no, fuck them.’ Everyone’s fed up. Everyone’s fed up.

To see the full interview with Ross and Liza on why Trump has more respect for Zohran’s game than Dems do, responses to CNN fear mongering that Jews are no longer safe in New York City after the election, whether Brad Lander is actually a progressive or just establishment-in-disguise, and where AOC was while Mamdani was endorsing candidates, please subscribe to our show.

00:00 Intro

02:00 Dana Bash's Zionist Meltdown

07:49 Sean Hannity cries over Brad Lander

09:02 Ross Barkan and Liza Featherstone interview

09:42 What the Progressives MISSED this week

16:07 Is it GOOD Zohran can't run for president?

30:05 Why wasn't AOC there?

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This week, after months of demanding Iran’s unconditional surrender, Trump suddenly backed off his regime-change war, signing an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with Iran.

And what’s even more surprising than this apparent admission of defeat and push for peace is the Trump administration’s sharp turn on Israel, with Trump distancing himself from Netanyahu and Vice President Vance directly calling the Israelis out:

“You have seen people within Bibi’s cabinet who have come out and attacked the deal and in some ways very personally attacked the President of the United States.If I was in the Israeli cabinet, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have left anywhere in the entire world.What is your exact proposal? You’re a country of 9 million people. You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.”

So to discuss the peace deal, whether it can withstand Trump’s turbulent negotiation tendencies and expected sabotage from Israel, and why the administration is turning against its ally Israel, we spoke with two Iranians: Trita Parsi, author and executive VP at the Quincy Institute, and Negar Mortazavi, journalist at the Center for International Policy and host of the Iran Podcast.

Trita Parsi: The doubt of US power over Israel has now been completely blown up with the statements of JD Vance. I suspect that we’re going to see more of it, particularly if the Israelis continue to sabotage in the manner that they have been and probably will continue to do.What JD is doing there is not just changing the conversation about Israel. He’s changing the paradigm of U.S.-Israeli relations. He’s clearly pointing out to them how isolated Israel is today, and how few friends it has, which should not be a surprise.And at the same time, he’s reminding the Israelis the tremendous leverage that the United States has over Israel, even though most presidents have not had the backbone to use that leverage. But he’s reminding the Israelis of the extent to which the United States can really put a tremendous amount of pressure on them.Negar Mortazavi: This is incredible. It’s unprecedented. And now J.D. Vance, even Donald Trump, are starting to sound like America-first, anti-war skeptics of militarism, everything that was part of the political discourse in the campaign.I mean, it’s unfortunate that it took two wars, which also, by the way, took thousands of lives in Lebanon. But I think we see a gap and it’s very public and it’s widening. And this also comes after three years of genocide in Gaza, which has already created a gap between Israel and the U.S.Even in Congress now, across the political structure, you’re seeing the beginning of a movement. There are members of Congress or candidates running for elections who say they don’t want to accept money from AIPAC. That has become an unprecedented thing that is publicly being said.

It’s a historic week, and extremely complex in terms of what the deal signifies and the shaky path it could have moving forward. Trita and Negar help us dig into the details and parse through the propaganda. This episode won’t be paywalled.

If you want to support our work, please consider subscribing. You’ll get our recap of the craziest and most cringe-worthy reactions to the deal across corporate media in the Friday Free-for-All: Even Hillary Clinton is Turning On Israel.

00:00 Intro

01:30 Dems are MAD at Trump for ending the war

05:21 CNN Anchor is SHOCKED Iran should be able to defend itself

06:29 JD Vance calls out Israel

08:59 Trita Parsi responds to JD Vance

29:13 Negar Mortazavi breaks down the deal

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