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**The Nation Podcasts**

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.

Latest Episodes:

After the American Empire w/ Trita Parsi | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer Nov 03, 2025

Show notes

Donald Trump claims he wants to be the peace president and has even lobbied for a Nobel

Peace Prize. But his foreign policy has been wildly contradictory. While the United States is

clearly retrenching from many parts of the world, violence against hemispheric neighbors is

increasing. I talked to Trita Parsi, co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy

Institute for Responsible Statecraft, for a wide-ranging discussion on why American hegemony

is declining but also why the push for retrenchment hasn’t gone far enough.

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Memphis vs. Musk, with Rep. Justin J. Pearson | A People's Climate Nov 01, 2025

Show notes

Host Shilpi Chhotray is joined by Tennessee State Representative Justin J. Pearson, a fierce advocate taking on corporate power — from Big Oil to Big Tech. You may know him as one of the two Black representatives who was expelled for demanding gun reform on the House floor after The Covenant school shooting in Nashville. But long before becoming one of the youngest members of the Tennessee legislature, Rep. Pearson was on the frontlines in South Memphis, organizing against a crude oil pipeline that threatened his hometown.

Now, in Rep. Pearson’s district, Elon Musk’s xAI project is expanding its empire with massive, unregulated data centers that pollute the air, threaten their water, and undermine hard-won environmental protections. This conversation is about fighting against entrenched corruption, unchecked corporate and political power, and billionaires who put profit over people’s health and future.

Key Topics Covered:

Defeating the Valero / Plains All American Byhalia Pipeline
The rise of Elon Musk’s xAI data center in Memphis and the environmental toll of artificial intelligence
Money in politics: How corporate lobbying and billionaires shape elections and policy
Civil disobedience: The role of protest, direct action, and speaking truth to power
Keeping people power alive in the face of corruption and broken systems
Proximity to the fight: Understanding your local representatives, connecting local struggles to federal policies, and focusing energy where it can make the most impact

Resources

Memphis Community Against Pollution
Rep. Justin J. Pearson’s Speech on the House floor before being expelled
“How Long, Not Long” Martin Luther King Jr. speech after marching from Selma to Montgomery
NAACP and Advocacy Groups Appeal Permit for xAI’s South Memphis Data Center

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Trump Asia Tour and Xi Summit, RSF Massacres in Sudan, US Continues Bombing Boats Off South America Coast | American Prestige Oct 31, 2025

Show notes

What’s spookier than international relations? This week in the news roundup: Trump tours Asia to talk trade deals (1:28), a Thai-Cambodia accord (7:11), and to meet with Xi (8:45); the RSF captures of Al-Fashir in Sudan with reports of mass killings (12:19); Gaza sees the deadliest day of Israeli bombardments since the ceasefire began (17:19); the PKK makes more concessions in talks with Ankara (21:53); Afghan-Pakistan ceasefire negotiations collapse in Istanbul (24:34); Myanmar rebel groups agree to a Chinese-brokered ceasefire (26:59); elections in Ivory Coast and Cameroon keep longtime incumbents in power (29:44); Nigeria’s military sees a shake-up amid rumors of a coup plot (33:30); Dutch elections sideline Geert Wilders and the far-right (36:26); Trump freezes trade talks with Canada and raises tariffs over an ad (39:50); the UN General Assembly votes to condemn the U.S. embargo on Cuba (42:35); the U.S. expands its boat-bombing campaign in the Pacific and sends a carrier to the Caribbean (44:21); and Trump suggests that the U.S. resume nuclear testing (47:57).

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We Need to Cut Our Dependence on US Tech. Here’s How to Start. | Tech Won't Save Us Oct 30, 2025

Show notes

Paris Marx celebrates the 300th episode of Tech Won’t Save Us by sharing his reasons to push for digital sovereignty and get off US tech. On top of explaining how that dependence gives the US governments and its tech companies power over us, Paris also provides tips of alternative services to consider migrating to.

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Voters, Democrats, and Redistricting—Plus, Confederate Monuments in LA | Start Making Sense Oct 29, 2025

Show notes

Voters can take a stand against Trump’s candidates in next Tuesday’s elections in Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, and New York City – and move toward redistricting that favors Democrats. Harold Meyerson explains.

Also: a new art exhibit in Los Angeles, called ‘Monuments,’ displays ten decommissioned Confederate monuments alongside the work of 19 artists responding or relating to them. It's at MOCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and at the Brick, an arts nonprofit. Christopher Knight comments -- he's art critic for the LA Times and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism.

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ICE and the Age of Grift w/ Alex Aviña | American Prestige Oct 28, 2025

Show notes

Alex Aviña is back on the podcast, this time to talk about the evolution of ICE and the U.S. security state. They discuss the convergence of the war on terror, the war on drugs, and the war on migrants; the transformation of the border into a domestic counterinsurgency project; ICE’s roots in settler colonialism; the role of whiteness and assimilation in immigration politics; the use of surveillance and drones in law enforcement; the privatization and grift at the core of Trumpism; the legacy of Latin American death squads; the erosion of constitutional rights; and migration as the consequence of empire.

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The Rush to War Against Venezuela with Van Jackson | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer Oct 27, 2025

Show notes

On Friday, the self-styled “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth announced the US was sending an

aircraft carrier to bolster its attacks on Venezuelan boats (which the Trump administration

alleges, without evidence, are trafficking drugs). I spoke to international relations scholar Van

Jackson (whose work can be found here) about the motives for this new war as well as the

muted opposition to it from Democrats.

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Trump's Designs on Latin America with Greg Grandin | The Nation Podcast Oct 27, 2025

Show notes

On October 14, Donald Trump announced that the United States had blown up a boat off the coast of Venezuela, killing six people on board. It was the fifth such US strike on a vessel in the Caribbean in the last six weeks. In total, 27 people have been killed in the attacks.

Trump has claimed that the bombings are part of a fight against drug cartels. But there is no legal basis for this campaign. We're not at war with cartels, none of the victims had been charged with a crime, and there's no evidence that Americans were under imminent threat from any of them.

Longtime Nation contributor Greg Grandin's piece about the strikes, "Trump's Caribbean Killing Spree," is in our November issue.

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All Revolution Is Based On Land with Leah Penniman | A People's Climate Oct 25, 2025

Show notes

Solving the climate crisis isn’t about reinventing the wheel or the latest tech scheme — it can be as simple as growing food and building community.

Host Shilpi Chhotray chats with Leah Penniman, farmer, educator, and co-founder of Soul Fire Farm, about the intersection of land, food justice, and racial equity. Leah shares how Afro-Indigenous farming practices offer solutions to the climate crisis— but also serve as a tool for personal and community healing.

From the legacy of Black farmers in the U.S. to the ongoing exploitation of agricultural workers, this conversation reveals how land is not only the foundation of sustenance but the basis of revolution, independence, and justice.

Key Topics Covered:

Farming as a spiritual and ecological practice that reconnects humans to the earth.
Pitfalls of Industrial agriculture, from soil degradation, pesticide contamination, and contributions to the climate crisis
Afro-Indigenous farming practices that sequester carbon, restore soil, and increase resilience to extreme weather.
Land justice and reparations: Historical land theft, racialized wealth disparities, and efforts to build Black land commons.
The Trump Administration's impact on Black Farmers and the agri-food industry.
How modern food systems continue to exploit the most vulnerable, including undocumented farmworkers and incarcerated individuals, whose labor produces the food we eat

Resources

Soul Fire Farm
Farming While Black by Lean Penniman
Black Earth Wisdom by Leah Penniman
AP investigation “Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands”

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Gaza Ceasefire Tenuous, US Strikes More “Drug Boats,” Saudi State Visit | American Prestige Oct 24, 2025

Show notes

Rest assured, no one on the AP team has any undeclared tattoos. In this week’s news roundup: In Israel-Palestine, Gaza’s so-called ceasefire holds after another weekend of Israeli strikes (1:36), the International Court of Justice (ICJ) orders Israel to allow more humanitarian aid (8:16), and reports emerge of a plan to partition Gaza (11:48) as J.D. Vance arrives in Israel and the Knesset advances West Bank annexation votes (14:21); Donald Trump looks set to host Mohammed bin Salman for the Saudi crown prince’s first U.S. visit since the Jamal Khashoggi murder (18:36); Afghanistan and Pakistan agree to a fragile ceasefire after cross-border clashes (21:16); Myanmar’s junta retakes a key commercial town and resumes its offensive (23:47); Japan elects hard-right Takaichi Sanae as its first female prime minister (27:27); in Sudan, drone strikes delay the reopening of Khartoum’s airport (29:59); new data shows jihadist groups tightening their grip across West Africa (31:19); the Trump-Putin-Zelensky saga takes several new turns, with canceled summits and contradictory sanctions (34:52); Rodrigo Paz wins Bolivia’s presidency and pledges to restore ties with Washington (41:28); the U.S. reportedly trades MS-13 informants for access to Nayib Bukele’s mega-prison in El Salvador (43:39); two more U.S. drone attacks hit alleged “drug boats,” one in the Pacific, as the head of Southern Command steps down (45:44); and the U.S. and Australia seal a new minerals deal to counter China (50:28).

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