The Nation Podcasts

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Gaza Starvation, ICJ Climate Ruling, Thai-Cambodian Border Clash | American Prestige Jul 25, 2025

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Don’t forget to buy our “Welcome to the Crusades” miniseries!

Danny and Derek also rail against the war pigs, but lack the heavy riffs. This week: the International Court of Justice rules that wealthy nations must take action on climate change or bear responsibility (1:20); clashes escalate on the Thai-Cambodian border (4:08); a ceasefire holds in Syria’s Suwayda province after clashes between Druze and Bedouin groups (9:06); in Israel-Palestine, Gaza’s starvation reaches catastrophic levels (13:19) as ceasefire talks barely limp along (16:23); Iran is reengaging with the International Atomic Energy Agency (20:49); the Democratic Republic of the Congo and M23 militant group sign a declaration of intent (23:05); in Ukraine, a new round of peace talks achieves little (25:24) while Zelensky responds to protests over corruption (28:27); Venezuela, the US, and El Salvador carry out a prisoner exchange amid accusations of torture (31:38); the Japan House of Councillors holds an election while PM Ishiba looks likely to resign (33:32); and Japan, the Philippines, and Indonesia make trade deals (36:10).

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Decomputing For a Better Future | Tech Won't Save Us Jul 24, 2025

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Paris Marx is joined by Dan McQuillan to discuss the political push by global governments towards rapid AI adoption at all costs, and how citizens can critically rethink not only our dependence on these technologies, but imagine a collective future that benefits everyone.

Dan McQuillan is a lecturer at Goldsmiths College, University of London and the author of Resisting AI.

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How the Courts Blocked ICE Racial Profiling—Plus, How Organizers Succeed | Start Making Sense Jul 23, 2025

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A federal court in LA has stopped ICE from detaining people for deportation because they look Latino – that’s racial discrimination, and it’s unconstitutional, the court said. Mark Rosenbaum of Public Counsel will explain what’s next as he government appeals the case to the Ninth Circuit.

Also: How does a movement build support when large parts of the country are opposed to its goals? How do you connect with people who disagree with you? For some answers we’ll turn to long-time organizer Michael Ansara -- his new book is “The Hard Work of Hope.”

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The CIA’s Imperial History, Pt. 2 | American Prestige Jul 22, 2025

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Hugh Wilford, professor of history at California State University, Long Beach, is back on the program to conclude the discussion of his book The CIA: An Imperial History. In this episode they talk about figures like Edward Lansdale and James Angleton, “regime maintenance,” counterinsurgency, the agency’s use of publicity, the effect of the War on Terror on the CIA, and more.

Listen to Part 1 here⁠!

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How the Tech Billionaires Bought Radical Journalists | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer Jul 20, 2025

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Tech lords such as Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are among the richest humans who have ever

lived and have an enormous sway over the American political system but even that isn’t enough

for them. They also want a compliant media, one that echoes their ideas, doesn’t investigate

their business practices, and goes after their enemy. This is the subject of a new book by Eoin

Higgins: Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left. I

talked to Eoin about two of the major figures in this story, Peter Thiel, a plutocrat who is eager

to abandon the human species and Matt Taibbi, a onetime anti-establishment voice who now

has become a standard reactionary.

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Israel Bombs Damascus, Militant Violence in Haiti, France Withdraws Troops from Senegal | American Prestige Jul 18, 2025

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Derek is in the shop for maintenance, so Danny presents the news with the Quincy Institute’s Alex Jordan. This week: Israel bombs the Syrian Defense Ministry in Damascus (0:39) as Netanyahu’s corruption trial carries on (7:05), plus US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee condemns settlers killing a US citizen (10:24), and the Hague Group coalition meets in Bogota to decide how to hold Israel accountable for its crimes (16:02); the saga of Trump’s flip-flopping on Ukraine military aid continues (20:29); Trump announces more tariffs while affected countries struggle to make a deal with the US (28:30); the US Navy is constructing facilities to repair and maintain Philippine military vessels (33:35); the UN releases a report detailing how militant violence in Haiti has killed 5,000 people in the last 9 months (37:48); and the French army has withdrawn its last troops from Senegal (42:48).

Be sure to watch and listen to Alex and Courtney Rawlings on the Quincy Institute’s Always at War podcast.

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Microsoft Is Gutting the Video Game Industry | Tech Won't Save Us Jul 17, 2025

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Paris Marx is joined by Nathan Grayson to discuss the latest round of Microsoft layoffs and how the company’s ambition to remake the video game industry around its streaming service has had significant consequences.

Nathan Grayson is a co-founder of Aftermath and author of Stream Big: The Triumphs and Turmoils of Twitch and the Stars Behind the Screen.

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Musk’s Third Party—Plus, the Birthright Citizenship Class Action | Start Making Sense Jul 16, 2025

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There’s trouble in Trump world: Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is launching a Third Party to challenge Trump’s Republicans in the midterms and maybe in 2028. Maurice Mitchell, National Director of the Working Families Party, explains why Musk will fail.

Also: Trump’s executive order abolishing birthright citizenship – guaranteed by the 14^th Amendment – has been blocked for a second time, this time because of a class action suit. David Cole explains why Trump will lose this case at the Supreme Court.

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The History of America’s Entrepreneurial Work Ethic | American Prestige Jul 15, 2025

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Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, rise ‘n grind, and find your calling as we welcome historian Erik Baker to the program to talk about his book Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America. The group explores the Protestant work ethic and Jeffersonian yeoman farmer, influential figures like Henry Ford and Frederick Winslow Taylor, the seeds of entrepreneurialism in Harvard Business School, how it came to be seen as an American value during the Cold War, “entrepreneurial modernity,” postwar liberalism’s failure to provide meaningful work for the professional-managerial class, self-help writers, and much more.

Be sure to check out Issue Fifteen of The Drift, where Erik is a senior editor.

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The Roots of Trump’s Foreign Policy Instability | The Time of Monsters With Jeet Heer Jul 14, 2025

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Donald Trump’s foreign policy has been as unstable as the man himself, shifting quickly from

pushes for restraint to escalating wars in the Middle East. This volatility is a function not just of

Trump’s personality but the contradictions and competing factions that are gathered under the

term America First, as well as the continued power of the foreign policy establishment that

Trump has claimed he defeated but which maintains a strong capacity to shape policy. To talk

about Trump’s foreign policy and the factional battles that have bedevilled his administration, I

spoke to Justin Logan, director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute.

In particular we take up the attacks on Elbridge Colby, the under-secretary of defense for

policy. Colby was the subject of a Politico hatchet job which claimed he was running a rogue

foreign policy. Justin critiqued this analysis here.

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