The Nation Podcasts

Latest Episodes:

Houthis Resume Red Sea Attacks, New IDF Strikes in Lebanon, Deadly Kenya Protests | American Prestige Jul 11, 2025

Show notes

Remember that today is the last day to order our limited edition “Robo Washington Crossing the Delaware” poster! Paid subscribers get a 50% discount!

AP’s retirement account is entirely tied to copper, so we’re not sure how long we have to do this. In this week’s news: Yemen’s Houthi/Ansar Allah fighters have resumed attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, sinking two (1:47); in Israel-Palestine news, Benjamin Netanyahu (on a visit to the White House) rules out a Palestinian state (4:50), ceasefire talks resume (7:56), and Israel has revealed a plan to “relocate” Gaza’s population (12:34); the IDF resumes attacks on Lebanon despite a ceasefire (15:54); the ICC issues warrants for the leaders of the Taliban (18:28); Trump revisits a “burden sharing” debate with South Korea (19:59); Trump invites a group of leaders from African countries to the White House (22:54); widespread protests in Kenya leave many dead (27:03); Trump reverses course on withholding military aid to Ukraine (29:01); the UK and France discuss a “coordinated nuclear deterrent” (32:41); the US and Colombia recall envoys in an intensifying diplomatic row (35:10); Trump sets a new date for reciprocal tariffs (37:35), threatens additional tariffs on BRICS countries (39:49), and threatens a 50% tariff on Brazil for putting Jair Bolsonaro on trial (42:04); and the US traffics 8 people to South Sudan (44:55).

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

How the US Weaponizes Technology in the Middle East | Tech Won't Save Us Jul 10, 2025

Show notes

Paris Marx is joined by Laleh Khalili to discuss how the United States uses its control of key technologies to shift global power dynamics, and how that specifically plays out in the Middle East.

Laleh Khalili is Professor of Gulf Studies at the University of Exeter and author of the forthcoming book Extractive Capitalism.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Trump v. L.A.—Plus, Rachel Kushner’s ‘Creation Lake’ | Start Making Sense Jul 09, 2025

Show notes

Trump’s ICE is attacking undocumented people in LA County because there are a lot of them -- maybe a million, out of a total of 3.3 million Latinos, and also because LA is one of the most Democratic counties in the country. And LA has a big and militant alliance of immigrants rights groups that are fighting Trump. Harold Meyerson will explain the deportation battle in Southern California at this point.

Also: Rachel Kushner will talk about the informant and provacateur who infiltrates an anarchist eco-commune in rural France – the central character in her award-winning novel, “Creation Lake” - it’s out now, in paperback.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Human Cost of Economic Sanctions | American Prestige Jul 08, 2025

Show notes

⁠Get your limited edition "Robo Washington" poster now⁠⁠!

Economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) ⁠Mark Weisbrot⁠ joins the show to talk about economic sanctions and how they affect people’s lives. They discuss the effect of sanctions on migration flows, how the PR about them targeting governments and not civilians is false, how the international financial system and dollar hegemony allow the US to sanction so freely, whether sanctions on other countries actually benefit ordinary Americans, whether tariffs can be considered a form of sanctions, and more.

Check out ⁠CEPR’s work⁠ for much more material on sanctions.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

How Jeff Bezos Betrayed the Legacy of The Washington Post | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer Jul 07, 2025

Show notes

Writing in The Nation, Pamela Alma Weymouth drew a contrast between Kay Graham, her late

grandmother who was publisher of The Washington Post when it fought Richard Nixon’s

administration on The Pentagon Papers and Watergate, with the current owner of the

newspaper, Jeff Bezos. Unlike Graham, Bezos has been all too willing to bend the knee to a

corrupt president. I talked to Pamela about Bezos and other contemporary corporate leaders

who are undermining journalistic integrity at a moment when it is needed more than ever.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

DRC-Rwanda Peace Deal, PKK Disarmament, US Airstrikes in Somalia | American Prestige Jul 04, 2025

Show notes

Our news roundups are sometimes big, but never beautiful. This week: the PKK to begin its disarmament in Turkey (1:17); Iran suspends its cooperation with the IAEA (4:30), but remains open to negotiations with the US (6:53); the debate continues on how far the war set back Iran’s nuclear program (9:18); in Gaza, a new ceasefire push (12:24) while journalists investigate the massacres at “humanitarian aid” sites (16:15); Russia recognizes the Talbian-led government in Afghanistan (20:20); the Constitutional Court of Thailand suspends PM Paetongtarn Shinawatra (21:57); Malaysia bans US plastic waste (23:55); Trump ramps up US airstrikes in Somalia (26:07); the DRC and Rwanda sign a peace deal (28:48); Russia makes advances in Ukraine (33:31) plus the US freezes military aid (35:46); the UN says the security situation in Haiti is worsening (37:51); and the US and China make another trade deal (39:29).

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Geopolitical Fight Against Huawei | Tech Won't Save Us Jul 03, 2025

Show notes

Paris Marx is joined by Yangyang Cheng to discuss how Huawei became one of the most powerful companies in China and how current geopolitical narratives distract from the issues at the heart of surveillance capitalism in the US and China.

Yangyang Cheng is a Research Scholar in Law and Fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

How Mamdani Won—Plus, Harvard v. Trump | Start Making Sense Jul 02, 2025

Show notes

The surprise victory of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s Democratic mayor primary over a well-funded establishment candidate shows that progressive politics, when pursued with discipline, vision and vigor, can win broad support. Bhaskar Sukara, President of The Nation and author of The Socialist Manifesto, has our analysis.

Also: After going to court to challenge Trump’s cut of $2 billion in federal grants, Harvard is now in negotiations with the administration, seeking “common ground” – raising fears that even the most established and wealthy university will submit to his demands. E.J. Dionne argues that authoritarians everywhere target universities, which everywhere are centers of resistance and defenders of democratic freedoms.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Continued Assault on Gaza and the West Bank | American Prestige Jul 01, 2025

Show notes

Derek welcomes back to the show Dalia Hatuqa, a journalist specializing in Israeli/Palestinian affairs and regional Middle East issues, to talk about the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. They recap what has been happening to Palestinians in Gaza while the world was distracted by Israel’s war with Iran, discuss the lost generations of Gazan children, the massacres at “aid distribution centers,” increased home demolitions and settler violence in the West Bank, the current relationships of the Palestinian Authority and Jordanian government with Israel, the regional dynamics after the recent war with Iran, and what Netanyahu’s next move might be.

Read Dalia’s piece from March in The Guardian, “For Palestinians, this was never a ceasefire.”

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Our Fifty States of Disunion and Who Could Secede | The Nation Podcast Jun 30, 2025

Show notes

The term “the nation”—as it refers to the country—has a relatively recent history in American political rhetoric. Until the Civil War, politicians more commonly used “the Union” or “the Republic.” That changed with Abraham Lincoln, who referenced “the nation” five times in his 1863 Gettysburg Address. Two years later, in July 1865, the first issue of our magazine was published.

For our 160th Anniversary issue, we called on fifty of our best writers and artists to depict the current national landscape: what’s being gutted, steamrolled, and eviscerated, and what some of us are doing to keep the national project afloat. Contributor Richard Kreitner joins us to discuss the monumental task of putting this issue together, the history and future of secession, and more.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected