The Nation Podcasts

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The Never Trump Crowd Still Loves Mid-East Wars | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer Jun 29, 2025

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Over the last decade, centrist Democrats have diligent courted Never Trump Republicans, hoping that this cohort could help create a new consensus politics to oppose the MAGA coalition. From the start, this strategy seemed flawed: after all, this faction is very small and also carries a lot of baggage. In particular, neo-conservatives such as William Kristol and David Frum, now Never Trump stalwarts, were responsible for two of the biggest foreign policy disasters in American history, George W. Bush’s War on Terror and the invasion of Iraq.

Have this Never Trump conservatives learned from history? Alas, as my colleague David Klion points out in a recent column, many of them haven’t. Kristol and Frum are now cheerleading the attack on Iran (although to be fair their former ally Robert Kagan is more skeptical). I talked to David about the neocons and why they remain a pernicious force in American politics even if they vote against Trump.

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Iran Strikes and Ceasefire, Nato Ups Defense Budgets, Supreme Court Okays Government Trafficking Migrants | American Prestige Jun 27, 2025

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Don’t forget to purchase our “Welcome to the Crusades” series before the price increases next week. Paid AP subscribers get a 25% discount, so subscribe today!

Danny and Derek broadcast from an undisclosed resort location. This week: an update on the conflict with Iran, including the ceasefire (2:34), Trump’s disagreement with US intelligence assessments (5:25), the status of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities and material (10:15), and the potential for new US-Iran talks (15:46); with the latest conflict with Iran on hold, there are now questions whether Netanyahu will finally come to the negotiating table over Gaza (18:22); the 2025 NATO summit was held and addressed topics like a 5% defense spending minimum, while members states ingratiated themselves with Donald Trump, and the latter held a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy (22:09); China is taking new steps on curbing fentanyl (32:37); and the Supreme Court gives the Trump administration the green light to send migrants to unaffiliated third countries (34:58).

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Chatbots Are Repeating Social Media’s Harms | Tech Won't Save Us Jun 26, 2025

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On this episode of Tech Won't Save Us, Paris Marx is joined by Nitasha Tiku to discuss how AI companies are preying on users to drive engagement and how that’s repeating many of the problems we’re belatedly trying to address with social media companies at an accelerated pace.

Nitasha Tiku is a technology reporter at the Washington Post.

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How E. Jean Carroll Beat Trump in Court—Plus, What Really Happened in the 2024 Election | Start Making Sense Jun 25, 2025

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Donald Trump, found guilty of sexual assault and defamation, owes E. Jean Carroll $88 million. She explains how she beat him in court, twice, proving that he attacked her in a Bergdorf dressing room and then lied about it. Her new book is Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President.

Also, the leading autopsies on the 2024 defeat of Democrats are missing two big things, Steve Phillips argues: the centrality of racial hostility and of gender resentment as central organizing forces in American politics.

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Tracking Think Tanks w/ Ben Freeman and Nick Cleveland-Stout | American Prestige Jun 24, 2025

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Ben Freeman and Nick Cleveland-Stout from the Quincy Institute join the program to talk about their Think Tank Funding Tracker, a repository that tracks funding from foreign governments, the U.S. government, and Pentagon contractors to the top 50 think tanks in the United States over the past five years. The group discusses think tanks’ role in the “military-intellectual” complex, what specific foreign funders like the UAE and UK might be looking to influence, why certain governments like Ukraine and China gave little to no money, the lack of transparency among individuals working in sectors like journalism and government who also work with think tanks, the utilization (and under-utilization) of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, how to restructure the order so that expertise isn’t limited to these kinds of institutions, and how to make think tanks more democratically accountable in the meantime.

Read the Quincy Institute's brief on their project, “Big Ideas and Big Money: Think Tank Funding in America.”

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Greater America and the Victims of Its Ambition | The Nation Podcast Jun 23, 2025

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On a recent trip to El Salvador, writer Viet Thanh Nguyen noticed striking parallels between the small Central American nation and his own country of origin, Vietnam. Both endured the atrocities of war, each fueled by anti-communist U.S. intervention. And both conflicts—the Vietnam War and El Salvador’s civil war—triggered refugee and migrant crises whose consequences continue to reverberate today.

The people of Vietnam and El Salvador – and Nguyen himself– have been caught in the crossfire of what he calls “Greater America”: a phenomenon best described as not just a place, but a project.

What exactly is Greater America capable of, both abroad and domestically? What are its borders and how will it be remembered, conflict after conflict? Who will be the next victims of its imperial ambitions?

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Democrats Need to Reclaim Anti-War Politics | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer Jun 22, 2025

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Donald Trump has betrayed his promise to be a pro-peace president. Prodded by Washington hawks and the Israeli government, he has green-lit Israel’s attack on Iran, which the Untied States might soon join directly. A new Middle Eastern war would be a catastrophe. In order to stop it, Democrats will need to recover the anti-war politics that they adopted in opposition to George W. Bush’s Iraq War. I spoke with Matt Duss, vice-president of the Center for International Policy on how popular mobilization can push both Democrats and Republicans in congress to stand up to Trump’s war. Matt recently wrote on this topic for Foreign policy.

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Israel-Iran War, Russia Strikes Kyiv, Trump Expands Travel Ban | American Prestige Jun 20, 2025

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No ChatGPT here—our em dashes are organic. This week: in the Iran-Israel war, an update on the casualties and targets (1:52), US involvement remains in question (7:45), Ayatollah Khamenei refuses to surrender (14:47), and US and Israeli intelligence agencies disagree over “evidence” of Iran pursuing a nuclear weapon (18:14); Trump quits the G7 summit early, possibly due to Israel-Iran, and later insults French president Emmanuel Macron (20:59); the IDF is still killing dozens per day in Gaza, mostly near aid sites (24:23); the US military is withdrawing from most of its bases in Syria (27:11); the Thai government might be on the verge of a collapse (29:56); the DRC and Rwanda approve a “draft” peace agreement (33:57); in Russia-Ukraine, Trump cancels a normalization meeting while shutting down a sanctions working group (36:39), and Russia carries out its deadliest strike of the year on Kyiv (37:55); Trump decides to expand his travel ban (40:14); and in a New Cold War update, a new trade détente with China does not include critical minerals for military use (42:43).

Listen to Derek’s special with Akbar Shahid Ahmed on US involvement in the Israel-Iran war.

Also be sure to download our miniseries with the crew from We’re Not So Different, Welcome to the Crusades. We have posted E1 and E2 on our feed as a free preview.

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Brazil's Battle to Rein In Big Tech | Tech Won't Save Us Jun 19, 2025

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On this episode of Tech Won't Save Us, Paris Marx is joined by Laís Martins to discuss the recent enforcement measures against tech companies like X and Rumble in Brazil, how the country is grappling with the overreach of US tech companies, and the wider discussion about tech policy in Brazil.

Laís Martins is a technology reporter at The Intercept Brasil.

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Lessons of "No Kings"—Plus, Stopping the Medicaid Cuts | Start Making Sense Jun 18, 2025

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Saturday’s ‘No Kings’ protests, with 5 million people at 2100 events, was the largest single day of protest in American history. Leah Greenberg of Indivisible will talk about how the event was organized, and what comes next.

Also: The Medicaid cuts provide a lifetime opportunity for us to reach the 70 million people who did not vote and the 60 per cent of Trump voters who are not MAGA -- that's what Ai-jen Poo says. She's director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and President of Care in Action, and a key labor organizer and strategist.

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