Start Making Sense

⁠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/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Writing in The Nation, Pamela Alma Weymouth drew a contrast between Kay Graham, her lategrandmother who was publisher of The Washington Post when it fought Richard Nixon’sadministration on The Pentagon Papers and Watergate, with the current owner of thenewspaper, Jeff Bezos. Unlike Graham, Bezos has been all too willing to bend the knee to acorrupt president. I talked to Pamela about Bezos and other contemporary corporate leaderswho are undermining journalistic integrity at a moment when it is needed more than ever.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: ht

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 countrie

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

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

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.

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?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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

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 do

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

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

And now for something a little different: American Prestige has released the first two episodes of their standalone miniseries with the crew from ⁠We're Not So Different⁠⁠⁠. Get the rest of the episodes ⁠here⁠.Our journey through the First Crusade starts where the Crusaders themselves did: in western Europe with Pope Urban II and the Council of Clermont. We’ll discuss conditions in Latin Christendom in the late 11th century, what prompted the Pope’s call for Crusade, and how it was received by European nobles.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

A hotel for Thatcher’s fallen soldiers in the Falkland Islands. A hospital for Rikers inmates. A home for workers in the offshore fossil fuel industry. These are just a few of the past lives of “Jascon 27” – a Scandinavian ship that is the subject of writer Ian Kumekawa’s new book, Empty Vessel: The Story of the Global Economy in One Barge. The Vessel is, of course, a ship that transports people and goods. But, as journalist Atossa Araxia Abrahamian notes, and Kumekawa’s book reveals, it is also a bellwether of political movements and economic shifts, and a symbol of “the whims and desires” of corporations, nations, and individuals alike. Abrahamian wrote about Empty Vessel in the latest issue of The Nation. She’s an independent journalist who writes about the cracks within nation-states worldwide. She is also a former editor at The Nation and Al Jazeera America, and author of The Cosmoplites: The Coming of the Global Citizen and The Hidden Globe.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy &

Both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have reported that Elon Musk, currently trying to mend a feud with his quondam political ally Donald Trump, is a heavy user of mind alternating substances ranging from Ketamine to LSD to mushrooms to cocaine. While this story has been treated as one about the foibles of one increasingly erratic powerful man, it has wider implications. The financial journalist Jacob Silverman, author of an upcoming book about Musk, notes that there is a wider drug culture in Silicon Valley, rooted in the supposed performative enhancing power of drugs as well as an ideological commitment to elitism, accelerationism and technological transcendence. I took up these matters in a recent column and Jacob helps flesh out this story.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy