Deep State Radio

Are we really going to war with Venezuela? Just how bad is Hegseth’s war criminal ethos? Can Europe pull itself together to save Ukraine and itself? These are the questions that keep us up at night, but our friends Ed Luce and Rosa Brooks join David Rothkopf to try and give us answers. Will their answers help us rest easy? Tune in to find out! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the DSR Daily for Wednesday, we discuss a new pause on immigration applications for 19 countries, a new immigration crackdown in New Orleans, a Democrat loss in the Tennessee special election, and more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Suddenly, on many fronts at once, President Trump and his allies are demonstrating how central sheer sadism is to his agenda—and to how MAGA conducts politics. Trump just unleashed a hateful rant to the media about Somali immigrants to set the stage for a coming campaign to arrest them en masse. Meanwhile, MAGA excitement over the Caribbean Sea bombings is spiking: Pete Hegseth tweeted out a deeply sadistic cartoon celebrating these extrajudicial killings. A prominent MAGA personality just declared her desire to see bombing victims “bleed out.” And MAGA figures are raging at reporters who broke the story of the follow-up strike killing two men in the water. We talked to Paul Waldman, who has a good piece on his Cross Section Substack about all of this. We discuss the centrality of hate and bloodlust to Trump-MAGA politics, how the administration’s social media strategy utilizes sadistic imagery, and why the public backlash to all these depravities is heartening.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click

How dead is old media? As more and more traditional outlets are swallowed by powerful individuals and corporations, it’s hard to determine what’s worth reading anymore. Are the New York Times and Washington Posts of the world still worth paying attention to? Jeff Jarvis and Dan Froomkin join David Rothkopf to explore these questions and determine who you can really trust in the era of new media.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Trump has grown even more authoritarian and bold with each passing day in his second term. With illegal strikes on boats and the pardon of the former Honduran president, it’s clear that the administration is moving recklessly ahead with a dangerous agenda. So what can Congress do? And just as critically, what can every day citizens do to stem the tide of authoritarianism? Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon joins David Rothkopf to answer all these questions and more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the DSR Daily for Tuesday, we break down Trump’s pardon of the former president of Honduras, Hegseth and the White House scrambling in the fallout from a boat strike, Costco’s lawsuit against the administration, and more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Trump’s illegal boat bombings just got even worse. We’ve now learned that after demolishing a boat allegedly carrying drug smugglers in September, two survivors were left behind, and they were both blown apart in a second strike. That’s probably a war crime. On Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt struggled mightily to spin this as perfectly lawful. But all she revealed is how hard it is to defend all this when actual facts are known. Meanwhile, the latest turn in this saga is clearly rattling some Republicans, who feel forced to appear as if they want to exercise more oversight. We talked to Jennifer Rubin, editor-in-chief of The Contrarian, about her good new piece on this latest fiasco. She explains why we should take GOP angst over the bombings seriously, why people inside the chain of command should fear they’re on the hook for illegal acts, and what it will really take to impose accountability.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradi

On the DSR Daily for Monday, we discuss Benjamin Netanyahu requesting a pardon, Pete Hegseth’s potential war crimes, deadly flooding in Southeast Asia, and more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Trump dreads being seen as weak. He exploded in a long, crazed rant about a harsh new piece in The New York Times about his ongoing decline. Though the piece documented his deterioration in careful detail, Trump insisted in all kinds of ways that, no, really, he’s as physically energetic and cognitively sound as he’s ever been. We think this gets at a bigger story: The illusion that Trump is strong, powerful, and wields absolute mastery over foes is essential to his political mystique. As his wildly unhinged overreaction to the piece demonstrates, he knows this better than anyone. Yet that eruption only confirmed the thesis: The whole fracas even got medical professionals to weigh in on his obvious mental decline. We talked to David Lurie, who writes for the Public Notice Substack, about his new piece depicting Trump as a “lame duck dictator.” We discuss the collapse of Trump’s aura of strength, how the combination of his political debilitation and consolidation of authoritarian power poses new dang

Trump’s foreign policy can be summarized with one phrase: FUBAR. The administration’s commitment to Ukraine is laughable, and Trump’s politics are driving a potentially irreversible wedge between us and our closest allies. But if we can’t be thankful for the atrocious politics of our government, at least we can be thankful for the courage and resistance of those committed to democracy, both at home and abroad. Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations joins David Rothkopf and Rosa Brooks to discuss America’s place in the world on the eve of Thanksgiving. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the DSR Daily for Wednesday, we discuss a leaked recording of Steve Witkoff, 20 states suing the administration over cuts to homeless housing funding, Trump backing Patel over reports on his potential ousting, and more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, the White House leaked plans to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies for some of the millions of people who stand to lose out from their expiration. But that’s on ice after Republicans declared it a nonstarter. That could hurt them in the midterms, and oddly, it comes as President Trump just exploded in a wild tirade about the elections. He falsely ranted that Democrats will open our borders and unleash DEI, and urged the Indiana GOP to hurry up and gerrymander to stop Democrats. Meanwhile, Republicans tell Punchbowl News that they’re losing the House, that resignations are coming, and that “morale has never been lower.” But if so, why not renew ACA subsidies to try to save yourselves, Republicans? We talked to New Republic staff writer Monica Potts about her good new piece on the GOP predicament. We discuss the roots of GOP anti-ACA hatred, why Republicans bank on election-rigging, and how it all explains GOP plutocratic politics in the Trump era.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Her

As we approach Thanksgiving in our current political climate, Norm Ornstein and David Rothkopf ask - what is there to be thankful for? Donald Trump’s influence appears to be waning and Democratic leaders have started to push back on Republican policies in significant ways, yet there are many major challenges that remain. Tune in as Norm and David attempt to find thankfulness in the midst of political chaos. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the DSR Daily for Tuesday, we discuss the dismissal of the cases against James Comey and Letitia James, Ukraine agreeing to a peace proposal, the Pentagon reviewing Senator Kelly over a video to troops, and more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This weekend, President Trump raged over a video from Democrats that warned against carrying out “illegal orders.” That led him to get his Defense Secretary to launch an investigation of one of those Democrats, Senator and former Navy captain Mark Kelly. But things kept spiraling downward for Trump when a judge tossed out his corrupt prosecutions of James Comey and Letitia James. The ruling—that his appointment of a stooge U.S. Attorney was illegal—shows that his slapdash targeting of enemies is what backfired. In all these stories, Trump is corruptly weaponizing the system to get revenge on enemies for corrupt purposes, and it’s running aground for him. We talked to David Kurtz, who covers legal issues for Talking Points Memo’s excellent Morning Memo newsletter. We discuss how Trump’s own corruption is blowing up in his face, how the failing prosecutions are connected to his vile effort to get revenge on Kelly, and why we’re going to need another post-Watergate-scale reform effort to salvage the system once

The relationship between artificial intelligence and government has been a contentious one here in the US. Yet the same can’t be said for countries around the world. Many in the global south are embracing AI to supercharge their governance in ways that are leaving wealthier nations behind. Apolitical CEO Robyn Scott joins David Rothkopf to explore how countries are taking advantage of AI, why there is such a big artificial intelligence trust gap across different cultures, and more.  This material is distributed by TRG Advisory Services, LLC on behalf of the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in the U.S.. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the DSR Daily for Monday, we cover the strange White House meeting between Trump and Mamdani, MTG’s shocking resignation announcement, progress on talks for peace in Ukraine, and more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Suddenly, media outlets seem to have figured out that President Donald Trump is really, really unpopular. There’s been a palpable shift in the discourse: The New York Times reports that Republicans are quietly looking beyond Trump, suggesting he’s losing his grip on the party. Axios claims that it’s “red alert” time for Trump and the GOP. Politico describes how Republicans are getting routed in school board races, a sign that MAGA culture-warring has lost its sway and is even backfiring. And one CNN analyst offers a brutal reading of recent approval numbers on Trump, pronouncing them “atrocious.” We talked to Salon’s Amanda Marcotte, who regularly dissects MAGA and media foibles alike. We discuss why the political media smells blood, how deepening splits in MAGA show Trump’s weakness, what it means that the Trump-MAGA culture war and immigration raids are badly alienating ordinary voters, and how Trump is in a potentially irreversible tailspin.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://link

On the DSR Weekly Wrap-Up for November 21, we cover the administration opening up new oil and gas drilling, Trump backtracking on tariffs, Eric Swalwell’s big for California governorship, and more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Thursday, President Trump called for the execution of a number of members of the opposition party. This came after Democratic lawmakers released a powerful video informing military and intelligence officials that they are not obliged to carry out illegal orders from Trump. Then he raged in several ranting tweets that this was “sedition,” punishable by “death.” Democratic leaders forcefully hit back. And White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt spun madly in response, struggling to deny that Trump had given illegal orders. In other words, it all backfired badly on Trump by forcing a public conversation about whether Trump actually is giving illegal orders. We talked to Representative Chrissy Houlahan, an Air Force veteran herself, who is one of the Democrats in the video. She explains why Democrats needed to do this, why service-members need to know they have support from lawmakers like her, what they’re hearing from inside the military, and why it’s so important to have a big public debate over Trump’s