The DSR Network

The most recent Supreme Court decisions remind us that on our current path voter suppression and more power be given to the richest members of our society are only going to get worse. The current majority on the court exists because presidents elected by a minority of voters nominated candidates who won election thanks to Senators representing a minority of Americans. We discuss where we are heade...

Nicholas Eftimiades, a top expert on Chinese espionage, tells Jeff Stein he doubts reports that Beijing’s top counterspy defected to the US—but that Beijing has “many” moles in U.S/ intelligence. And Jeanne Meserve talks with top former FBI national security official Jay Tabb about the challenges of dealing with home-grown American terrorists. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/deepstate...

The U.S. was questioning its ability to lead the world. The structures of the global economy seemed outdated. There were deep tensions between those who sought to put America first and those who recognized the future of US growth lay in the global economy. It sounds a lot like today. But it was 1971. In a brilliant new book, former Yale School of Management Dean and top U.S. government official Je...

There are many rumblings of a new Cold War brewing between the US and China. But the governments in Washington and Beijing both seem to be most focused on domestic political issues and maintaining power. Which might suggest that much of the ratcheting up of toughness between them is performative. Especially as a large global coalition is emerging that holds common views toward how China must behav...

The threats to democracy in the US are building. The response is to call for new laws that first will require changes in the rules of the Senate. If we can get those changes, we should. But what if we can't? What is plan B? How do we avoid locking in changes to our system from which there is no recovery? Will holding Trump and Trumpists accountable for their abuses be any part of that. We discuss...

Yes, there’s a real James Bond, and Jeanne Meserve chatted him up on the curses and blessings of having such a legendary moniker. And historian Audra Wolfe talks with Jeff Stein about the role of American scientists in the Cold War and beyond. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/deepstateradio. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Vi...

To celebrate the fourth anniversary of Deep State Radio (which is to say something like 750 podcasts and a growing audience throughout), we have convened our inner circle of experts, our regular Deep State family, for a look four years from now. As you might expect, we have optimism, pessimism, realism, idealism, and a host of other flavors of outlook from which you can choose. It is the right way...

Listening to FBI Director Christopher Wray before the Congress this week and last, his answers were long and yet achieved a kind of studied vacuousness. There was no there there. No substantive. No sense of responsibility for clear intelligence failures. No sense that we were getting to the root causes of the event. No sense that those really responsible for it will be brought to justice. And for...

The lack of accountability for Donald Trump and his cronies for the January 6th insurrection, for the serial obstruction of justice identified by the Mueller investigation, for his alleged fraud at the helm of the Trump Organization, for his efforts to intimidate state election officials in the wake of the 2020 election, for his serial sexual abuse cases...and for so much more...is deeply frustrat...

Terrorism expert Gina Ligon tells Jeanne Meserve that the Biden administration’s initiative on domestic extremism represents a ‘sea change’ in policy but doesn’t address the root causes of populist violence. Israeli counterterrorism dramas do, an American ex-pat writer in Jerusalem tells Jeff Stein, because so many involved have served in spy units. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/dee...

When Vladimir Putin sits down with Joe Biden, both men will be well familiar with each other and Putin will have no illusions that he can toy with the new American president like he could with the last one. Joe Biden has been working at a high level in US foreign policy since 1973 (when Leonid Brezhnev was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.) As Biden's Europe trip has de...

Financial Times Editor-at-Large Gillian Tett has distinguished herself as a brilliant observer of markets and politics. That is in part due to the training she got while earning her PhD in anthropology. It is that experience and method that she brings to her latest book, the lucid, eye-opening and compelling "Anthro Vision: A New Way to See in Business and Life." It's insights and lessons are exce...

Ahead of presidents Putin and Biden meeting in Geneva, a psychiatrist puts the leader of Russia on the couch. Dr. Kenneth Dekleva, who served in the US embassy in Moscow, joins co-host Jeanne Meserve for a special edition of SpyTalk. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/deepstateradio. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaph...

With Republicans variously arguing that vaccines make people magnetic and that the Forest Service should be able to reroute the Moon's orbit, you'd think the party would be headed for a bad end. Add in the corruption and the traitors and the insurrections and it is baffling there still is a GOP. Yet, that said, many observers are predicting the GOP will win the House and Senate in next year's midt...

Chinese espionage poses a mortal threat to the US, former counterintelligence boss Bill Evanina tells Jeanne Meserve. And author Kai Bird talks with Jeff Stein about a clandestine plot with Iran by Reagan campaign manager and future CIA Director Bill Casey to deny Jimmy Carter re-election.  Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/deepstateradio. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out i...

Pultizer Prize-winner Daniel Yergin is widely regarded as the world's foremost analyst and commentator on energy issues. His books have chronicled every aspect of how modern energy markets have evolved and their impact on geopolitics and daily life. His latest book, "The New Map: Energy, Climate and the Clash of Nations," describes how emerging energy technologies and climate related issues are im...

Joe Biden is off to Europe. He will meet with Allies and with Vladimir Putin. Under Trump, that was a formula for headlines and disaster. Under all presidents such trips produce fraught analyses seeking to identify presidential doctrines and historic deliverables. But most of diplomacy is blocking and tackling. And much of it best done out of sight of the public. We discuss the upcoming trip with...

On this special edition of SpyTalk, co-host Jeanne Meserve speaks with William Evanina, former Director of the United States National Counterintelligence and Security Center about the recent spate of ransomware attacks. Evanina says President Biden should threaten to pull out of the upcoming summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and that the US should demonstrate it is willing and able to...

The Democrats keep bending over backwards to "do what's right" or "preserve bipartisanship." Republicans meanwhile have made it clear they have no interest in doing what's right or bipartisanship. Is the Democratic strategy a way to get to enough votes to reform the filibuster and thereby thwart GOP efforts to gut democracy? Or is it the old story of Lucy, Charlie Brown and the football. The weeks...

Former top FBI domestic extremist specialist Tom O’Connor tells co-host Jeanne Meserve in a startling interview that he’s worried about another Timothy McVeigh plotting something big. And Jeff Stein talks with veteran intelligence reporter Bill Arkin about a vast Pentagon secret army combatting our enemies that no one’s heard about. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/deepstateradio. See...

Many are rightly focused on the importance of 2024's presidential elections and the midterms in 2022. But if we do not stop GOP efforts at voter suppression this year...which means ending the filibuster this year...and we don't create accountability for Trump Administration abuses, we will set in motion inevitable defeats not just for Democrats but for American democracy in the years ahead. We dis...

Jean Meserve talks with former Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Juliette Kayyem about the mess in DHS’ intelligence shop, and Jeff Stein interviews Barry Meier about his new book, “Spooked: The Trump Dossier, Black Cube, and the Rise of Private Spies.” Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/deepstateradio. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your...

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, is one of the world's leading thinkers on international affairs. His most recent book, "The World: A Brief Introduction" is a one volume crash course into how we got to where we are and where we go from here. It is now out in paperback and to mark that event, we sat down with Richad to discuss the book, America's changing role in the wo...

We've come to the end of another violent cycle between Israelis and Palestinians. Generally, the Biden Administration has gotten good grades for a policy that balanced active, behind the scenes efforts to bring the violence to a quick close with a desire not to get side-tracked from their main agenda items here at home. Where do we go from here? What did the crisis tell us is now different between...

This week, the vast majority of Republicans on Capitol Hill sought to block a bipartisan commission that would investigate the attack that took place on January 6th and the factors leading up to it. Some even portrayed the attackers as the victims or as just a bunch of tourists visiting a national monument. It would have been shocking if it were not so commonplace. So the question becomes, do enou...