The Intercept Briefing

California Rep. Ro Khanna tells us he is ready to invoke the War Powers Act in an effort to stop military action in Venezuela.  New York Times reporter Charlie Savage discusses the rise of the unitary executive theory and how Attorney General William Barr could impact the Trump scandals and U.S. national security policy. Carol Rosenberg, the only journalist covering the Guantanamo prison and trial...

Venezuela scholar George Ciccariello-Maher and journalist Kim Ives discuss recent developments and examine the massive protests rocking Haiti’s U.S.-backed president.  The Intercept’s Jon Schwarz details the bloody and murderous career of Elliott Abrams, the man now in charge of U.S.-Venezuela operations.  And journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous explains the failed revolution in Egypt and outlines U....

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi officially endorses the attempted coup in Venezuela, joining forces with Donald Trump and his posse of neoconservatives. Venezuela’s Vice Foreign Minister Carlos Ron responds to the threats of military action, the reports about covert U.S. activity in the country, and discusses the impact of the sanctions on Venezuela.  Former United Nations rapporteur Alfred de Zayas is...

Donald Trump received big bipartisan applause at his State of the Union. Vijay Prashad discusses the state of imperialism in the world, the battle for Venezuela, India’s upcoming election, and the history of U.S. dirty operations across the globe. As right-wing media and politicians have gone berserk over the FBI raid on the home of Trump crony, Roger Stone, whistleblower Reality Winner remains be...

Investigative journalist Allan Nairn talks about the history of U.S. crimes in Central America, the time he told Abrams, on national television, he should stand trial for war crimes and the threat of U.S. military action in Venezuela.  Former adviser to Hugo Chavez, Eva Golinger, and journalist and educator Roberto Lovato discuss how Venezuela was thrust into economic crisis, who is responsible, a...

Today we’re presenting a podcast special from our Intercept colleagues in DC. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joins Intercept reporters Ryan Grim and Briahna Joy Gray for an in-depth conversation about her fresh approach to politics, her thoughts on 2020, and her insurgent congressional campaign. As a new member of the House Financial Services Committee, she’s already shaping the conversati...

Longtime investigative journalist Michael Isikoff of Yahoo! News analyzes the Buzzfeed News bombshell report that Trump ordered Michael Cohen to lie to cover up a planned Trump Tower in Moscow. Robert Mueller is disputing the report and Isikoff offers his own critique of the story and what we know to be true thus far.  Popular economist and adviser to Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign Stephanie Kelton...

Trump says he wants to end U.S. wars abroad, while he threatens to use emergency powers to further militarize U.S. immigration enforcement. On Twitter, Trump advocates isolationism, while embracing lifelong warmongers like John Bolton and Benjamin Netanyahu.  Investigative reporter and historian Gareth Porter analyzes Trump's pledge to pull troops from Syria and Afghanistan. He breaks down why Isr...

Introducing Murderville, a new investigative podcast from The Intercept.  Episode 2: The Trial. Devonia Inman goes on trial for his life. But there’s really no evidence against him. Witnesses keep changing their stories. And the jury never hears about an alternate suspect — a man who was just arrested for a brazen murder of two prominent community members. The full seven-episode Murderville series...

Introducing Murderville, a new investigative podcast from The Intercept.  Episode 1: Murder at Taco Bell. A murder in the small southern town of Adel, Georgia, sent Devonia Inman to jail 20 years ago.  He was accused of robbing and shooting a woman named Donna Brown in a Taco Bell parking lot.  He swore he was innocent and there were good reasons to believe him. And while he awaited trial, three m...

Dan Kaufman, author of "The Fall of Wisconsin: Conservative Conquest of a Progressive Bastion and The Future Of American Politics," digs into the history, analyzes the latest Republican conspiracy and lays out why we all should study the Wisconsin model.  Longtime criminal justice reporters Liliana Segura and Jordan Smith talk about their gripping new true crime podcast, Murderville, which tells t...

Jeremy Scahill details the crimes of George H.W. Bush, the sick propaganda of the corporate media memorials; and the trail of blood, death, and tears Bush leaves behind.  Independent journalist Arun Gupta covers decades of Bush, from his time at the helm of the CIA, to the presidency. Gupta discusses Bush’s support for Manuel Noriega and his eventual invasion of Panama, the pardoning of Iran-Contr...

Decades of CIA death squads, economic warfare, coups, and support for authoritarian rule played a central role in the exodus of refugees from Central America. Donald Trump is now threatening to shoot the fleeing victims. Honduran professor Suyapa Portillo Villeda analyzes how Washington created the crisis.  Jeremy Scahill details the history of John Negroponte and the Contra death squads in Nicara...

The Chicago-based hip-hop artist Vic Mensa not only raps about Chicago police killings of black and brown people, about apartheid in Palestine, the poisoning of the water in Flint, Michigan, but he also goes to where the silence is and speaks out.  In the aftermath of the police shooting of Laquan MacDonald, Mensa was in the streets and gave voice to the movement that led to the conviction of seco...

Columbia University professor Bernard Harcourt lays out the multi-decade history of paramilitarized politics in the U.S., how the tactics of the “War on Terror” have come back to American soil, and why no one talks about drone strikes anymore.  Academy Award-winning director Michael Moore talks about his recent visit from the FBI in connection to the pipe bomb packages and who he thinks should run...

Journalist Chris Hedges has spent the past 15 years trying to ring the alarm about the dangers of the U.S. political system and the impact of a corporate and financial coup d’etat that happened long ago. He talks about the growing power of “Christian fascists,” predicts a major financial crash and offers ideas on how to fight back. In 1923, a year after Mussolini took power in Italy, one radical a...

NYU’s Ruth Ben-Ghiat, and Yale’s Jason Stanley discuss Trump’s brand of authoritarianism and dissect the similarities and differences between Trump and fascist leaders Mussolini and Hitler.  Actor Ty Jones, Producing Artistic Director at The Classical Theatre of Harlem, perform’s Langston Hughes’s poem “Let America Be America Again.”  Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting’s Adam Johnson breaks down h...

Journalist Rula Jebreal, who conducted one of the last interviews with Jamal Khashoggi before he was executed, discusses possible motives for his murder and shares audio from the interview. Sam Husseini, a journalist who once asked a top Saudi official to defend the legitimacy of his regime, joins for a roundtable on the history of U.S. support for Saudi Arabia, the intentional amnesia of the poli...

Glenn Greenwald is host and he breaks down the rise of the most extreme right-wing candidate in the democratic world and explains why Brazil’s young and fragile democracy leaves it far more susceptible to a return of military rule.  Glenn is joined by the Vice Presidential candidate on the Worker’s Party ticket running against Bolsonaro, Manuela d’Ávila, for a wide-ranging interview about Bolsonar...

Chicago claps back in a live show recorded in the Windy City. Poet, scholar, and author Eve Ewing, revolutionary educator Bill Ayers, activist Charlene Carruthers, and journalist Jamie Kalven discuss the murder conviction of the Chicago Police officer who gunned down Laquan McDonald, the neoliberal tenure of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and the war on Chicago’s public schools.  Plus, musician Malcolm Londo...

Most analysis of Donald Trump’s election to the U.S. presidency in 2016 focuses on immediate causes and, of course, its effects. In a recent speech, NYU history professor Nikhil Pal Singh took a longer historical view, sketching three arcs of U.S. history that have yielded the durable commitments to racism, militarism, and unequal class power that have sharpened over the past two decades.  Conside...

If the Democrats retake the House, Rep. Hank Johnson will be the chair of a subcommittee that has subpoena power to continue the investigation of Kavanaugh. He explains his position on Kavanaugh and also Justice Clarence Thomas and his history of alleged sexual harassment of Anita Hill.  Former White House lawyer, Supreme Court clerk and current constitutional law professor Kate Shaw and Democracy...

Famed dissident Noam Chomsky breaks down the Trump presidency; the defeat of the U.S. in Afghanistan; what he believes is a just position on Syria’s civil war; and the agenda of Vladimir Putin and Russia. He also discusses the impact of big social media companies and explains why a life of resisting and fighting is worth it.  Jeremy Scahill analyzes Trump’s U.N. speech and gives context to the sel...

One year ago, Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, but U.S. colonialism prepared the ground for the deadly crisis.  Journalist Juan González exposes how Wall Street, the bipartisan Washington political machine, and climate change conspired to kill thousands of Puerto Ricans.  The Intercept’s Naomi Klein outlines the neoliberal economic attack on Puerto Rico and a shock doctrine in motion.  Puerto...

Constitutional law professor Zephyr Teachout is running to be the New York Attorney General, and has vowed to put Trump and his organization in her legal sights if she wins. She talks about why she believes Trump may have violated the emoluments clause and her plan to undermine his potential pardons.  Socialist academic Dr. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor talks about socialism, capitalism and what real re...