The Real News Podcast

This is really a tale of two countries: The United States and Brazil. In both countries, far-right presidents come to power — Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. In both those countries, the presidents spent several years unraveling democratic institutions and public policy. Both presidents then ran for reelection. Both presidents lied about their country's voting systems in order to undermine the el...

Establishment Democrats have racked up disastrous electoral losses over the past decade—so why are they furious when their own party actually wins? Taya Graham and Stephen Janis break down the meltdown of Democratic "centrist" operatives and pundits after recent socialist victories in New York and Colorado, from James Carville calling for a party "schism" to Rep. Josh Gottheimer's panicking about...

10 years before the catastrophic train derailment and chemical disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, one of the deadliest rail disasters in North American history took place in the Canadian town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. On July 6, 2013, an unattended freight train that had been parked on the tracks overnight began to roll downhill and gather alarming speed as it careened towards the city center of Lac...

On this episode of Rattling the Bars , to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party in 1966, host and former political prisoner Mansa Musa speaks with Dr. Joy James and Dr. K. Kim Holder about the history of the Panthers and their unique approach to, and practice of, communal socialism. This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. Watch Part 1 here . Guests: Dr. Joy...

On the eve of the United States' 250th birthday, Michael Fox sits down with Mansa Musa — longtime activist, former Black Panther, host of TRNN’s Rattling the Bars , and a man who spent nearly 49 years in prison — to ask a deceptively simple question: what does free speech actually mean? From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to Quito, Ecuador, to Frederick Douglass's 1852 address "What to the Slav...

From the explosion of AI data centers to the increasing number of toxic spills, explosions, and industrial disasters happening across the country, corporations and the government are turning the USA into one giant “sacrifice zone.” In “red” states and “blue” states, in rural areas and urban areas, poor and working people are suffering the toxic effects of a crisis that has resulted from decades of...

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Black Panther Party, founded in Oakland, California, in 1966. On this episode of Rattling the Bars , host Mansa Musa speaks with Dr. Joy James and Dr. K. Kim Holder about the legacy of the Panthers today, and about the important differences and intersections between democratic socialism and the Black Panther model of communalism. This is Part 1 of a two-...

Leaked audio recordings between powerful right-wing figures in Latin America have revealed a massive and shocking conspiracy—involving the United States and Israel—to forge an international political network with the expressed purpose of undermining leftist leaders in the region. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show , Marc speaks with Latin-America-based journalist and TRNN correspondent Micha...

In this exclusive interview, recorded earlier this month at the Netroots conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Rep. Summer Lee explains her concerns about the Trump administration's push to interfere in the upcoming 2026 midterms, and argues that the best path to achieving public policies like "Medicare for All" is to take billionaires' money out of politics and to fight for electoral reforms....

After an April decision by the US Supreme Court gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Tennessee became the first state to redraw its Congressional district maps, resulting in the 9th District—a solidly Democratic seat representing the only majority-Black district in the state—being erased. We speak with Tennessee State Representative Justin Pearson , who has been running to represent Tennessee’s 9th...

At the 39th Constitutional Convention of the United Auto Workers (UAW) in Detroit, Michigan, union delegates debated and affirmed the aggressive direction the UAW has taken under current President Shawn Fain, supporting pushes to increase shop-floor militancy, support new organizing efforts, and take stronger stances on the political crises working people face today. Among the major developments t...

Photojournalist Nick Stern still has nightmares from the night an officer fired a flashbang into his leg as he covered the LA immigration protests. He's one of dozens of journalists assaulted, arrested, or deported in Trump's second term — a year that pushed the US to 64th on the World Press Freedom Index, its lowest ranking ever. In this episode of The Battle for Free Speech, Michael Fox is joine...

Beyond the Wire , a new, thought-provoking documentary by filmmaker and researcher Dr. S. Rasheem, offers an indespensible representation of "The Greatest City in America" and a powerful counternarrative to the popular crime series  The Wire . In this exclusive interview for Rattling the Bars , host Mansa Musa speaks with Dr. Rasheem about how her background in community organizing compelled her t...

On June 10, early in the morning, FBI agents raided the homes of individuals involved in Palestine solidarity activism at the University of Michigan. As Yarden Katz and Stephen M. Ward report in Mondoweiss , “with help from local and state police departments, including the University of Michigan Police, the raids unfolded simultaneously in Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin…The case is now known as...

We sit down with Dr. Steven Thrasher to talk about his new book, The Overseer Class ; how our police state today evolved from yesterday’s slave plantations; and why Dr. Thrasher has been blacklisted from academia after defending his students at Northwestern University during the Palestine encampment movement in 2024.  Guests: Steven W. Thrasher, PhD, is the author of The Overseer Class: A Manifest...

TRNN reporter Stephen Janis speaks with US Rep. Jamie Raskin about the unprecedented power of ICE in light of the $70 billion in additional funding just approved by Congress, his opposition to the proposed "anti-weaponization fund," and why the Epstein scandal needs further scrutiny.  Editor's note: This interview was recorded at the 2026 Netroots Nation conference on June 6. Studio Production: Ta...

The world as we know it is facing unprecedented crises today that are all converging at once, from “end-times fascism” and full-blown oligarchy to “artificial intelligence,” endless wars, and genocide. The formal institutions of American democracy and organized labor have shown that they cannot stop the ruling-class onslaught on working people’s lives, livelihoods, and futures, so it’s up to rank-...

On the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration—January 20, 2025—the heads of many of Silicon Valley’s most powerful tech firms sat in the rows just behind Trump. It was a sign of Trump’s deep ties to the industry and to these powerful individuals who are transforming how we communicate, and not for the better.   In this episode, Michael Fox visits Silicon Valley to try to understand the stranglehold th...

As a writer, podcaster, and columnist for TRNN, Adam Johnson has been one of the fiercest, sharpest, and most consistent critics of legacy and Western media’s roles in laundering, obscuring, justifying, and manufacturing consent for crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza genocide by Israel and with the full support of the United States. But critique is not enough anymore; to ensure that the...

Free speech in America was never given — it was fought for, bled for, and died for. In this episode, hosts Marc Steiner and Michael Fox dive into the history of the movements that built and defended the right to speak out: the abolitionists who continued to speak — even as mobs attacked the building where they gathered — Ida B. Wells, who exposed the truth about lynching in Jim Crow Memphis, and t...

Israeli military forces captured the latest convoy of humanitarian aid ships sailing to Gaza with the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSM) between late April and mid-May. Activists who were imprisoned by Israel for days and eventually deported have reported harrowing treatment by their captors, including targeted torture, abuse, broken bones, unauthorized injections of undisclosed substances, and sexual vi...

Imprisoned by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in 1926, the prison writings of Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci remain essential 100 years later for understanding how fascism, policing, and incarceration function to suppress political dissent and preserve unequal systems of power. In this episode of Rattling the Bars , former Black Panther and political prisoner Mansa Musa speaks with ren...

At a live event hosted at Red Emma’s Cooperative Bookstore and Coffeehouse in Baltimore, MD, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez got to sit down for a deep and wide-ranging conversation with Chris Smalls, co-founder and former president of the Amazon Labor Union. Alvarez and Smalls discuss Smalls’ new book, When the Revolution Comes: A Fight for the Future of the Working Class ; they recount...

Are President Trump and MAGA Republicans publicly signaling that they plan to interfere in—and potentially rig—the 2026 midterm elections? If so, why is the media not taking the threat seriously? In this episode of Inequality Watch , Taya Graham and Stephen Janis investigate the connections between wealth inequality, political power, ICE funding, the influence of Super PACs on elections, and growi...

Mahmoud Khalil was detained and arrested at his Manhattan apartment. The video is chilling. Plainclothes agents are there. They refuse to give their names. He’s handcuffed and shoved into the back of a car. His wife — eight months pregnant — watches and tries to understand what’s happening. This is not a scene from some dark chapter of a distant past filled with black-and-white photos of bygone di...