Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté

Click here for the extended episode, including the full interview with Daniel Bessner and Derek Davison. For a while, pundits have been predicting the decline of American superpower. Although some decline is inevitable, don’t expect Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to precipitate it. As the American Prestige podcast’s Daniel Bessner and Derek Davison explain, the US ability to invade another country a...

Click here for the full episode, including an extended interview with Branko Marcetic about Ukraine, Epstein & more, plus a chat about Vaush. Note: This episode was recorded before Russia invaded Ukraine. The interview with Branko Marcetic provides a lot of useful context on how we got here. When we look at the progression of this war, the Biden administration and cable news hosts will tell yo...

Click here for the full episode, including an extended interview with Rania Khalek. Breakthrough News’ Rania Khalek recounts her horrifying travel nightmare: “So I went to Cuba and it was terrifying… just like Marco Rubio said.” Then she laughs and proceeds to share an enlightening and inspiring story of a country perpetually beat down by the US that still continues to survive. Seeing the stellar...

Click here for the full episode, including an extended interview with Margaret Kimberley: https://usefulidiots.substack.com/p/extended-episode-how-obama-failed?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web Black Agenda Report’s Margaret Kimberley is fed up with the US progressive caucus. With zero politicians in Congress calling out Biden for escalating tensions with Russia or doing little more...

There is only one truly bipartisan issue in the United States Congress these days: increasing military spending. Every year it passes, and every year we spend trillions of dollars on weapons and soldiers. Money that could be spent on education, homelessness, and infrastructure all goes to the war chest. The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel joins the Useful Idiots to warn of the dangers of the US esc...

Hear the ad-free version at http://usefulidiots.substack.com “But if Obama knew,” Aaron and Katie ask Status Coup’s Jordan Chariton, “why didn’t he go to Flint and bust Wall Street and the Republicans for poisoning the city? It would’ve been an easy political win.” “If Obama didn’t go after Wall Street for tanking the global economy,” responds Chariton, “what makes you think he would’ve done anyth...

“There’s an underestimation of how dangerous the United States government is right now.” Prolific and esteemed historian Dr. Gerald Horne, who holds the Moores Professorship of History and African American Studies and has authored over 40 books, warns that the greatest threat to world peace is the US government. Whether taking down civil rights leaders, starting countless wars, killing foreign civ...

Hear the ad-free version at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Mansoor Adayfi shares his harrowing story of being kidnapped and brought to Guantanamo: “Then I was dragged to my cage, naked. Six of the guards beat me and tied me with a hood and duct tape. It was messaging. When they took the hood off, I couldn’t see for hours because of the bright light and my eyes were swollen from the beating.“I wa...

The infinitely funny and smart David Cross stopped by for a chat and we couldn’t contain our excitement. You know him from Mr. Show, Arrested Development, The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret (tip from Wilson: the best hidden gem show you’ll find), and his hilarious standup specials. And now you know him as a Useful Idiot. We talk comedy: creating a standup special, using audience feed...

Hear the ad-free episode at http://usefulidiots.substack.com 2021 was a shit show, so who better to help us dig through it than friend-of-show Thomas Frank, author of Listen Liberal and What’s the Matter with Kansas. So what happened in 2021? Democrats and Republicans definitely both sucked. Covid got better and then a lot worse. Dems didn’t do the one thing to ensure they’d never lose another ele...

Hear the ad-free version at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Our Sponsors: * Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com/IDIOTS * Check out Chilipad and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: https://sleep.me * Check out Mint Mobile and use my code mintmobile.com/USEFUL for a great deal: https://www.mintmobil...

Hear the ad-free version at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Journalist and professor Christian Parenti’s latest NonSite (the Adolph Reed site) article, The First Privilege Walk, if nothing else, has the greatest subtitle of all time: How Herbert Marcuse’s widow used a Scientology-linked cult’s methodology to gamify Identity Politics and thus helped steer the U.S. Left down the dead-end path of id...

Nils Melzer responds to the Julian Assange verdict on a special Useful Idiots Livestream. Nils Melzer is the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture; Human Rights Chair, Geneva Academy; Professor of International Law, University of Glasgow; Vice-President IIHL, and the author of The Trial of Julian Assange (https://twitter.com/nilsmelzer) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoic...

Subscribe at http://usefulidiots.substack.com for the ad-free version, which helps independent journalists through the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press. He wrote and directed multiple classic, culture-defining American movies. He created groundbreaking documentaries, interviewing Putin, debunking Russiagate, and uncovering JFK’s murder. He won three Academy Awards. There was only o...

See the ad-free episode that helps independent journalists at http://usefulidiots.substack.com When Professor Adolph Reed joins the zoom call, Matt welcomes him: “Hi, Professor, how are you doing today?” Reed responds: “I can’t complain.” Matt eyes him, incredulous. Reed smiles. “Actually, I can complain. And I’m going to.” Reed, author of the forthcoming book The South: Jim Crow and its Afterlive...

See the ad-free episode at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Our Sponsors: * Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com/IDIOTS * Check out Chilipad and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: https://sleep.me * Check out Mint Mobile and use my code mintmobile.com/USEFUL for a great deal: https://www.mintmobile...

See the ad-free episode at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Your two favorite Russiagate addicts are back and feeling very vindicated. We watch as Adam Schiff, the Washington Post, and more slowly realize their facts were only conspiracy theories. Now we’re just waiting for a resounding “Great job, Matt and Aaron!” Aaron Maté of The Grayzone’s Pushback has spent years putting in journalistic work...

Subscribe for ad-free extended interviews at http://usefulidiots.substack.com This week, Taibbi went down to Virginia to get Useful Idiot boots on the ground for the crucial election. Let’s just say it didn’t go as planned for Dems. What does this mean for 2022? 2024? What caused the disastrous loss? Was it messaging? The candidate? Bernie and the progressives? In our election wrap up, we cover it...

Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com for an ad-free listen and extended interview On this week’s show, award-winning journalist David Sirota justly rips Democrats for not only selling out the American people but for enabling Right Wing authoritarianism: “Democrats get elected promising to help people, promising various programs to directly help people. And then you get into power and you shield...

Subscribe for extended interviews at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Facebook is changing its name. The reason? They’re not just a social media platform anymore. They’re so much more! Definitely not the reason? Distract and distance from a whistleblower scandal, rampant fake news issues, and an evil reputation. No, really, it has nothing to do with those things… Activist and writer Evan Greer, di...

See the full interview at http://usefulidiots.substack.com “By the time Biden won the presidency, I was struggling to square what I was learning about the family's business dealings with the folksy image I had of him and his family. I just wanted to tell the story in full.” Author Ben Schreckinger dug up the history of a family dynasty and put it into his book The Bidens, which explores the Bi...

We did Idiots Live this week instead of the Four Food Groups. Let us know what you think of it. “We're at the beginning of the fourth quarter.” This is what The Intercept’s D.C. Bureau Chief Ryan Grim predicts for the play unfolding in Washington: Will Biden get his bill passed? He analyzes the major players. The Dems. 48 of them want a bill that has free college and a whole bunch of other San...

See the extended interview at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Josiah Zayner wants to teach you genetic engineering. For two reasons: 1. He thinks it’d be awesome. And 2: It would hurt Big Pharma. “Gene therapies can cure and treat diseases,” he explains. “We can engineer animals and plants to make fuels and food and crazy stuff. The applications are limitless. We just need people working on it. A...

Subscribe at http://usefulidiots.substack.com During the first Gulf War, there was a transformation to an era of constant new news. The face of this change was CNN reporter and Useful Idiots Hero Charles Jaco. Views went from checking the news once or twice a day to constantly staying plugged in, anchors got famous and the whole thing became a spectacle. Jaco’s response? “What the devil is going o...

See the full interview at http://usefulidiots.substack.com “The charade of statesmanship played out by George W. Bush and his enabler, Condoleezza Rice, as they wander the Middle East is a fitting end to seven years of misrule, stripped of power and transformed from monsters into buffoons. One half expects to see him stand up at the next president's inauguration and screech ‘I’m melting! I’m m...