About this episode

Brian Becker discusses the implications of the House Ways and Means Committee's subpoena of BreakThrough News and its historical context in political repression.

“It's kind of in the DNA of American bourgeois capitalist politics: demonize your enemy, call them a communist, and that's the end of the story. But there's another element, which is the Republican Party, the MAGA project, Project 2025 — the Trump White House is failing.” The House Ways and Means Committee has sent a subpoena to BreakThrough News, demanding internal communications, financial records and more. We are not charged with any crime, because our only “crime” has been to tell the truth – about the Palestine solidarity movement, about ICE’s terror in our streets, about Washington’s crimes around the world, from Cuba to the Congo. This is a flagrant abuse of power, and a direct attack on our work as journalists and on the First Amendment. The State Department’s dangerous “Cuba report” released Monday – blasting Havana as the global center of a sinister anti-American communist plot by Russia, China, Iran, North Korea– is just the latest step in the Trump administration’s McCarthyist revival. But attacks on the left didn’t start with Trump: Brian Becker, host of the Socialist Program, joins BT Live to discuss how this latest crackdown on free speech is rooted in US history…

People in this episode

Host: Brian Becker

Topics covered

• journalism
• political repression
• First Amendment
• free speech
• historical context
• MAGA project
• Palestine solidarity movement

Keywords

• subpoena
• BreakThrough News
• First Amendment
• political repression
• free speech
• MAGA
• Cuba report
• journalism
• historical context

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: BreakThrough News, House Ways and Means Committee, State Department

Places: Cuba, Congo, United States

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