Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full, hour-long interview at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:Subscribers also get our Friday Free-for-All:On this week’s show we look at the Mamdani Sweep in New York City where progressive, populist, pro-Palestine candidates, backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, won important elections across the board in a huge rebuke to AIPAC and Israel.As AIPAC and the entire Democratic establishment freak out about this successful insurgency, we speak with journalists Ross Barkan and Liza Featherstone about what went right for the left and how progressives can use this momentum to take back more power.Useful Idiots: What’s your one-sentence takeaway from the elections?Ross Barkan: It was a great night for Zohran Mamdani and he is emerging as the new political boss of New York politics.Liza Featherstone: I wondered whether the left should have gone even bigger. Zohran won every single race that he endorsed and DSA won almost all of them. None of their incumbents were taken out and almost all their challengers won. If you’re not losing more, are you really trying hard enough?Useful Idiots: Establishment Democrats are freaking out about these progressive winners, including Congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier who sparked controversy with a now-deleted tweet saying “Fuck Kamala Harris.” What’s your response to this?Liza Featherstone: I would just like [these establishment Democrats] to actually spend a day gathering petition signatures for a candidate. When I did that for Zohran Mamdani in Bed-Stuy, a Democratic stronghold, the biggest obstacle was people saying, ‘fuck the democrats.’I would lead with ‘are you a registered democrat?’ and even normie, middle-aged ladies, white ladies, black ladies, you know, who are normally the base of the Democratic Party, would be like, ‘no, fuck them.’ Everyone’s fed up. Everyone’s fed up.To see the full interview with Ross and Liza on why Trump has more respect for Zohran’s game than Dems do; how fearmongering around antisemitism is no longer working; whether Brad Lander is actually a progressive or just establishment-in-disguise; and where AOC was while Mamdani was endorsing candidates, please subscribe to our show.You’ll also get the Friday Free-for-All: CNN IS MELTING DOWN AS PROGRESSIVES TAKE OVERThanks for supporting independent media, watch the full hour-long interview here:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comTo support our work and go ad-free, click here. Watch the free version here:Subscribers get our recap of the craziest in corporate media, the Friday Free-for-All:This week, after months of demanding Iran’s unconditional surrender, Trump suddenly backed off his regime-change war, signing an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with Iran.And what’s even more surprising than this apparent admission of defeat and push for peace is the Trump administration’s sharp turn on Israel, with Trump distancing himself from Netanyahu and Vice President Vance directly calling the Israelis out:“You have seen people within Bibi’s cabinet who have come out and attacked the deal and in some ways very personally attacked the President of the United States. If I was in the Israeli cabinet, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have left anywhere in the entire world.What is your exact proposal? You’re a country of 9 million people. You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.”To discuss the peace deal, whether it can withstand Trump’s turbulent negotiation tendencies and expected sabotage from Israel, and why the administration is turning against its ally Israel, we spoke with two Iranians: Trita Parsi, author and executive VP at the Quincy Institute, and Negar Mortazavi, journalist at the Center for International Policy and host of the Iran Podcast.Trita Parsi: The doubt of US power over Israel has now been completely blown up with the statements of JD Vance. I suspect that we’re going to see more of it, particularly if the Israelis continue to sabotage in the manner that they have been and probably will continue to do.What JD is doing there is not just changing the conversation about Israel. He’s changing the paradigm of U.S.-Israeli relations. He’s clearly pointing out to them how isolated Israel is today, and how few friends it has, which should not be a surprise. And at the same time, he’s reminding the Israelis the tremendous leverage that the United States has over Israel, even though most presidents have not had the backbone to use that leverage. But he’s reminding the Israelis of the extent to which the United States can really put a tremendous amount of pressure on them.Negar Mortazavi: This is incredible. It’s unprecedented. And now J.D. Vance, even Donald Trump, are starting to sound like America-first, anti-war skeptics of militarism, everything that was part of the political discourse in the campaign. I mean, it’s unfortunate that it took two wars, which also, by the way, took thousands of lives in Lebanon. But I think we see a gap and it’s very public and it’s widening. And this also comes after three years of genocide in Gaza, which has already created a gap between Israel and the U.S. Even in Congress now, across the political structure, you’re seeing the beginning of a movement. There are members of Congress or candidates running for elections who say they don’t want to accept money from AIPAC. That has become an unprecedented thing that is publicly being said.It’s a historic week, and extremely complex in terms of what the deal signifies and the shaky path it could have moving forward. Trita and Negar help us dig into the details and parse through the propaganda. This episode won’t be paywalled.If you want to support our work, please consider subscribing. You’ll get our recap of the craziest and most cringe-worthy reactions to the deal across corporate media in the Friday Free-for-All: Even Hillary Clinton is Turning On Israel.Subscribers can also watch the ad-free version here:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:Subscribers also get our Friday Free-for-All:This week we’re welcoming back to the show Useful Idiots fan-favorite California Congressman Ro Khanna to discuss his efforts to reign in Trump’s war on Iran, what’s happening with the Democrats in the aftermath of Graham Platner’s victory in Maine, and why he’s calling out other Dems like the AIPAC-owned Chuck Schumer and Josh Gottheimer.Useful Idiots: You’ve been critical of Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer on multiple issues, including on Iran because he opposed the Iran nuclear deal and he supported regime change inside Iran. How has he been on this issue?Rep. Ro Khanna: He’s been weak. He opposes the war, but he was not clear when Trump was threatening the genocide of the Iranian people. He basically issued a weak statement saying ‘consult Congress’ instead of saying that this is a war crime that an American president should never contemplate. He’s not clear in saying that this is an immoral, illegal, unstrategic war.Useful Idiots: What do you think the connection is between people’s support of this war, especially Democrats, and their support of Israel?Rep. Ro Khanna: It’s correlated. There’s no secret that Netanyahu has been wanting this war for the past thirty years. There’s no secret that he has talked Trump into it and that Trump basically went along with it.And even when Democrats oppose it, you hear many of them saying, ‘Well, we agree there should be action that takes out Iran’s nuclear capability. We just don’t agree that Trump did this without consulting Congress or consulting our allies.’ Well, there should not be a military solution there. Can there be negotiation like Obama did to have a JCPOA of the modern times? Absolutely. But there are a number of Democrats who are secretly applauding this goal of striking Iranian sites because that is something that Netanyahu also has wanted for two decades.Useful Idiots: Want to name any names?Rep. Ro Khanna: I don’t think there’s much to hide. I mean, [NJ Congressman] Josh Gottheimer, et cetera, he’s very open about it. They’re very clear that they support the goal of the military destruction of the Iranian people. But the military has not been affected. We may have degraded Iranian capability, but they still have a nuclear capability. If anything, you’ve told Iran that the way to prevent America from attacking is to develop a nuclear weapon. And now Iran is less willing to have a fatwa banning nuclear weapons. Now they’re not willing to. So they’ve actually strategically made a blunder.Watch our full interview with Rep. Ro Khanna on Graham Platner’s victory, working with Republican Congressman Thomas Massie on Iran and the Epstein Files, and why he’s working to lift the fuel blockade on Cuba and oppose Trump’s illegal regime change war.Plus, subscribe to watch our full second interview with journalist Adam Johnson, author of How to Sell a Genocide, which focuses on the liberal media’s complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. We go through his reporting and data which shows a bigger difference than we realized in the media’s reporting of Israelis vs Palestinians, plus, what he found most shocking in his research.And don’t miss this week’s recap of the craziest people on corporate media, the Friday Free-for-All: Trump Accidentally Tells Iran He’s Secretly Stealing Their OilThanks for supporting independent media, watch the full interviews here: