Start Making Sense

Danny and Derek fight fake news as they fight their allergies. In this week’s news: Trump and Xi meet; Trump rejects Iran’s ceasefire terms (3:09); Gulf states continue strikes against Iran-linked targets (5:53); U.S. intelligence estimates show Iran retains most missiles (8:48); Asian economies cut energy use with fertilizer shortages threatening crops (10:24); Gaza ceasefire plans appear to proceed without Hamas disarmament (12:58), Israel moves closer to an early election (15:47), and Netanyahu publicizes a UAE visit as Abu Dhabi denies it (17:40); Lebanon and Israel pursue talks as Israeli attacks continue (20:03); jihadist attacks intensify in Mali (24:37); Russia and Ukraine resume attacks after a brief ceasefire (27:45); Wes Streeting quits while Labour pressure builds on Starmer (30:09); CNN reports the CIA’s involvement in cartel killings in Mexico (32:20); and U.S. military activity raises fears of a Cuba operation (34:02). Don’t forget to listen to our latest miniseries, Marx Prestige. And join us for our livestream every Wednesday at 8pm ET. Enjoy the replay of this week’s. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What happens when a government goes all in on AI? It creates some huge vulnerabilities. Will Dunn joins Paris Marx to dig into how the UK government is using chatbots to write laws without public consultation and why it isn’t asking the hard questions about the risks of that growing reliance on US technology. Will Dunn is the business editor at the New Statesman. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Last week was one of the roughest for Democrats since Trump won the election in 2024 - the Supreme Court ended Black congressional representation in most of the South and opened the door to the creation of several more Republican House seats – and then the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the state’s initiative that created four more Democratic House seats was invalid. Nevertheless Trump is so unpopular that Democrats remain strong favorites to retake the House in November. Harold Meyerson comments. Also: During the first part of the 20th century, 100,000 Eastern European Jews joined a socialist organization that opposed Zionism. Their organization we call the Bund, and they believed that Jews should fight for full rights wherever they were, not for a new homeland somewhere else. Their motto was “here, where we live, is our country”--that's the title of a new book by Molly Crabapple. Adam Hochschild comments. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Danny and Derek speak with David Sirota, founder and EIC of The Lever, about journalism, independent media, and the consolidation of presidential power. They discuss the difference between journalism and media, the attention economy, capitalist media, audience capture, the decline of local news, the Powell Memo, the unitary executive theory, war powers, and Donald Trump’s use of executive power. Be sure to listen to The Kingmakers, the second season of David’s investigative podcast Master Plan. Don’t forget that AP’s new, weekly livestream is back this Wednesday at 8pm ET on our YouTube channel. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

You've already heard us rant about AI. What if you could hear someone who's actually super smart and profoundly informed... also rant about AI? We're joined by tech expert Sarah Myers West, who lays out why AI, as it's currently structured, is all about the consolidation of power among a handful of oligarchs, but also how that's not how it needs to be. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The late Jeffrey Epstein was friends with all sorts of elite figures in the US and many other countries. This extensive network is now sometimes described as “the Epstein class.” The question is, was this class held together merely by the opportunistic trading of favors or did it have a coherent worldview and agenda? Branko Marcetic has written a series of articles in Jacobin that clarify this issue by looking at relationships Epstein had with the billionaire Peter Thiel and the political operative Steve Bannon. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Producer Jake regrettably had his pet rat confiscated after an ill-fated cruise. In this week’s news: Iran considers a U.S. peace proposal (1:37), Project Freedom fails in the Strait of Hormuz (7:45), and new details emerge about damage by Iranian strikes on U.S. military sites (11:25); Israel kills civilians in Lebanon (14:53) and targets Gaza police (16:24); U.S.-China tensions rise before Trump’s summit (18:10); Sudan accuses Ethiopia of drone strikes while Ethiopia accuses Sudan of arming Tigray rebels (23:19), plus Tigray’s ruling party reinstates the regional legislature (25:39); the United States prepares to lift sanctions on Eritrea (27:08); JNIM besieges Bamako, Mali as Mali’s junta leader appoints himself defense minister (28:41); Trump pulls U.S. soldiers from Germany (30:24); Russia and Ukraine reject rival ceasefires (31:38); Trump expands sanctions on Cuba (33:53); and the White House broadens its counterterrorism strategy (35:29). Follow us on YouTube and join our livestreams every Wednesday at 8pm ET! And don’t forget to listen to our Marx Prestige miniseries. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Paris Marx is joined by Ben Tarnoff and Quinn Slobodian to discuss their new book Muskism which explores how Elon Musk exemplifies a new economic system shaping our lives, similar to Fordism in the twentieth century. Ben Tarnoff and Quinn Slobodian are the authors of Muskism. Ben is a writer and technologist based in Massachusetts and the author of Internet for the People. Quinn is professor of international history at Boston University, and the author of books like Crack-Up Capitalism. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Trump’s efforts to block Democratic voting in the midterms, or overturn the results, is not going to work—Ian Bassin explains the widespread preparations underway for defending the election in November. Ian is co-founder of the organization Protect Democracy and winner of a MacArthur genius grant. Also: In the aftermath of WWII, racists and antisemites organized to reverse the changes brought by the New Deal and the war, but their organizations were infiltrated and undermined by activists from the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the Non-­Sectarian Anti­-Nazi League. Steven J. Ross has that history – his new book is The Secret War Against Hate.  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Danny and Derek welcome to the show Alex Zakaras, professor of political science at the University of Vermont, to talk about the history and future of radical liberalism. They discuss liberalism’s relationship to republicanism, the American liberal tradition, equal freedom, defensive liberalism after 2016, neoliberalism, Cold War liberalism, socialism, racial hierarchy, labor power, democratic crisis, and whether liberalism can still offer a politics of freedom and equality. Be sure to grab a copy of Alex’s book ⁠Freedom for All: What a Liberal Society Could Be⁠. Don't miss our livestream this Wednesday, May 6, at 8 pm ET on ⁠our YouTube channel⁠. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Tara Raghuveer joins us to talk about her work building tenant unions, her belief that tenant unions can be to working-class people in the 21st century what labor unions were in the 20th century, and her faith that, if we have a chance to beat fascism, the chance lives in the tenant union. Tara rocks. Listen to this conversation with her right now. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

King Charles paid his respects at AP HQ, but was put off by Danny’s pet ferrets. In this week’s news: Iran talks collapse as Trump weighs a blockade and strikes (1:56); the UAE leaves OPEC (7:45); Mali rebels and jihadists seize Kidal (16:49); Derek interviews Alex Thurston about Mali’s escalating rebel offensive and the implications for the junta government (18:08); Israel kills civilians and expands evacuation zones in Lebanon (33:43) as the US and Israel demand a Hezbollah disarmament plan from Lebanon (35:25); Israel adds an orange line to its Gaza map (37:08); Afghanistan and Pakistan exchange border fire (38:59); China blocks the sale of AI startup Manus to Meta (40:46); Sudan’s Blue Nile faces a humanitarian crisis (44:23); King Charles visits the United States and addresses Congress (46:27); Trump and Putin discuss a Ukraine ceasefire (48:53), plus Ukraine accuses Israel of procuring stolen grain (48:53); and the United States charges Sinaloa Governor Ruben Rocha (52:18). Don’t forget to download our latest miniseries Marx Prestige. All episodes out now! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Paris Marx is joined by Brian Merchant to discuss Apple’s announcement that Tim Cook is stepping down as CEO, including his history and legacy, and what may be next for the company. Brian Merchant is the author of The One Device and Blood in the Machine and writes a newsletter of the same name. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this week’s political rundown, John Nichols explains why Trump may never succeed at building any of his ICE prison camps, and how this Friday’s May Day strike is a test of our power to resist. Also: MOCA’s “Monuments” show in LA critiques Confederate monuments that have been taken down in response to protests. Critic Christopher Knight has our evaluation. The show closes Sunday. (Originally broadcast Oct. 31, 2024.) Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Derek speaks with Danny and Mike Brenes about Cold War liberalism, its shaping of the American empire, and more from their new co-edited volume. They discuss the meaning of “Cold War liberalism,” the book’s essays, the relationship between liberalism and mass democracy, emergency politics, the continuity between New Deal liberalism and Cold War liberalism, military Keynesianism, US empire, neoconservatism, Joe Biden, and the persistence of Cold War liberal ideas in long after the end of the Cold War itself. Buy the volume Cold War Liberalism: Power in a Time of Emergency and use discount code BESSNER26  Don’t forget to download our Marx Prestige miniseries. Final episode out today! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Aaron and Matt are joined by Eric Rauchway, author of Why the New Deal Matters, to discuss America’s OG antifascist, FDR. What lessons can we learn from his successes in battling back the threat of American fascism in the 1930s? Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The conflict in the Middle East is currently in an intermittent holding action with an extended ceasefire but no diplomatic breakthrough. To assess where things are going, I sat down with the foreign policy analyst Anusar Farooqui, who runs an excellent substack called Policy Tensor and posts on Twitter here. We discussed the resiliency and growing stature of Iran, as well as the signs that unipolar US hegemony is coming to an end, to be replaced by a multipolar world.  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Danny and Derek will livestream from Route 3 as they take to the World Cup on foot. This week’s news: in Iran, Trump extends the ceasefire after talks fail (1:02), Iran reimposes its Strait of Hormuz blockade (6:05), the Islamic Republic’s leadership rejects unilateral concessions (9:11), and Persian Gulf mines and oil spills threaten commerce (13:13); the UAE seeks a currency swap after the Iran war’s economic shocks (16:28); Israel violates the Lebanon ceasefire amid extension talks (18:11) while the IDF punishes soldiers over crucifix desecration (21:00); Gaza’s reconstruction costs cause problems, plus governance delays (24:13); the U.S. offers to send Afghan refugees to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (26:33); Japan lifts its lethal arms export ban (28:59); the Sudanese army retakes Moja from the RSF (30:22); the TPLF reasserts control over the Tigray government (32:55); Ukraine reopens the Druzhba pipeline for an EU loan (34:51); CIA deaths expose the United States’ role in Mexico drug raids (37:55); and boat strike survivors allege mistreatment in U.S. custody (40:59). Be sure to subscribe to our newest miniseries, Marx Prestige. And check out our series on Christian Zionism with Daniel Hummel.  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Paris Marx is joined by Karl Bode to discuss how tech journalists coupled with corporate interests are irresponsibly boosting the profile of tech CEOs, further damaging public trust in institutional journalism and highlighting the need for publicly funded media organizations. Karl Bode is a freelance reporter and writes The Fine Print newsletter. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We need an AI revolution that works for the people, not just the billionaires. That’s Ro Khanna’s “AI Manifesto.” He’s the member of Congress who represents Silicon Valley, and also a leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. His manifesto is the cover story in The Nation magazine’s new issue. Also: Trump’s support continues to decline on everything he does, especially the war with Iran. But as he becomes weaker, he becomes more dangerous. Harold Meyerson comments; he’s editor-at-large of The American Prospect. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy