War on Terror

Sam hosts Spencer Ackerman, columnist for The Nation and author of the Forever Wars newsletter on Ghost, to discuss his recent piece ”The Unlearned Lessons From the War in Iraq”.  Sam begins by running through updates on the IPCC’s report on catastrophic warming levels, a brand new Fox lawsuit, t...
Sam and Emma are back with news and reflection on the Invasion of Iraq. First, they run through updates on Trump’s impending arrest in New York, UBS acquiring Credit Suisse, debates over rolling back the Dodd-Frank rollbacks that let the SVB collapse slide, Wyoming’s crackdown on the abortion pil...
Emma speaks with Trevor Aaronson, contributing writer at The Intercept, to discuss his recent podcast Alphabet Boys. Then, she’s joined by freelance journalist Zachary A. Siegel, to discuss his recent coverage in Bolts Magazine of the Chicago mayoral race. First, Emma runs through updates on decr...
Sam is back, and he and Emma break down the biggest headlines of the day. Then they are joined by Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President at the Quincy Institute, to discuss the recent widespread demonstrations in Iran. First, Emma and Sam walk through updates on the upcoming Fed-induced recession,...
Sam and Emma host Jonah Furman of Labor Notes and author of the Who Gets The Bird? newsletter on SubStack to discuss the recent negotiations between rail workers, railroad companies, and the Biden administration. Then they are joined by investigative reporter Seth Harp to discuss his recent repor...
Sam and Emma host Moustafa Bayoumi, columnist at the Guardian, to discuss his recent piece in The Nation, ”Journey to Guantánamo: A Week in America’s Notorious Penal Colony”. Then, Sam and Emma are joined by writer Jacob Silverman to discuss his recent piece in the New Republic ”The CEO Trying to...
Emma hosts Alex Press, writer at Jacobin, to discuss her recent pieces on the burgeoning labor movement countrywide and Eric Adams’s homelessness policies. Then Emma is joined by Daniel Bessner, co-host of the American Prestige podcast on SubStack, to discuss his recent brief for the Quincy Insti...
Sam and Emma host John M. Schuessler, Associate Professor of Government and Public Service at Texas A & M University, to discuss his book Deceit On The Road To War: Presidents, Politics, and American Democracy, and how the blueprint to manufactured consent for US intervention developed over t...
Sam and Emma (freshly back from vacation!) break down a huge weekend in news, from the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the courts to labor and COVID, and more! Sam and Emma begin by reflecting on the myriad examples of incredible anti-war activism in the face of repression that we’ve seen by the Russ...
Sam hosts Matthew Cole, investigative reporter at The Intercept, to discuss his recent book Code Over Country: The Tragedy and Corruption of SEAL Team Six. Then, Sam is joined by Jack Crosbie, writer for Rolling Stone and Discourse Blog, to discuss the recent developments in Ukraine.  Matthew Col...
It’s Casual Friday! Sam and Emma host Ben Burgis, columnist at Jacobin, host of Give Them An Argument and author of Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters, to round up the week in news. Then, Sam and Emma are joined by comedian Jena Friedman, host and...
Sam hosts Suzanne Schneider, Deputy Director and Core Faculty at the Brooklyn Institute, to discuss her recent book The Apocalypse and the End of History: Modern Jihad and the Crisis of Liberalism, on the evolution of jihad as liberalism took over the world. Schneider begins by helping frame the ...
Sam and Emma host Elizabeth Samet, professor of English at West Point, to discuss her recent book Looking for the Good War: American Amnesia and the Violent Pursuit of Happiness, on the mythology behind the Americanized narrative of WWII, how it came to prevalence, and the role Tom Brokaw and Ste...
Sam and Emma host Michael Brenes, history lecturer at Yale University, to discuss his recent book For Might and Right: Cold War Defense Spending and the Remaking of American Democracy, on how the Cold War helped to ingrain the military-industrial complex within the American political, economic, a...
Sam and Emma host Kate Crawford, Research Professor at the University of Southern California Annenberg, to discuss her recent book Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence, on our relationship with big tech, and the concept of the AI industry as a continuat...
Sam and Emma host Craig Whitlock, investigative reporter at the Washington Post, to discuss his recent book The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War. Sam and Emma first touch upon the resounding victory for Gavin Newsom in the California recall election from last night, and discuss New...
Sam and Emma host Samuel Moyn, Professor of History at Yale University, to discuss his recent book Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War, on how the evolving face of the American Empire has changed the way we perceive war, and what we can do to get the conversation back...
Sam hosts Russ Feingold, President of the American Constitution Society and former United States Senator from Wisconsin, to discuss the legacy 9/11 has had on the American national security state, and what to expect going forward, to discuss the legacy 9/11 has had on the American national securi...
Emma hosts James Risen, Senior National Security Correspondent at the Intercept, to discuss his recent piece ”A War’s Epitaph: For Two Decades, Americans Were Told One Lie After Another About What They Were Doing In Afghanistan”, on how bad the “good war” has been since it began. James and Emma w...
It’s Casual Friday! Emma hosts Alex Pareene, contributing editor at The New Republic and author of The AP newsletter on Substack, to wrap up the events of the week. Emma starts off with some righteous indignation towards former Trump National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster saying to resident CNN ...
Sam and Emma host Spencer Ackerman, author of the Forever Wars newsletter on Substack, to discuss his recent book Reign Of Terror: How The 9/11 Era Destabilized America And Produced Trump. Sam, Emma, and Spencer jump off of a Charlie Kirk nativist clip to dive into the start of the war on terror ...
Sam and Emma tackle a major week in news, starting with the fall of Kabul to the Taliban and the Biden administration’s lackluster, finger-pointing response. They start by taking a bird’s eye view of the fall of Kabul by going back to the beginning, when Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) was the s...
It’s Casual Friday! Sam and Emma host Ben Burgis, columnist at Jacobin, host of Give Them An Argument With Ben Burgis, and author of Canceling Comedians While the World Burns: A Critique of the Contemporary Left, to cover the top stories of the week. Ben, Sam, and Emma start off with a discussion...
Sam hosts Heidi Boghosian, the executive director of the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute, to discuss her recent book, “I Have Nothing To Hide: And 20 Other Myths About Surveillance and Privacy.” They explore the importance of taking action as individuals, fighting for the autonomy to reveal informa...
Sam hosts Heather “Digby” Parton to discuss the week’s top stories, including the infrastructure negotiations, SCOTUS decisions to gut voter rights, and more. Then, WGA East Executive Director Lowell Peterson joins to discuss the unionization efforts at MSNBC Digital. Digby and Sam start off the ...
Sam and Emma host Adam Weinstein, Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute, to explore the status of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and what the region might look like moving forwards. They look into why the Pentagon might want a quick withdrawal now that they are committed to withdrawing at ...
Sam is joined by Peter Jan Honisberg, professor of law at the University of San Francisco School of Law, to discuss his new book, A Place Outside the Law: Forgotten Voices from Guantánamo. 
Author and law professor Khaled Beydoun joins MR to discuss his book American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear. 
Cliff Schecter explained how President Obama responded to protester Medea Benjamin’s interruption of his speech, Obama’s encouraging rhetoric on winding down the “War on Terror”,  why Signature Drone strikes are indefensible, why President Obama could have acted much faster on GITMO and what push...
Chris Hayes, explained why the Brennan hearings focused so heavily on institutional jockeying, the policy consensus on targeted killing, the subjective reasoning behind the targeted killing program, how and when could the “War on Terror” end? The importance of defining peace time counter terroris...