The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer

Odcinki

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  Iran War Heats Up w/ Matt Duss 26.07.2026 37min

  The purported ceasefire in the Iran War was always tenuous and now the war is not only heating up but entering a dangerous new phase. The Iranians have closed the Strait of Hormuz and the Houthis are firing on the Red Sea while Donald Trump promises a new wave of attacks on Iran’s civilian infrastructure. I talk about the state of the Middle East and related matters with Matt Duss, vice president of the Center for International Policy. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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  Fighting Monopoly Power w/ Zephyr Teachout 19.07.2026 42min

  Donald Trump is practicing crony capitalism on an unprecedented scale, with the government greenlighting major mergers that benefit the president’s friends (most notably the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger). I spoke to Zephyr Teachout, who teaches constitutional law at Fordham, about this worrying development. We take up the long history of anti-monopoly politics going back to the American revolution and the trust battles of the late 19th century as well as the possibility state governments can fight the new wave of consolidation. Zephyr has often written on his subject for The Nation, notably in two recent articles.  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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  Maine After Platner w/ Eoin Higgins 13.07.2026 45min

  Graham Platner is withdrawing as the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine after a credible rape allegation was made against him (Platner denies the allegation). I spoke to Maine writer Eoin Higgins about Platner’s rise and fall, the progressive politics that animated his campaign, and the upcoming scramble by the Democratic Party of Maine to find a new candidate. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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  The Triumph of Mamdani and the DSA w/ Ross Barkan 29.06.2026 44min

  New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani had a very good night on Tuesday: a slate of candidates he endorsed won in Democratic primaries in both state and congressional races. This victory was shared by the Democratic Socialists of America, which is now clearly replacing the old political machines in its ability to get out the vote. Ross Barkan wrote about these elections for The Nation and joins the podcast to tell the story of the rising left in urban America. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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  Matt Taibbi and the New Threat to Free Speech w/ Eoin Higgins 21.06.2026 43min

  Journalist Eoin Higgins was recently sued for defamation by a fellow journalist Matt Taibbi, who is subject on criticism in Higgins’ book Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left. The case was briskly dismissed by a judge and is now on appeal. The lawsuit was manifestly frivolous and is filled with irony, since Taibbi likes to present himself as a free speech champion. I spoke to Higgins about it and the larger tendency of wealthy right-wing figures, including Donald Trump, to use lawsuits to intimidate critics. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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  Is Bari Weiss Winning? W/ David Klion 14.06.2026 39min

  Bari Weiss has become a flashpoint of controversy in her position running CBS News. She’s fired half a dozen senior producers and correspondents at 60 Minutes, the network’s flagship news program. With tumbling ratings and staff revolts, she’s been accused of ruining CBS. But perhaps this accusation doesn’t quite describe her actual goals, which is not running a successful network news operation but rather promoting a right-wing ideology that pleases Donald Trump and her employer, the Ellison family. I take up the controversies surrounding Weiss with David Klion, frequent guest of the program and writer for The Nation and other publications.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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  Fighting Trump’s Corruption w/ Chris Lehmann 08.06.2026 41min

  Donald Trump is corrupt on a scale that puts all other criminal presidents, including Richard Nixon, to shame. One recent example is the so-called Anti-Weaponization fund of $1,776,000,000, being deployed to reward convicted criminals who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Trump and his cronies are also profiting from billion-dollar deals with foreign governments and engaged in stock market trading while in office. My Nation colleague Chris Lehmann has written about this in a recent column. We talk about both the corruption, and the political tools Democrats can use to fight it. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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  Why Big Oil Wants to Splinter Canada w/ Nora Loreto 31.05.2026 39min

  The issue of Canada’s national unity is heading towards the ballot box as Alberta is having a referendum on the issue of separatism. I spoke with Canadian journalist Nora Loreto about the background to this dispute, the backing the referendum is receiving from right wing US political actors such as Steve Bannon and lobbyists connected to the oil industry. The discussion also takes up the role of Prime Minister Mark Carney, who is using the crisis to push a neoliberal agenda. For more commentary by Nora, you can go to the podcast Sandy and Nora Talk Politics, which is found here.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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  The Crackdown in Bahrain w/ Aamer 24.05.2026 36min

  The US/Israel war against Iran is not only a conflict between states but also within states. This is most visible in Gulf states such as Bahrain, which are technically US allies but where wide swaths of the population are against the war. The new website North South Notes published an enlightening article on this topic by Kareema Abbas and Aamer (two writers who are working under pseudonyms). I spoke with Aamer about the crackdown on dissent in Bahrain as well as the wider regional politics that have been enflamed by the war. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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  The CIA’s Assassination Campaign in Mexico w/ Alexander Aviña 17.05.2026 41min

  CNN is reporting that the CIA has been actively engaged in assassination campaigns in Mexico targeting alleged members of drug cartels. While both the CIA and the Mexican government have denied these allegations, there is clear evidence of an escalating war in the country that destabilize the government. I spoke with Alexander Aviña, a historian at Arizona State University, about the CIA’s activities in the context of the Trump administration’s wider assertion of imperial dominance over the Western hemisphere. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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  What Jeffrey Epstein Taught Peter Thiel and Steve Bannon w/ Branko Marcetic 10.05.2026 38min

  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/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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  The End of American Global Power? W/ Anusar Farooqui 26.04.2026 40min

  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/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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  Palestine and the Iran War w/ Yousef Munayyer 19.04.2026 36min

  As negotiations proceed in ending the Iran War, the question of the relationship between the US and Israel becomes more salient. I spoke with Middle East expert Yousef Munayyer on the agenda of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose interest in a securing his country’s hegemony in the region is now in conflict with efforts to end the war.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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  Origins of the Imperial Presidency w/ David Sirota 29.03.2026 38min

  As millions of Americans protest Donald Trump under the slogan of “No Kings,” it is worth asking how the nation ended up with such an authoritarian president. David Sirota and the team at the Lever have provided a great answer to this question in their new podcast series Master Plan: The Kingmakers, which looks at the revival of the Imperial Presidency after the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s. I talked to David about the history uncovered in this podcast and why Trump is merely a symptom of a much deeper problem. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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  After Iran War, Can America Still Be Trusted? w/ Annelle Sheline 22.03.2026 39min

  The US/Israel war against Iran has been devastating to many US allies, both in the MiddleEast and the wider world. It could easily lead to a Global Depression. Even before thewar, Annelle Sheline of the Quincy Institute noted that countries such as Qatar andSaudi Arabia had good reason to wean themselves away from a close reliance on theUS. I talked to Annelle about the current state of the war and why it will only intensifythe alienation of traditional US allies.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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  How is Mamdani Doing? w/ Don Guttenplan 16.03.2026 41min

  Former Nation editor Don Guttenplan is now bringing municipal politics to the magazinewith a weekly column tracking the progress of Mayor Zohran Mamdani. I spoke to Donabout how Mamdani is balancing pragmatism and principles as he deals with policing,Donald Trump and a tough budget.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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  Stopping the Iran War w/ Emma Ashford 08.03.2026 40min

  The US/Israel War against Iran is shaping out to be a much bigger mess than expectedeven by critics. As it turns into a regional conflict that has embroiled more than a dozennations, are there any possible ways Donald Trump can be forced to pull back. I spokewith international affairs scholar Emma Ashford of the Stimson Center about the warand paths to peace.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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  The Imperial Presidency and the Iran War w/ Matt Duss 01.03.2026 40min

  Writing in Foreign Policy, Matt Duss argues that Donald Trump’s rush to war is bothstupid and illegal. It is also wildly unpopular with the public. But he also observes thatcongress has been reluctant to challenge Trump’s policy, although some progressiveshave now forced the issue to a vote. Matt is a frequent guest of the show and foreignpolicy expert. I talked to him about the dangers of a new war and also the largersystematic problems of the imperial presidency.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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  Trump is Using Terrorist Charges to Wage Political War w/ Josh Kovensky 08.02.2026 35min

  Over at Talking Points Memo, Josh Kovensky has written an essay on the Trumpadministration’s use of anti-terrorism law to target political groups it doesn’t like.In that piece, Kovensky notes,"Across the country, federal prosecutors are upgrading what would have been routineprosecutions into terrorism cases when they involve people President Trump has cast as hispolitical enemies.It represents a dramatic departure from how the Justice Department has historically used thefederal material support for terrorism statute. For decades, counterterrorism prosecutors havelargely reserved the statute — 2339A — for the kinds of audacious plots that wreak real, lastingdamage or whose ambition forms the stuff of movie screenplays."I spoke to Kovensky about his essay and the history and politics of this dangerous legalinnovation.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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  War Clouds Over Iran w/ Amir Handjani 01.02.2026 36min

  Donald Trump is sending over what he calls “a massive Armada” to Iran with thepromises to do a reprise of his quick attack on Venezuela that ended with thekidnapping of president Nicolás Maduro. Trump claims that “like withVenezuela, it is, ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission.” But will awar with Iran really be so simple? To look at the prospects for war and thelarger politics driving the conflict, I spoke with Amir Handjani of The QuincyInstitute.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy