Danny and Derek welcome back historian Nick Mulder, writer at Weltinnenpolitik , to discuss Trump’s new tariff regime. They get into Trump’s focus on taxing goods while leaving finance untouched; how U.S. allies are obediently eating higher economic costs; why this approach resembles a “subscription model” of empire rather than a coherent industrial strategy; early signs of backlash in places like India, Brazil, and Europe; how immigration enforcement and H-1B restrictions now operate as tools o...
Nov 16, 2025•11 min
Subscribe now for the full episode and access to all news specials. Danny and Derek sit down with journalist Murtaza Hussain of Drop Site News to talk about his ongoing reporting on Jeffrey Epstein’s extensive political and financial influence. They get into how Epstein operated as a fixer and connector for powerful people and entities around the world; the private meetings and backchannel negotiations he helped facilitate, from Israel to Russia to Côte d'Ivoire; the role he played in broker...
Nov 14, 2025•5 min
Subscribe now to skip the ads and get all of our content! Danny and Derek are vigorously programmed to bring you the news headlines. This week: the Thai-Cambodia ceasefire breaks down as border fire and incidents escalate (0:30); in Gaza, Trump’s framework stalls while governments debate the shape and purpose of an international security force (4:27); Syria’s President Ahmed al-Shara visits the White House (13:49); Iraq’s elections conclude with Prime Minister Sudani claiming victory despite an ...
Nov 14, 2025•57 min
Subscribe now to listen to the full episode. Danny talks with Jamie Beran, CEO of Bend the Arc , about the political and generational tension reshaping the American Jewish community. They discuss the fallout from Zoran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign in New York; the role of legacy institutions like the ADL; how debates over Israel-Palestine, antisemitism, and safety are redefining American Jewish political identity; and what these shifts mean for progressive movements and Jewish organizations naviga...
Nov 12, 2025•6 min
Subscribe now to skip the commercials and get all of our content. Derek is joined by Omar Zahzah, Assistant Professor of Arab Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies at San Francisco State University, to talk about his book Terms of Servitude: Zionism, Silicon Valley, and Digital Settler Colonialism . They discuss the Sheikh Jarrah uprising and the digital front of the Palestinian struggle, the difference between “digital apartheid” and “digital settler colonialism,” Meta’s censorship, the IDF ...
Nov 11, 2025•53 min
Subscribe now for all of our breaking news specials. Danny and Derek talk with journalist Jasper Nathaniel about his reporting from the West Bank on settler attacks that have become routine and state-backed. They discuss the town of Turmus Aya, the far-right ministers pushing annexation, a mob attack on an American‐Palestinian lawyer’s neighbor, and Jasper’s firsthand account of a violent mob assault during the olive harvest. Stop demolitions in Umm al-Khair . Help free Mohammed Ibrahim . Learn ...
Nov 11, 2025•55 min
Subscribe now for the full episode! Danny and Derek speak with historian Tim Shenk of George Washington University about how American liberalism lost its way. They discuss the Cold War purge of the left and the rise of the “vital center,” the Clinton-Obama years and the hollowing of class politics, the Democratic Party’s embrace of the professional-managerial elite, meritocracy, the implications of organized labor’s decline, the financialization of everything, and whether a new populist coalitio...
Nov 09, 2025•10 min
Subscribe now to skip the ads and get all of our content! Air travel might grind to a halt, but our news roundup marches on. After reflections on the Mamdani victory (0:30), Danny and Derek get into this week’s stories: Trump threatens to invade Nigeria (10:10); in Israel-Palestine, a Gaza ceasefire update (19:31) and West Bank olive harvest violence (26:06); Afghanistan and Pakistan resume ceasefire talks (27:10); Sudan’s IPC declares famine as the RSF prepares a new siege and agrees to a cease...
Nov 07, 2025•57 min
Danny and Derek invite Spencer Ackerman to discuss the life and legacy of Dick Cheney. Check out Spencer's newsletter Forever Wars and his book Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Nov 04, 2025•11 min
Danny and Derek welcome journalist and author John Lechner to discuss his book, Death is Our Business: Russian Mercenaries in the New Era of Warfare . The conversation cuts through the mainstream narrative of the Wagner Group to explore the true history of Yevgeny Prigozhin, from his start as a product of post-Soviet "gangster capitalism" in 1990s St. Petersburg to his ascent as Vladimir Putin's de facto military entrepreneur. They analyze how Prigozhin leveraged the Russian state’s grand ambiti...
Nov 04, 2025•1 hr 7 min
Subscribe now to hear the full episode and get access to all of our Sunday bonuses! Danny speaks with writer and menswear critic Derek Guy about the politics of fashion, exploring how style reflects class, power, and ideology. They explore fashion’s moral economy, how neoliberalism turned personal style into a marker of moral worth, the influence of Savile Row and Brooks Brothers, the evolution of men’s dress from the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the aesthetics of American politics from JFK to T...
Nov 02, 2025•10 min
Subscribe now to skip the ads and get more content! What’s spookier than international relations? This week in the news roundup: Trump tours Asia to talk trade deals (1:28), a Thai-Cambodia accord (7:11), and to meet with Xi (8:45); the RSF captures of Al-Fashir in Sudan with reports of mass killings (12:19); Gaza sees the deadliest day of Israeli bombardments since the ceasefire began (17:19); the PKK makes more concessions in talks with Ankara (21:53); Afghan-Pakistan ceasefire negotiations co...
Oct 31, 2025•54 min
The greatest recurring crossover in the biz, between AP and NonZero Newsletter , returns. Subscribe now to AP and you'll also get the overtime segment as well as a discounted membership to Nonzero! Part One Video (0:00) Bob tries to lower American Prestige’s self-esteem (3:07) The Trump-Xi trade talks (6:44) Making sense of Trump’s nuclear saber-rattling (10:34) Signs of a US-China vibe shift (16:36) Is AI accelerating science? (23:25) Bill Gates’s climate change of heart (29:30) This week...
Oct 31, 2025•41 min
Subscribe now to skip the ads and get much more content! Alex Aviña is back on the podcast, this time to talk about the evolution of ICE and the U.S. security state. They discuss the convergence of the war on terror, the war on drugs, and the war on migrants; the transformation of the border into a domestic counterinsurgency project; ICE’s roots in settler colonialism; the role of whiteness and assimilation in immigration politics; the use of surveillance and drones in law enforcement; the priva...
Oct 28, 2025•1 hr 1 min
Subscribe now for the full episode and access to all of our Sunday bonuses! Danny and Derek welcome to the program Andrew Weiss, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of Accidental Czar: The Life and Lies of Vladimir Putin . They discuss the state of the war in Ukraine, the Biden and Trump administrations’ approaches, why U.S. support has faltered, the limits of American power, the moral contradictions of empire, the future of European security, ...
Oct 26, 2025•11 min
Rest assured, no one on the AP team has any undeclared tattoos. In this week’s news roundup: In Israel-Palestine, Gaza’s so-called ceasefire holds after another weekend of Israeli strikes (1:36), the International Court of Justice (ICJ) orders Israel to allow more humanitarian aid (8:16), and reports emerge of a plan to partition Gaza (11:48) as J.D. Vance arrives in Israel and the Knesset advances West Bank annexation votes (14:21); Donald Trump looks set to host Mohammed bin Salman for the Sau...
Oct 24, 2025•55 min
Subscribe now to skip the ads and get all of our episodes! Danny and Derek speak with historian Fara Dabhoiwala , author of What Is Free Speech? The History of a Dangerous Idea , about the complex history of one of liberalism’s proudest ideals, and how it largely emerged from hypocrisy and self-interest. They trace its 18th-century birth in the polemics of corrupt British journalists, its exclusion of women and colonized peoples, the U.S. founders’ rejection of France’s more balanced model, and ...
Oct 21, 2025•1 hr 2 min
Subscribe now for the full episode and access to all of our Sunday bonuses! Danny and Derek speak with Joshua Braver, assistant professor of law at the University of Wisconsin, about Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act. They discuss the president’s power to federalize the National Guard, the Posse Comitatus Act, the limits of judicial deference, Trump’s schizophrenic relationship to the law, the weakness of the liberal legal establishment, why the Great Recession didn’t produce a New D...
Oct 19, 2025•11 min
Subscribe now to skip the ads and get all of our content. Lead might be in our protein supplements, but Danny and Derek bring you the news free of most heavy metals. This week: the ceasefire in Gaza begins with prisoner exchanges (1:38), but controversy arises over deceased captives (5:30), plus Israeli violations and Hamas clashes with armed factions (9:35), and a summit in Sharm El Sheikh (14:36); a United Nations report shows a record-breaking spike in atmospheric carbon levels and growing ev...
Oct 17, 2025•1 hr 5 min
Subscribe now to skip the ads and get more episodes. Danny and Derek speak with sociologist Charles Derber about how American society is tearing itself apart, as explored in his book Bonfire: American Sociocide, Broken Relations, and the Quest for Democracy . They discuss the decline of civic trust, the rise of atomized “me” culture, the tech-driven Gilded Age, neoliberalism and loneliness, Silicon Valley’s alliance with the national security state, how a country built on expansion and individua...
Oct 14, 2025•1 hr 27 min
Producer's note: This is a re-posted episode originally from Columbus Day 2023. Subscribe now to skip the ads and get access to more bonus episodes like this one. Danny and Derek speak with Juan Ponce Vázquez , associate professor history at the University of Alabama, about Christopher Columbus. They explore his Genoese origins, his journeys to the Americas on behalf of the Crown of Castile, the geopolitical situation at the time, what we know about his contact with native peoples, how the moder...
Oct 13, 2025•56 min
Subscribe now for the full episode! Danny and Derek welcome back Brendan James and Noah Kulwin, of the Blowback podcast, for a tour through their latest season, which takes the show to Angola. They discuss how Angola became one of the largest and least-remembered battlefields of the Cold War, Reagan’s return to proxy wars, Cuba’s decision to send troops without Soviet approval, South Africa’s “total onslaught” ideology, the Reagan era’s fanaticism, its echoes in today’s politics, and what happen...
Oct 12, 2025•13 min
Subscribe now to skip the ads and get more content! Yes, we will be releasing 25 subtle variations of this news roundup in order to catapult ourselves to the top of the podcast charts, and no, we are not sorry. This week: a ceasefire agreement was reached for Gaza, but there was too much information for us to cover in the news, so please check out our special here . Syria’s interim government handpicks a new “parliament” under tight presidential control (1:01); Iran debates moving its capital fr...
Oct 10, 2025•41 min
Subscribe now for the full episode and access to all breaking new specials. Danny and Derek break down the first stage of the ceasefire deal reached between the U.S., Hamas, and Israel. They talk about the phased releases, Israel’s partial withdrawal, and the question of whether Marwan Barghouti will be freed. They also discuss Trump’s role in pushing the agreement, Gaza’s future under “reconstruction,” Netanyahu’s political calculus, and the shifting U.S. political landscape. Learn more about y...
Oct 09, 2025•5 min
Greetings Everyone, There's just one more day to vote for American Prestige in the 2025 Signal Awards for best News & Politics program (viewer's choice). If you can take a second, please go there now and do so ! Jon Stewart is gaining on us! You'll have to confirm the vote via your email, but we promise it's a quick and easy process. It'd be great to show the fat cats what's what! Again, voting is open through tomorrow, Thursday, October 9, and that's it! Thank you as always for your support...
Oct 08, 2025•24 sec
Subscribe now to skip the ads and get much more content. Don’t forget to vote for AP in the 2025 Signal Awards! In a break from the (overtly) political, Derek and Danny are joined by The Ringer ’s Alan Siegel to talk about his new book Stupid TV: Be More Funny , a cultural history of The Simpsons and how it changed American comedy. They discuss how a bunch of Harvard Lampoon alumni turned the show into art, the role of Fox and Rupert Murdoch in promoting a show that mocked them both, how Bart Si...
Oct 07, 2025•57 min
Derek speaks with Sami Al-Arian, Public Affairs Professor and Director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) at Istanbul Zaim University, about the forthcoming Gaza talks and the prospects for a ceasefire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 06, 2025•27 min
Subscribe now for the full episode. Don’t forget to vote for AP in the 2025 Signal Awards! Derek welcomes back to the show Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, founder of the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation and professor at Johns Hopkins, to talk through the slow demise of the Iran nuclear deal. They delve into Europe’s decision to trigger the UN “snapback” mechanism, factors that lead to this moment, from Trump’s withdrawal and Biden’s hesitation to Europe’s impatience and Iran’s deepening ties with Russia ...
Oct 05, 2025•10 min
Subscribe now for the full episode! Vote for us in the 2025 Signal Awards! Danny and Derek update everyone on what we know about the Gaza ceasefire that Hamas just accepted and where things go from here. Then, for subscribers, they speak with Mohammad Alsaafin, journalist at AJ+, and Dalia Hatuqa , a journalist specializing in Israeli/Palestinian affairs and regional Middle East issues, to unpack the finer details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Oct 04, 2025•13 min
Subscribe now to skip the ads and get more content. Don’t forget to vote for AP in the 2025 Signal Awards! Danny is back on American soil and joins Derek to bring you the news. This week: Trump circulates a Gaza ceasefire proposal with Hamas’ response pending (2:39), Israel issues its final evacuation notice for Gaza City (9:30), and the Samud flotilla is intercepted (11:04); Trump forces Netanyahu to apologize to Qatar while also giving Doha a NATO-style defense pledge (14:06); the UN reimposes...
Oct 03, 2025•51 min
