Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate President Biden has taken important steps to reduce the US role in the war on Yemen, while still leaving room to continue supporting the Saudi-led campaign and imposing its terms on the Yemeni people. Isa Blumi, associate professor at Stockholm University and author of "Destroying Yemen", discusses Biden's change of course and whether it's enough to end the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Guest: Isa Blumi. Associate Professor at S...
Feb 07, 2021•36 min
Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate As Donald Trump faces an impeachment trial for allegedly inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, critical questions remain over how the sprawling US national security state failed to stop it. Newsweek reporter William Arkin discuses the lingering issues surrounding one of the biggest domestic intelligence and security failures in US history. Guest: William Arkin. Award-winning reporter for Newsweek and author of a dozen books on national...
Jan 27, 2021•37 min
Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate In his first major foreign policy move, President Biden has committed to renewing the New START treaty, which imposes the last remaining limits on the US-Russian nuclear weapons arsenals. The treaty was just days away from expiring -- and possibly setting off a new arms race -- after the Trump administration refused to renew it, and stalled negotiations. While saying that it will renew New START, the Biden White House also announced ...
Jan 24, 2021•28 min
Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate Rather than prioritize accountability for US intelligence officials' failure to prevent the pro-Trump mob attack on the Capitol, the incident is instead being used to expand the national security state's powers. Max Blumenthal, who witnessed the Capitol mob and reported on a key participant, discusses his coverage of the attack and the dangers of a militarized, myopic response. Guest: Max Blumenthal, editor of The Grayzone and author...
Jan 21, 2021•57 min
Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate Crippling US sanctions imposed under the Caesar Act are decimating war-ravaged Syrian civilians, are illegal, and should be lifted, the UN Special Rapporteur on sanctions says. An independent United Nations expert is calling on the US to lift its crippling sanctions on Syria. Under the Caesar Act, US sanctions explicitly target Syria’s reconstruction in the aftermath of a catastrophic 10-year war. Alena Douhan, the UN Special Rapport...
Jan 14, 2021•35 min
Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate A UK judge has rejected a US attempt to extradite Julian Assange, citing the Wikileaks' founder's risk of suicide and the poor conditions of US prisons. But Judge Vanessa Baraitser accepted the basis for the US government's espionage case against Assange and ruled against releasing him on bail. Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, discusses the longstanding persecution of Assange and the lies that have been used to just...
Jan 10, 2021•48 min
President Trump is leaving office by overseeing a record level of federal executions, with 10 prisoners killed in 2020 and three more slated for this month. George Hale, who has covered the executions for NPR, discusses Trump's last-minute killing spree and witnessing the barbaric executions first-hand. Guest: George Hale. Reporter covering federal executions for NPR member station WFIU. https://twitter.com/georgehale Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate
Jan 05, 2021•28 min
For the first time, OPCW chief Fernando Arias was asked a series of direct questions at the United Nations about the cover-up of a Syria chemical weapons probe. Arias answered none of them. Russia's UN ambassador asked Arias about several damning leaks, some revealed by The Grayzone, as well as ongoing deceptive attacks on the veteran scientists who challenged the censorship of their investigation. Arias refused to answer in public session, and gave vague, non-substantive answers in private. Aar...
Jan 03, 2021•29 min
Pushback rounds out 2020 by airing an unpublished interview with Stephen F. Cohen, the eminent Russia historian and scholar who passed away in September at the age of 81. In an interview recorded one year before his death, Stephen F. Cohen discusses local elections and protests in Russia; opposition leader Alexei Navalny; as well as the state of Russia’s post-Soviet democratization and how US meddling undermines it. Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate Guest: Stephen F....
Dec 30, 2020•21 min
Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate Veteran US diplomat Chas Freeman says that despite talk of a New Cold War between the US and China, the US in reality is reacting aggressively to a rising Chinese power whose economic gains threaten US global supremacy. Freeman, who served in top State Department positions and as Richard Nixon's chief interpreter on his historic 1972 visit to China, discusses the state of US-China relations and flashpoints such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, ...
Dec 26, 2020•40 min
Syria and its allies prevented regime change, but the US and its allies are continuing to squeeze Syria's population with crippling sanctions on all aspects of civilian life and a US military occupation in Syria's northeast breadbasket. Peter Ford, the former UK Ambassador to Syria, analyzes the state of the Syria proxy war and the ongoing propaganda campaign to whitewash it. Guest: Peter Ford, veteran British diplomat who served as the UK Ambassador to Syria from 2003-2006.
Dec 20, 2020•33 min
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson assesses Biden's "national security" picks, including Gen. Lloyd Austin for Secretary of Defense and Anthony Blinken for Secretary of State. "I don't see a different kind of administration being formed," Wilkerson says. "And it disturbs me because it just means more of the same -- a little more calmness, a little more serenity, which lulls everyone into thinking that things are better, when in fact they're not." Guest: Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Col...
Dec 17, 2020•23 min
Israel's assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist is the latest act of aggression in the Trump-Netanyahu campaign to undermine the Iran nuclear deal. Although President-elect Joe Biden has voiced support for returning to the JCPOA, longstanding US-Israel hostility to Iranian sovereignty will continue under his watch. Former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter debunks the myths about Iran's nuclear program and discusses the next phase of the US and Israeli campaign against Iran under Biden. Gu...
Dec 04, 2020•29 min
Former Trump 2016 campaign deputy chair Rick Gates was once widely portrayed as the key Mueller witness who would expose Trump-Russia collusion. Gates' testimony ended up seriously undermining the collusion conspiracy theory, but that has done little to undo the media narrative. Gates joins Pushback to debunk several key Russiagate conspiracy theories: that Konstantin Kilimnik is a Russian spy; that Paul Manafort served Russian interests in Ukraine; and that Roger Stone gave the Trump campaign a...
Nov 17, 2020•51 min
President Trump is refusing to concede to Joe Biden over what he claims was widespread electoral fraud. But investigative journalist Greg Palast says that the real 2020 voting scandal is Republican-led voter theft targeting Black and youth voters in key battlegrounds, including Georgia, where Senate control will be decided. Guest: Greg Palast. Veteran investigative journalist and author of several books including "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy," and his latest "How Trump Stole 2020." www.Greg...
Nov 15, 2020•39 min
As President Trump refuses to concede over baseless allegations of widespread fraud, the Biden team has sent signals that there will be little to no transition away from US regime change abroad. The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal discusses Trump's rejection of democracy at home, and the records of the likely Biden cabinet members who have adopted the same attitude to governments around the world. Guest: Max Blumenthal, editor of The Grayzone and author of "The Management of Savagery." Support Pushbac...
Nov 13, 2020•44 min
Support Pushback at Patreon: www.patreon.com/aaronmate Former UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has been suspended by his successor, neoliberal Blairite Keir Starmer, even as a new report confirms that claims of a Labour "anti-Semitism crisis" under Corbyn's watch were without merit. Former UK Labour MP Chris Williamson, a Corbyn ally who has denounced the anti-Semitism allegations as a smear campaign, discusses the report and the Blairite wing's ongoing war on the Corbyn movement. Guest: Chris Wil...
Nov 02, 2020•28 min
Stephen F. Cohen, the eminent historian who helped shape the field of Russia studies and bravely exposed the fallacies and dangers of Russiagate and the new Cold War, passed away on September 18, 2020 at the age of 81. Cohen's wife, Katrina vanden Heuvel, editorial director and publisher of The Nation magazine, reflects on his life and legacy. Guest: Katrina vanden Heuvel, editorial director and publisher of The Nation magazine, and wife of Stephen F. Cohen. Support Pushback at Patreon: www.patr...
Oct 29, 2020•43 min
In his new memoir "Unforgetting," award-winning Salvadoran American journalist Roberto Lovato explores personal histories, including his own, shaped by decades of murderous U.S. terror wars in Central America that have also fueled the migrant crisis and gang violence. Lovato discusses his new book; the erasure of Central American voices in US media; and the bipartisan cruelty toward Central American migrants displaced as a result of US warfare. Guest: Roberto Lovato. Award-winning journalist and...
Oct 25, 2020•56 min
Former intelligence officials, Democratic leaders, and media outlets dismissing the Hunter Biden story as "Russian disinformation" are spreading more Russiagate disinformation, ex- CIA officer Ray McGovern says. Media outlets are amplifying the claims of former intelligence officials, including John Brennan and James Clapper, as well as of top Democrats, including Joe Biden and Adam Schiff, that the Hunter Biden laptop revelations are "Russian disinformation." They have done so even though no on...
Oct 23, 2020•41 min
Noam Chomsky warns that the Trump administration poses a unique threat to humanity, but its most reckless policies are receiving far too little attention. Chomsky discusses the White House's threats to the New START treaty, the last remaining accord limiting the US and Russia's nuclear weapons arsenals; its latest round of crippling sanctions and threats against Iran; the bipartisan US refusal to accept a Middle East Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone, which would terminate Israel's nuclear weapons progra...
Oct 20, 2020•45 min
In a Grayzone exclusive, José Bustani, the former head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, speaks out in support of two veteran OPCW inspectors who challenged a US-backed cover-up of their investigation in Syria. Bustani also reacts to the recent US-UK-France-led effort to prevent his testimony at the UN Security Council about the OPCW's Syria cover-up scandal. And Bustani reveals new details of how he was targeted in the lead-up to the Iraq war, when the Bush administra...
Oct 18, 2020•1 hr 23 min
Weeks before the U.S. election, the Trump administration has imposed crushing new sanctions that sever Iran from the global financial system and further threaten the import of humanitarian goods. The Israeli government and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a pro-regime change think tank, reportedly lobbied White House officials for the new move. Assal Rad of the National Iranian American Council discusses how the sanctions target Iranian civilians, and threaten an outbreak of military c...
Oct 13, 2020•29 min
Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate Ian Henderson, a veteran OPCW inspector who challenged a cover-up of his organization's investigation of an alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria, recently testified before the United Nations Security Council. At the meeting, Henderson was both attacked and ignored by U.S., UK, and French diplomats whose governments bombed Syria over allegations that Henderson's censored investigation undermined. At another UNSC gathering one week...
Oct 07, 2020•1 hr 1 min
A trove of leaked UK government documents exposes a massive propaganda network used to shape the media narrative during the Syrian proxy war. Western government-funded intelligence cutouts trained Syrian opposition leaders, planted stories in media outlets, ran a cadre of journalists, and whitewashed the jihadist militants armed, trained and supported by the US, UK, Turkey and Gulf monarchies. "Every very single aspect of the [Syrian] opposition was micromanaged by these western government contr...
Oct 01, 2020•55 min
Facing Palestinian-led criticism, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has cancelled an appearance at an event honoring the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin played a personal role in the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine; ordered Israeli forces to brutalize Palestinian protesters during the 1st Intifada; and oversaw a so-called Oslo "peace process" that cemented continued occupation and illegal settlement expansion. "This is a man who never expressed any regret for his crimes dating ba...
Sep 27, 2020•21 min
Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate The Trump administration is running out the clock on talks with Russia over renewing New START, the last treaty limiting the nuclear weapons arsenals of both countries. Russia has proposed an unconditional extension, but the US has stalled the talks and demanded new conditions -- even issuing an ultimatum that the "price of admission" will go up after the November U.S. election. "This is very dangerous," says Tom Collina, Director of...
Sep 25, 2020•28 min
As the UAE and Bahrain reach a US-backed agreement with Israel, author and scholar Norman Finkelstein discusses the confluence of powerful forces that have sold out the Palestinian cause: Gulf monarchies, Palestinian Authority leaders, and U.S. liberals who have found common cause with far-right evangelicals and neocons in backing the Israeli occupation. Finkelstein contrasts their legacies on Palestine with that of the late Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said. Guest: Norman Finkelstein, au...
Sep 22, 2020•59 min
Historian and author Gerald Horne on Trump's proposed "1776 Commission"; leftist criticism of the 1619 Project; William Barr's attacks on Black Lives Matter; and the significance of NBA players' recent walkout over racism and police violence. Guest: Dr. Gerald Horne, Moores Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. Author of more than three dozen books, including his latest The Dawning of the Apocalypse. Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a...
Sep 20, 2020•33 min
The Senate Intelligence Committee's final report on alleged Russian interference focuses on "a wide range of Russian efforts to influence the Trump Campaign and the 2016 election." Does the report advance our understanding of the Trump-Russia story? Mattathias Schwartz, contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, joins Pushback. Guest: Mattathias Schwartz, contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate
Sep 09, 2020•1 hr 17 min
