Other podcasts make money from advertising and corporate sponsors. We don’t have ads — Intercepted is powered by its members. When you support Intercepted, you become a part of the journalism that holds the powerful to account. Become a member — together we can make a difference. If you become a sustaining member at $10/month, we’ll send you our stylish Intercepted t-shirt. This is a community effort. Your donation, no matter the amount, makes a difference. Generous support of listeners like you...
Dec 29, 2019•2 min
Former senior health insurance executive-turned-whistleblower Wendell Potter explains McKinsey’s role in our insurance nightmare and how Pete Buttigieg is using industry talking points to attack Medicare for All. Potter also discusses his career working for insurance giants, soaring medical costs in the U.S. and his role in killing Hillary Clinton’s health care initiative in the 1990s. Propublica reporter Ian MacDougall discusses McKinsey’s relationship with the Saudi regime, its work for Rikers...
Dec 18, 2019•1 hr 7 min
Monday marked the five year anniversary of the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s executive summary on the CIA’s torture program. The former top Senate Intelligence Committee investigator, Daniel Jones and his team combed through 6.3 million pages of CIA records. Jones discusses the years-long battle with the Bush and Obama administrations to make public the findings of this still-classified 7,000 page report. In this bonus episode, Jones expands on the torture report findings. Jones...
Dec 11, 2019•1 hr 36 min
As Washington D.C. remains focused on the Trump impeachment, Daniel Jones, the former top Senate Intelligence Committee investigator into the CIA torture program discusses the years-long battle with the Bush and Obama administrations to make public the findings of his still-classified 7,000 page report. Jones, the subject of the new feature film, The Report, starring Adam Driver and Annette Bening, discusses his findings. He tells the story of how the CIA, under John Brennan, spied on the Senate...
Dec 04, 2019•1 hr 9 min
Other podcasts make money from advertising and corporate sponsors. We don’t have ads — Intercepted is powered by its members. All donations are welcome. You can make a one-time gift or become a sustaining member. If you become a sustaining member at $10/month, we’ll send you our stylish Intercepted t-shirt. This is a community effort. Your donation, no matter the amount, makes a difference. Generous support of listeners like you is what makes our fierce and independent reporting possible. Do wha...
Dec 03, 2019•2 min
Jeffrey Sterling was indicted in 2010 on charges under the Espionage Act for allegedly leaking sensitive national security information to then-New York Times reporter James Risen. Sterling discusses his time as a CIA case officer and how his internal complaint about Operation Merlin, a half-baked CIA scheme that had tried to disrupt Iran’s nuclear weapons development, led to his firing. Sterling explains the discrimination suit he filed against the CIA and how there is no evidence that he was th...
Nov 27, 2019•43 min
Iranian-American author and analyst Hooman Majd discusses a century of history marked by intervention and threats from major world powers. Beginning with Britain, Russia, and Germany battling for control of Iran’s oil, Majd and Jeremy Scahill discuss the CIA coup against Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953, the Islamic revolution, and the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 and how Washington has repeatedly tried to bring down the government of the Islamic Republic. The Intercept’s investigativ...
Nov 20, 2019•56 min
Early Monday morning, a few minutes past midnight, The Intercept published a major series of investigative stories based on a cache of more than 700 pages of secret Iranian intelligence files detailing years of “painstaking work by Iranian spies to co-opt the country’s leaders, pay Iraqi agents working for the Americans to switch sides, and infiltrate every aspect of Iraq’s political, economic, and religious life.” On this special episode of Intercepted: The Intercept’s Murtaza Hussein and New Y...
Nov 19, 2019•37 min
As right-wing forces attack indigenous Bolivians and allies of Morales, the Trump administration says the toppling of the democratically-elected government “preserves democracy.” Anthropologist and Bolivia scholar Bret Gustafson offers a nuanced analysis of how the coup unfolded, who benefits from the crisis, and what is at stake for the overwhelmingly indigenous population. Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is now free after spending a year and a half behind bars. He says he w...
Nov 13, 2019•47 min
On this special episode of Intercepted, Jordan Smith and Liliana Segura discuss the case of Rodney Reed. The state of Texas has set an execution date of November 20 for Reed. He has been on death row since 1998, following his conviction in the murder of a young woman named Stacy Stites in April of 1996. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence in this case that Reed is innocent, and a very compelling case to be made that Stites’s fiancee at the time of her murder should be the focus of this c...
Nov 13, 2019•26 min
Organizer Astra Taylor, author of “Democracy May Not Exist, but We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone,” analyzes “minoritarian” rule in the U.S., how capitalism undermines democracy, and lays out concrete ideas for fighting back. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of “Race for Profit,” talks about the history of how the U.S. government and predatory lenders conspired against Black home ownership in the United States. She also explains why privatizing affordable housing initiatives is a recipe for continued ...
Nov 06, 2019•50 min
Amidst the grandstanding and partisan bickering, no one wants to talk about the decades of U.S. policy that helped give rise to ISIS and al Qaeda. Jeremy Scahill discusses how U.S. policy opened a Pandora’s box in Iraq and Syria. Islamic studies scholar Amanda Rogers discusses the actual founder of ISIS, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, and how ISIS adopted tactics from the U.S. “war on terror.” War reporter Mike Giglio talks about his time on the ground covering ISIS. He documents this experience in his n...
Oct 30, 2019•56 min
Legendary peace activist Liz McAlister has spent her entire life resisting U.S. war. The 79-year-old grandmother of six, who is on trial with her Kings Bay Plowshares co-defendants, explains why she and her friends snuck onto a U.S. nuclear base to deliver an indictment of the U.S. government. Rudy Giuliani has emerged as Donald Trump’s dollar store Roy Cohn and he has put himself right in the center of the impeachment inquiry. Journalist Johnny Dwyer, author of “The Districts,” chronicles Giuli...
Oct 23, 2019•1 hr 11 min
Adam Serwer of The Atlantic discusses the impeachment inquiry, the cruelty of the Trump presidency and the state of play in Washington D.C. As Turkey continues its brutal incursion into parts of Syria, U.S. politicians accuse Trump of “betraying” the Kurds. Jeremy Scahill and Dr. Kamran Matin of Sussex University discuss the long history of U.S. support for despotic regimes as they’ve waged genocidal campaigns against Kurdish people. Author Fatima Bhutto has two new books out, a novel “The Runaw...
Oct 16, 2019•1 hr 23 min
Jeremy Scahill is back. Well, sort of. He passes the reins over to Intercepted's producers. A recent report from Airwars investigates the incredibly thin media coverage of civilian harm during the U.S. war against ISIS. The author of that report, investigative researcher Alexa O'Brien, shares her findings with associate producer Elise Swain. Lead producer Jack D'Isidoro interviews Wilfred Chan, who dives deep into the pro-democracy uprising in Hong Kong and explores the protesters' demands. The ...
Oct 09, 2019•1 hr 3 min
D.C. Bureau Chief Ryan Grim hosts and gives the long history of Hunter Biden in Ukraine. Senior National Security Correspondent James Risen explains Donald Trump’s abuse of power, comments on the New York Times publishing information about the whistleblower, he calls for an end to leak prosecutions, especially under the Espionage Act. Grim and Risen are joined by Edward Baumgartner, a researcher on Ukraine and Russia, and Kristofer Harrison, a former Defense and State Department adviser during t...
Oct 02, 2019•44 min
Senior Correspondent Naomi Klein imagines what real climate justice could look like and talks about her new book, “On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal.” The Intercept’s Sharon Lerner tells Intercepted’s Elise Swain about her groundbreaking reporting on toxic industrial chemicals. NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden reads an excerpt from his new memoir, “Permanent Record,” and reflects on his time since revealing the broad scope of NSA surveillance with Micah Lee, First Look Media’s Direc...
Sep 25, 2019•1 hr 12 min
Philosopher Srecko Horvat discusses the historical lessons we can learn from the guerrilla struggle against fascism waged by the Partisans in Yugoslavia during World War II. Horvat also talks about the recent surge in extreme right-wing political forces in Europe and what that trend and Julian Assange’s case mean for the future of democracy. Intercepted is going on hiatus for the summer and will return with new episodes in September 2019. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informati...
Jul 03, 2019•1 hr 13 min
Rutgers professor and co-host of the Uncivil podcast Chenjerai Kumanyika argues that demands for reparations should include challenging the driving forces behind slavery: capitalism and imperialism. The Intercept’s Ryan Devereaux gives an update on the trial for humanitarian aid worker Scott Warren and discusses the dehumanization that has allowed the war on immigrants to continue for decades. Artist and musician Nakhane reflects on growing up queer in South Africa and talks about his new record...
Jun 26, 2019•1 hr
As the U.S. accuses Iran of attacking civilian ships while offering scant evidence, grave historical parallels are emerging with the Gulf of Tonkin incidents in 1964 that were manipulated to justify Lyndon Johnson’s dramatic escalation of the war in Vietnam. California Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna is preparing legislation aimed at stopping an attack on Iran and he says he would not put it past National Security Adviser John Bolton to manipulate evidence. Journalist Negar Mortazavi of The Independent ...
Jun 19, 2019•1 hr 10 min
In a bombshell series of reports, The Intercept Brasil has revealed dirty tricks used in the prosecution of the leftist former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on corruption charges and improper coordination among prosecutors and judges. Glenn Greenwald discusses the documents in the leaked archive and what this means for Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro. Tiffany Cabán, a queer Latina public defender from Queens, New York, talks about her battle with the Democratic Party machine in her bid to become...
Jun 12, 2019•1 hr 12 min
Fanatical opponents of a woman’s right to choose are pushing to criminalize abortion and women's healthcare providers. Historian Johanna Schoen, Rutgers professor and author, talks about when abortion was illegal and the history of coercive policies from forced sterilization to blocking access to sex education, birth control, and abortions. Whistleblower Reality Winner has spent more than two years in prison for allegedly leaking a top-secret NSA document on Russian cyber attacks on software use...
Jun 05, 2019•1 hr 19 min
As Democrats continue to debate whether to initiate an impeachment inquiry, Trump seems to be going nuts from the Democrats’ continuing probe into his possible obstruction of justice, corruption, and abuse of power. The Intercept’s Ryan Grim explains Nancy Pelosi’s rise to power within the Democratic Party, her political origins, and what her possible end game strategy is for Trump. Grim also weighs in on the large 2020 Democratic candidate field and talks about his new book, “We’ve Got People: ...
Jun 02, 2019•1 hr 3 min
For the first time in U.S. history, the government is criminally prosecuting a publisher for printing truthful information. Whether Assange is extradited or not, this case casts a dangerous cloud over aggressive national security reporting and means criminalizing journalism is on the table. Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and former top lawyer at the ACLU, analyzes the indictment and explains why he believes this case represents a grave thre...
May 29, 2019•1 hr 9 min
National Security Adviser John Bolton is more powerful than ever and is obsessed with regime change in Tehran. His boss is threatening to bring the “end of Iran” as some news outlets help spread the administration’s unveiled attempt to gin up a Gulf of Tonkin-style justification for war. Iranian author and analyst Hooman Majd explains how we got here and how Iran’s leaders view the Trump administration. Trump loves to talk about locking up his political opponents and with William Barr as his att...
May 22, 2019•1 hr 6 min
Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, talks about the weaponization of this law for use in stopping investigative journalism and the case of Air Force veteran Daniel Hale, who is facing 50 years in prison. Organizer Bill Fletcher Jr. discusses the Trump administration’s intensifying military threats against Iran, the ongoing coup attempt in Venezuela and offers strategic thoughts on how to view the 2020 Democratic primary field. Dr. Krystal Redman, executive dir...
May 15, 2019•1 hr 18 min
The Intercept’s Murtaza Hussain discusses Trump’s motley crew of regime change warriors, what war with Iran would look like, and the strategy behind the economic sanctions. At nearly 90 years old, former Senator Mike Gravel may be the oldest candidate for president, but he also has the dankest social media memes. Gravel discusses his insurgent run for the Democratic nomination led by his campaign volunteers who are teenagers. The Intercept’s Jordan Smith talks about her latest reporting on abort...
May 08, 2019•1 hr 19 min
The Intercept’s editor-in-chief Betsy Reed, investigative journalist Matthew Cole, and national security editor Vanessa Gezari discuss how Erik Prince went from exile in the United Arab Emirates to a shadow player in Trump world. Famed Pentagon Papers lawyer James Goodale, former counsel to the New York Times, discusses the dangerous precedent the prosecution of Julian Assange would set and criticizes “establishment” media outlets for not speaking out. War reporter Dahr Jamail, who reported insi...
May 01, 2019•1 hr 7 min
We’d like to introduce you to Running from COPS — a new podcast from our sister company Topic Studios and the team behind Missing Richard Simmons. After 30 years on television, COPS has evolved into a constant messaging machine about policing in America. Running from COPS is the result of an 18-month investigation and delves deep into how the show actually gets made, how much control police departments really have over the final product, and the harrowing stories of the people who have ended up ...
Apr 24, 2019•3 min
Ryan Grim, the Washington DC bureau chief of The Intercept, discusses the departure of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Neilsen and the historic War Powers Resolution vote that just passed Congress. Investigative reporter Aura Bogado, of Reveal, discusses the Trump administration’s current immigration policies, the ongoing family separations and Bernie Sanders rejection of the concept of “open borders.” The Intercept’s Micah Lee discusses the bizarre case of the Chinese national who talked h...
Apr 10, 2019•1 hr 23 min
