Humanitarian aid into Gaza faces "near insurmountable challenges,” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday at a news conference in Geneva. Amed Khan, a humanitarian relief activist who has helped deliver aid in war zones around the world, said the refugee situation in Gaza is unlike any other: "There is no safe place to go.” Khan joins Ryan Grim on Deconstructed this week to discuss the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza and why President Joe...
Jan 12, 2024•39 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast Today, we’re sharing an episode of the podcast “Lever Time” from our friends at the reader-supported investigative news outlet The Lever. On this week’s episode of “Lever Time,” Lever producer Frank Cappello and senior editor and reporter Andrew Perez are joined by health care journalist Bob Herman , who recently co-authored a report for the health care industry news organization STAT detailing how the country’s largest health insurer has used artificial intelligence to deny rehabilitation servi...
Dec 22, 2023•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast More than 18,600 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s latest wave of attacks began just over two months ago, following the October 7 Hamas attack that killed some 1,200 Israelis. While the Biden administration continues to support Israel in its devastation, politicians and heads of state around the world are calling for a ceasefire. The last extended war on Gaza, in 2021, would reshape the Democratic Party's posture toward Israel and Palestine. On this episode of Deconstructed, R...
Dec 15, 2023•37 min•Ep 48•Transcript available on Metacast The 2008 economic crisis changed the world. In the United States, the meager response by Barack Obama and the Democratic Party produced a recovery that was far too slow, drove an eviction crisis, and fueled a populist backlash. On the left, it took the form of Occupy Wall Street, which put the problem of wealth and income inequality — the 99 percent versus the 1 percent — into the national political conversation for the first time since the Great Depression. Followed a few years later by the Mov...
Dec 08, 2023•39 min•Ep 47•Transcript available on Metacast When Bernie Sanders launched his first presidential campaign in early 2015, the political world could not have been more different than it is today. His run set in motion a movement — or, really, a series of movements that clashed and blended over the ensuing years, reshaping both the Democratic Party and the country. On today’s episode of Deconstructed, we’re trying something new: Host Ryan Grim narrates the audio version of his new book “The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution.” ...
Dec 05, 2023•30 min•Ep 46•Transcript available on Metacast Ryan Grim has a new book out called "The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution." This week on Deconstructed, Grim's "Breaking Points" co-host Krystal Ball, a former MSNBC host, interviews him about his latest book. The conversation was held at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C. Like we did earlier with our Naomi Klein interview, we’re running the conversation here as today’s episode. The event included a brief reading and a wide-ranging conversation that touched on...
Dec 01, 2023•58 min•Ep 45•Transcript available on Metacast This week, theaters around the country will begin to screen “Napoleon,” a historical drama film based on the story of Napoleon Bonaparte. The film, starring Joaquin Phoenix in the titular role, chronicles Bonaparte’s rise to power and his relationship with Joséphine Bonaparte, his first wife, played by Vanessa Kirby. This week on Deconstructed, author Sandra Gulland joins Ryan Grim to talk about Joséphine Bonaparte and her life during major moments of French history. Gulland has written a series...
Nov 19, 2023•38 min•Ep 44•Transcript available on Metacast In late October, after a six-week strike, the United Auto Workers reached a historic contract deal with the big three Detroit automakers. This week, as membership votes to approve the contract are underway, President Joe Biden rallied with the UAW president in Illinois to celebrate the tentative agreement between the union and the automakers. This week on Deconstructed, UAW President Shawn Fain joins Ryan Grim to discuss the victory. Fain was elected president of the union earlier this year by t...
Nov 10, 2023•25 min•Ep 43•Transcript available on Metacast Fourteen Democratic senators called for a "short-term cessation of hostilities” on Thursday, as Israel’s airstrikes continued for the fourth week and a ground invasion intensified. So far 18 House members have signed on to a resolution, introduced weeks earlier, with stronger calls for an "immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine.” Pro-Israel lobbying groups have already begun efforts to oust House members pushing for a ceasefire. This week on Deconstructed, Democra...
Nov 03, 2023•23 min•Ep 42•Transcript available on Metacast The Gaza Ministry of Health has calculated that more than 7,000 Palestinians have been killed, including nearly 3,000 children, by the latest Israeli bombing on Gaza. Those living in Gaza are under the constant threat of airstrikes, with little food, water, or access to medical care. This week on Deconstructed, Maram Al-Dada, an aviation engineer based in Florida, joins Ryan Grim; Al-Dada’s family is in Gaza, where he grew up. By the time of the interview, a shocking 46 members of Al-Dada’s fami...
Oct 27, 2023•50 min•Ep 41•Transcript available on Metacast The new book “Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy” by investigative journalists Claire Provost and Matt Kennard reveals how the world actually works: the international structures and laws that preempt most attempts at any kind of economic democracy in most of the countries around the world. This week on Deconstructed, Provost and Kennard join Jon Schwarz to discuss this "silent coup" by powerful multinational companies. If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give...
Oct 20, 2023•38 min•Ep 40•Transcript available on Metacast This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Intercept reporter Alice Speri, who has frequently reported from occupied Palestinian territory, and Palestinian American writer and political analyst Yousef Munayyer. Speri and Munayyer discuss the history behind the violence that exploded Saturday, with Hamas capturing and killing an unprecedented number of Israelis, including hundreds of civilians. They also examine the current spread of misinformation during the conflict, how the media has h...
Oct 13, 2023•34 min•Ep 39•Transcript available on Metacast The 2010s bore witness to a decade of massive global protests, from the seismic events of the Arab Spring to the birth of Occupy Wall Street and the fervor of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. But what tangible accomplishments emerged from these impassioned movements? This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Vincent Bevins, a veteran foreign correspondent and author of “ If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution .” Bevins and Grim discuss the Arab Spring and the ...
Oct 06, 2023•54 min•Ep 38•Transcript available on Metacast The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorneys general filed a antitrust lawsuit against Amazon on Tuesday. Meanwhile the U.S. Department of Justice's trial against Google is shrouded in secrecy. This week on Deconstructed, we break down the antitrust lawsuits the federal government has brought against Google and Amazon, and the anticompetitive and monopolistic practices on trial. Ryan Grim is joined by Amanda Lewis, a partner at the law firm Cuneo, Gilbert, and La...
Sep 30, 2023•41 min•Ep 37•Transcript available on Metacast The U.S. orchestrated a secret arms deal to send weapons to Ukraine, helping Pakistan reach the threshold needed for an International Monetary Fund loan to save the country's economy, according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement and documents leaked to The Intercept. This week on a special Deconstructed and Intercepted crossover episode, Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussain discuss their reporting on the behind-the-scenes maneuvering of Pakistani arms sales to the U.S. for the purpose of ...
Sep 22, 2023•39 min•Ep 36•Transcript available on Metacast Naomi Klein, author, professor, journalist, and contributing editor at The Intercept, has ventured into the far-right “mirror world,” exploring the movements and figures promoting conspiracy theories, misinformation, and its hold on large segments of society. This week on Deconstructed, we bring you a live conversation between Ryan Grim and Klein at the George Washington University Amphitheater, organized by Politics and Prose. Klein and Grim discuss Klein’s newest book, “Doppelganger: A Trip In...
Sep 15, 2023•55 min•Ep 35•Transcript available on Metacast The U.S. and Venezuela are in talks to further relax sanctions in exchange for a free and fair election next year. This week on Deconstructed, Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, joins Ryan Grim to discuss the recent trip he, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and other progressive Democrats took to Latin America, visiting with leaders and discussing the impact of past and present U.S. policies in the region — and how to rectify them. Casar discusses the U.S. role in dirty wars throughout the region, the urgency i...
Sep 09, 2023•49 min•Ep 34•Transcript available on Metacast Insulin, the lifesaving drug for tens of millions of Americans, is among the 10 drugs Medicare will negotiate for lower prices, by the power vested in the White House through the Inflation Reduction Act. This week on Deconstructed, Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, joins Ryan Grim to discuss the decadeslong struggle against the pharmaceutical lobby to lower drug prices and how the Biden administration secured Medicare drug pricing negotiations. Grim and Lawson discuss the...
Sep 01, 2023•41 min•Ep 33•Transcript available on Metacast In honor of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s lousy performance in the first presidential debate, we are rerunning our episode on his intervention in wild politics of The Villages, Florida. In 2019, residents of The Villages, an iconic retirement community in Florida, were suddenly hit with a 25 percent hike in their property taxes. In the master-planned community of 130,000 across the state’s Sumter, Lake, and Marion counties, many residents are on fixed incomes. The tax hikes were intended to subsid...
Aug 25, 2023•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Last week, Intercept journalists Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussain published a bombshell investigation into Pakistan’s political crisis. Grim and Hussain were provided a Pakistani intelligence document by an anonymous source, outlining how the U.S. government pressured the Pakistani government to oust former Prime Minister Imran Khan. This week on Deconstructed, Grim and Hussain discuss their reporting, the leaked cable, and the fallout from the political crisis in Pakistan. If you’d like to support...
Aug 18, 2023•42 min•Ep 32•Transcript available on Metacast The U.S. has been at constant war for the past two decades. Yet the public rarely sees the results of U.S. violence, or the bodies of Americans coming home. Norman Solomon, a journalist and antiwar activist, says that this is by design. This week on Deconstructed, Solomon joins Intercept writer and guest host Jon Schwarz. Solomon breaks down how American politicians, alongside mainstream media, spin lies and hide the true cost of American wars. Solomon is the author of “War Made Invisible: How A...
Aug 11, 2023•49 min•Ep 31•Transcript available on Metacast In a provocative new book, historian Eli Merritt argues that the Thirteen Colonies only overcame their differences and united into a single entity due to an existential fear of civil war, collapse, and invasion. That fear is now gone. This week on Deconstructed, Merritt joins Ryan Grim to discuss his new book, “Disunion Among Ourselves: The Perilous Politics of the American Revolution.” Merritt argues that the founders — motivated by surviving as an independent government — united to avoid a civ...
Aug 04, 2023•39 min•Ep 30•Transcript available on Metacast The Republican Party’s full embrace of the culture war as a political tactic — from drag queen story hour to critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives — has been chiefly guided by activist and polemicist Christopher Rufo, author of the new book “America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything.” But is the effort fundamentally nihilistic? And is it overly obsessed with sex while claiming to uncover pedophiles everywhere in our midst? This week ...
Jul 28, 2023•46 min•Ep 29•Transcript available on Metacast The House overwhelmingly passed a resolution on Tuesday pledging "the United States will always be a staunch partner and supporter of Israel” and that Israel is “not a racist or apartheid state.” This week on Deconstructed, Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, joins Ryan Grim to discuss the resolution sparked by recent remarks from Rep. Pramila Jayapal , D-Wash. Miller and Grim break down the bipartisan furor to swiftly condemn Jayapal calling Israel “a racist s...
Jul 21, 2023•57 min•Ep 28•Transcript available on Metacast Today, we’re sharing an episode of the podcast Lever Time with David Sirota from our friends at the investigative news site The Lever. On this week’s episode of Lever Time, David Sirota is joined by law professor Stephen Vladeck, author of the new book, " The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic ." The Supreme Court has received a lot of attention in the last several years for its extreme rulings on matte...
Jul 18, 2023•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Friday afternoon, the House narrowly passed a defense bill full of Republican culture war priorities. Hopeful efforts earlier in the week to rein in U.S. foreign policy fizzled out by week’s end, including an amendment to block the transfer of cluster munitions to Ukraine and other countries. On this week’s Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Erik Sperling, executive director of Just Foreign Policy, and The Intercept’s Deputy Editor Nausicaa Renner to discuss how a bipartisan bill to prevent t...
Jul 15, 2023•46 min•Ep 27•Transcript available on Metacast Centrist and right-wing economists continue to advocate for laying off workers and engineering a recession to address inflation. But why not set price controls instead? This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by James K. Galbraith, a professor of government and business relations at the University of Texas at Austin. Galbraith has an extensive history of working in government, including as executive director of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress and an economist for the Ho...
Jul 07, 2023•43 min•Ep 26•Transcript available on Metacast Today, we’re sharing an episode of the podcast Lever Time with David Sirota from our friends at the investigative news site The Lever. David and The Lever ’s Andrew Perez are joined by ProPublica journalist Justin Elliott , who recently co-authored an exposé detailing how Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito failed to disclose luxury gifts provided by billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer. This story follows ProPublica ’s repo...
Jul 03, 2023•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast A top National Institutes of Health official told Covid scientists he uses his personal email to evade strictures of the Freedom of Information Act, according to records obtained by congressional investigators probing the origins of Covid-19. This week on Deconstructed, journalist Jimmy Tobias joins Ryan Grim to discuss the U.S. government's response to the question of Covid's origins, attempts by NIH officials to skirt transparency, and the ongoing battle to access intelligence investigations i...
Jun 30, 2023•27 min•Ep 25•Transcript available on Metacast This week, Russia accused Ukraine of striking a bridge that connects mainland Ukraine with the Crimean Peninsula. This is amid the emerging counteroffensive by Ukraine attempting to push back Russian troops. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Amed Khan, who has 20 years of experience funding and implementing humanitarian relief. Khan is currently based in Ukraine, where he has been seeing the war’s destruction firsthand. Grim and Khan discuss the recent developments in the war an...
Jun 23, 2023•41 min•Ep 24•Transcript available on Metacast 
