Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté

Useful Idiots, LLC

Useful Idiots is an informative and irreverent politics podcast with journalist Aaron Maté and podcaster/writer Katie Halper. Episodes feature analysis of the political news of the week and exclusive interviews, with humor, commentary and dissection of why both Republicans and Democrats suck. Join Aaron and Katie as they examine important stories that have slipped through the cracks and what the media got wrong – and laugh about whatever is left to laugh about.

  1. 18 HR AGO

    Fascist Israeli Minister Taunts Palestine’s Mandela

    You can go to our sponsor https://aura.com/usefulidiots to try 14 days for free. That’s enough time for Aura to start scrubbing your personal info off these data broker sites, without you lifting a finger Support local jobs and get variety of high-quality clothing and activewear at https://www.american-giant.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code USEFUL. Thanks to American Giant for sponsoring the show! Go to groundnews.com/useful for a better way to stay informed. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access to world-wide coverage through our link. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Fox News Somehow Hits New Low on Israeli Hospital Strike Justification https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/fox-news-somehow-hits-new-low-on?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at http://usefulidiotspodcast.com Join us LIVE on Youtube every Monday at 10am EST for Monday Mourning, where we watch the Sunday morning news shows so that you don't have to. Watch TOMORROW'S FREEDOM, the documentary about Marwan Barghouti: https://watch.watermelonpictures.com/tomorrow-s-freedom https://www.tomorrowsfreedom.com/ Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/useful-idiots-with-katie-halper-and-aaron-mate/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    53 min
  2. 22 AUG

    Trump’s Plan: Genocide in Gaza, Peace with Putin?

    Click here for the full interview with Professor Richard Sakwa and Dr. Omar Abdel-Mannan: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/trumps-plan-genocide-in-gaza-peace?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false Help Dr. Omar's foundation: https://www.healthworkers4palestine.com/ You can go to our sponsor https://aura.com/usefulidiots to try 14 days for free. That’s enough time for Aura to start scrubbing your personal info off these data broker sites, without you lifting a finger Support local jobs and get variety of high-quality clothing and activewear at https://www.american-giant.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code USEFUL. Thanks to American Giant for sponsoring the show! Go to groundnews.com/useful for a better way to stay informed. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access to world-wide coverage through our link. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: MSNBC Claims It’s Now Independent Media https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/msnbc-claims-its-now-independent?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at http://usefulidiotspodcast.com Join us LIVE on Youtube every Monday at 10am EST for Monday Mourning, where we watch the Sunday morning news shows so that you don't have to. Useful Idiots has another Double Header this week as we look at Gaza and Ukraine. First up we speak with Dr. Omar Abdel-Mannan, founder of Health Workers 4 Palestine, about the State Department’s heartless decision to pause all visitor visas for people from Gaza. This policy shift came after Jewish-supremacist, right-wing-conspiracy-theorist, and self-described “proud Islamophobe” Laura Loomer took to Twitter (and tagged Secretary of State Marco Rubio) to expose the fact that “Islamic invaders” were infiltrating the U.S. from Gaza. Of course, what was really happening is that children injured in Gaza with weapons from (and/or paid for by) the U.S. were coming to the states for medical treatment (at no expense to U.S. taxpayers) thanks to the non-profit HEAL Palestine. Dr. Omar knows how important it is to provide children from Gaza with medical treatment in England, where he lives. He himself has worked tirelessly to bring children wounded in Gaza by UK weapons, into the UK. He also reacts to propagandist outlets like Bari Weiss’s The Free Press, which engages in the most disgusting whitewashing of Israel’s crimes: starving children to death isn’t that bad because most of the ones dying have pre-existing conditions. Phew! What a relief. Plus, we ask Dr. Omar: is Palantir selling your health data to Israel? Next we speak with Professor Richard Sakwa to discuss the latest in Russia-Ukraine after Trump’s controversial summit with Putin. We ask Sakwa: what are Putin’s true motives? Does he see Ukraine as a real country? Does he want revenge on the US and UK after Biden and Boris Johnson colluded to push Ukraine out of peace talks? And is Trump treating Putin as his equal, conning him into taking a worse deal, or bowing down to him just like he does with Netanyahu? 00:00 Intro 00:40 Dem Rep beats up protesters 03:22 How JD Vance lied about "no taxes on tips" 07:30 Trump thinks he's going to Heaven 09:54 MSNBC thinks progressives are MAGA 14:05 Dr. Omar Abdel-Mannan interview 14:22 Laura Loomer tells Rubio to cancel visas for wounded children 46:57 Professor Richard Sakwa interview 47:36 The Trump-Putin Summit 59:31 Does Putin see Ukraine as a real country? Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/useful-idiots-with-katie-halper-and-aaron-mate/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    1h 1m
  3. 15 AUG

    UNPAYWALLED: CIA GETS CAUGHT Spying on the Senate During Torture Investigation

    You can go to our sponsor https://aura.com/usefulidiots to try 14 days for free. That’s enough time for Aura to start scrubbing your personal info off these data broker sites, without you lifting a finger Support local jobs and get variety of high-quality clothing and activewear at https://www.american-giant.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code USEFUL. Thanks to American Giant for sponsoring the show! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Bill Maher Goes FULL PROPAGANDA Bot For Israel https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/bill-maher-goes-full-propaganda-bot?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at http://usefulidiotspodcast.com Join us LIVE on Youtube every Monday at 10am EST for Monday Mourning, where we watch the Sunday morning news shows so that you don't have to. For nearly 40 years, journalist Tim Weiner has closely covered the CIA, finding his way inside crucial meetings, speaking with retired officials, and gaining the trust of people with classified information. And his latest book, The Mission, does something we’ve never seen before: It gives an in-depth history of the CIA without any anonymous sources. Everyone’s on the record. We don’t know how Tim did it, but he joins Useful Idiots to share what he’s learned from 40 years of digging. Useful Idiots: You spoke to former CIA Director Richard Helms, and you wrote: “He wanted me to understand that the agency hadn't dreamed up the idea of overthrowing Iran or killing Fidel Castro. Every president since Truman had commanded the CIA to intervene with guns and money to control the fate of nations when sending in the Marines was not an option.” Did you get the sense that the CIA was always just unquestioningly following orders? Tim Weiner: It took me a while to understand this simple but important point: the CIA is an executor of American foreign policy. It doesn't dream up coups and plots and other nefarious covert activities. With rare exceptions, it does what the president tells it to do. It's not like a couple of CI officers were sitting around drinking martinis in 1960 saying, ‘Hey, I got a good idea. Let's go kill Fidel Castro.’ Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy and President Kennedy's brother, Bobby, wanted Castro gone. When it came time to investigate the first twenty five years of the CIA, the Church Committee in the 1970s dove deep into this: Frank Church, the senator who ran them, wondered aloud if “the CIA has become a rogue elephant trampling people and nations.” But, we later find out, after the hearings, Church amended his statement: “When the elephant tramples people and nations, it's not the elephant's fault. It is the fault of the mahout, the elephant driver.” And that was the President of the United States. The Church Committee, and even the torture report about CIA secret prisons that the Senate finally released ten years ago, really tiptoes around this question of presidential authority for violations of the laws of God and man and the Geneva Convention by the CIA. It's the president's outfit. And it is a unique expression of presidential power to order the CIA to go and kill people or torture them or throw them in secret prisons for the rest of their lives, never to see the light of day. Useful Idiots: Your book tells the story of the great lengths to which the CIA went to cover up for torture. You have this controversy over an attempt to destroy videotapes of torture at a CIA secret prison in Thailand. And then you also have the CIA spying on the Senate as the Senate is investigating the CIA's torture program. Tim Weiner: Two unhappy stories. The first is rather dramatic. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/useful-idiots-with-katie-halper-and-aaron-mate/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    50 min
  4. 8 AUG

    Intelligence Expert: Trump Would TAKE OVER the CIA if US was Attacked

    Click here for the full interview with Intelligence Expert Tim Weiner: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/full-episode-intelligence-expert?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false You can go to our sponsor https://aura.com/usefulidiots to try 14 days for free. That’s enough time for Aura to start scrubbing your personal info off these data broker sites, without you lifting a finger Support local jobs and get variety of high-quality clothing and activewear at https://www.american-giant.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code USEFUL. Thanks to American Giant for sponsoring the show! Go to groundnews.com/useful for a better way to stay informed. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access to world-wide coverage through our link. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Bill Maher Goes FULL PROPAGANDA Bot For Israel https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/bill-maher-goes-full-propaganda-bot?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at http://usefulidiotspodcast.com Join us LIVE on Youtube every Monday at 10am EST for Monday Mourning, where we watch the Sunday morning news shows so that you don't have to. For nearly 40 years, journalist Tim Weiner has closely covered the CIA, finding his way inside crucial meetings, speaking with retired officials, and gaining the trust of people with classified information. And his latest book, The Mission, does something we’ve never seen before: It gives an in-depth history of the CIA without any anonymous sources. Everyone’s on the record. We don’t know how Tim did it, but he joins Useful Idiots to share what he’s learned from 40 years of digging. Useful Idiots: You spoke to former CIA Director Richard Helms, and you wrote: “He wanted me to understand that the agency hadn't dreamed up the idea of overthrowing Iran or killing Fidel Castro. Every president since Truman had commanded the CIA to intervene with guns and money to control the fate of nations when sending in the Marines was not an option.” Did you get the sense that the CIA was always just unquestioningly following orders? Tim Weiner: It took me a while to understand this simple but important point: the CIA is an executor of American foreign policy. It doesn't dream up coups and plots and other nefarious covert activities. With rare exceptions, it does what the president tells it to do. It's not like a couple of CI officers were sitting around drinking martinis in 1960 saying, ‘Hey, I got a good idea. Let's go kill Fidel Castro.’ Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy and President Kennedy's brother, Bobby, wanted Castro gone. When it came time to investigate the first twenty five years of the CIA, the Church Committee in the 1970s dove deep into this: Frank Church, the senator who ran them, wondered aloud if “the CIA has become a rogue elephant trampling people and nations.” But, we later find out, after the hearings, Church amended his statement: “When the elephant tramples people and nations, it's not the elephant's fault. It is the fault of the mahout, the elephant driver.” And that was the President of the United States. The Church Committee, and even the torture report about CIA secret prisons that the Senate finally released ten years ago, really tiptoes around this question of presidential authority for violations of the laws of God and man and the Geneva Convention by the CIA. It's the president's outfit. And it is a unique expression of presidential power to order the CIA to go and kill people or torture them or throw them in secret prisons for the rest of their lives, never to see the light of day. Useful Idiots: Your book tells the story of the great lengths to which the CIA went to cover up for torture. You have this controversy over an attempt to destroy videotapes of torture at a CIA secret prison in Thailand. And then you also have the CIA spying on the Senate as the Senate is investigating the CIA's torture program. Tim Weiner: Two unhappy stories. The first is rather dramatic. 00:00 Intro 00:48 MSNBC can't stop its Russiagate hypocrisy 06:31 Rubio gives Netanyahu permission to take Gaza 15:46 Netanyahu turns on loyal servant New York Times 22:02 Stephen Miller's wife has an announcement for conservative women 26:06 Tim Weiner interview 33:17 The CIA Elephant 41:40 CIA destroys torture tapes 46:24 CIA spies on the Senate Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/useful-idiots-with-katie-halper-and-aaron-mate/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    48 min
  5. 1 AUG

    BOMBSHELL: Trump Hid Israeli Killer Settler’s Murderous Past

    Click here for the full interview with Jasper Nathaniel: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/full-episode-bombshell-trump-hid?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false You can go to our sponsor https://aura.com/usefulidiots to try 14 days for free. That’s enough time for Aura to start scrubbing your personal info off these data broker sites, without you lifting a finger Support local jobs and get variety of high-quality clothing and activewear at https://www.american-giant.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code USEFUL. Thanks to American Giant for sponsoring the show! Go to groundnews.com/useful for a better way to stay informed. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access to world-wide coverage through our link. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Fox News Accidentally Reveals Anti-Mamdani Blackmail Plot Live on Air https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/fox-news-accidentally-reveals-anti?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at http://usefulidiotspodcast.com Join us LIVE on Youtube every Monday at 10am EST for Monday Mourning, where we watch the Sunday morning news shows so that you don't have to. 00:00 Intro 01:11 Sen. Slotkin ROASTED on Breaking Points 06:54 Trump's 'gift' that secretly cuts Social Security 09:32 Grindr's pro-Israeli policy 11:55 The Dems who voted AGAINST Bernie's bill to cut off weapons to Israel 20:53 Jasper Nathaniel interview 21:52 What is happening in the West Bank? 29:36 NAMING A SETTLER SERIAL KILLER 35:40 No Other Land member killed 42:04 Settlers kill US citizens 44:35 The murderous Gaza Humanitarian Fund 55:03 Debunking Shai Davidai 56:13 Bob Suberi and Huwaida Arraf interview Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/useful-idiots-with-katie-halper-and-aaron-mate/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    1h 28m
  6. 25 JUL

    Doctors EXPOSE Israeli TORTURE: “Naked, cuffed, blindfolded, and beaten.”

    You can go to our sponsor https://aura.com/usefulidiots to try 14 days for free. That’s enough time for Aura to start scrubbing your personal info off these data broker sites, without you lifting a finger Support local jobs and get variety of high-quality clothing and activewear at https://www.american-giant.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code USEFUL. Thanks to American Giant for sponsoring the show! Go to groundnews.com/useful for a better way to stay informed. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access to world-wide coverage through our link. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Hunter Biden FLAMES George Clooney & Establishment Dems: “F*ck them!” https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/hunter-biden-flames-george-clooney?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at http://usefulidiotspodcast.com Join us LIVE on Youtube every Monday at 10am EST for Monday Mourning, where we watch the Sunday morning news shows so that you don't have to. For this week’s episode of Useful Idiots, we’re focused on the moral issue of our time: Israel’s genocide and starvation siege against the people of Gaza. First up is our interview with two doctors, Dr. Mohamed Nour and Dr. Ahmed Twaij, who recount the horrifying methods of torture Israel uses against other doctors and nurses who have bravely attempted to give care in Gaza. Doctors and nurses have to go through these checkpoints. And some of them would get picked out of the line. They would be made to go wait in another holding area.One of them, I remember he said to me, “I got taken behind the building. I remember seeing two hundred men all completely naked with their hands in plastic cuffs on and blindfolded. They took all of my belongings, made me naked, no boxers, nothing. I remember sitting there for hours. Then they took us into a building and we were just beaten for another couple of hours.”Then they get transported to a prison in Israel: “We got packed into the truck. It was like we were chickens. We weren’t picked up and sat down, just shoved in the back of a truck.”When they get to the prison, the plastic cuffs get changed to metal cuffs. And the blindfold stays on. They'd be given a small area, one meter by two meters. And they get put in a certain position. And they stay in that position, like on their knees, essentially, for twenty hours a day. “We were allowed to lie down for four hours a day.”There's one toilet between, I don't know, a hundred of them. I asked, “How did you go to the toilet?”“They picked us up and took us to the toilet with our cuffs. There's no kind of tissue, no water, nothing. And we had to pull our pants back up ourselves and then go back and sit down.”Another said to me, “I remember we got to have a shower once a week and it was always cold water. I'll never forget that because one day a prisoner cried out, ‘Why is it always cold? Why is it always cold water?’ And then we heard him scream because they'd thrown boiling water over him.” And no one's checking, right? Who's going there to check what's going on in the Israeli prisons?But outside of the Israeli torture prisons, life isn’t much easier. Pulitzer-Prized Poet from Palestine Mosab Abu Toha says that worse than the bombs, the violent soldiers, and the machine guns is the hunger. The ‘aid’ they're getting from the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation [a fake humanitarian organization set up by Israel and the US] includes massacres because Israelis and mercenaries have been shooting at people. These are death sites.People go to these sites in the very early hours of the morning before they open, hours and hours there waiting for the gates to open. Then the people who are running these sites would turn on a light which is a signal that now it's time to go. And they would go in, and then there would be another sign that it's shut. So anyone who stays there for five minutes, for ten minutes, they would be shot at, they would be killed.They tell me: “The problem now is not the airstrike, it's not the drones, it's not the bombs, it's just that we don't have food.” People want to eat, even if they are going to be killed. They can't stop the killing, but they can't just stay in their tents while their children are crying out of hunger. Can you just imagine you're sitting in a tent and there are F-16s and drones in the sky that could drop a bomb and kill you, and you're sitting there for twelve hours and there is no food, there is no water. What do you do?I was listening in the background when Samah, six years old, was in a tent with my mother-in-law in Gaza City. She was crying. She said, ‘I want to eat. I'm hungry. I'm hungry.’ And then my mother-in-law told her, ‘Samah, just be patient. When it's sunset, we will have some food. Just try to drink some water.’Little babies had to fast for twelve or fifteen hours because the fathers and the brothers are outside looking for food knowing that they could not come back with anything or they could not come back at all.A takeaway that was highlighted in both interviews was what we could do to help, not just as journalists, activists, poets, or doctors, but as people in our everyday lives. Mohamed explains: I don't think it's okay for people not to talk about this. When I say people, I mean the general public. People who are going to work, watching Netflix, going out to the theatre, whatever. In years to come, being silent on this issue is going to be something people will really, really regret. The fact that we should at least have spoken about this.We should be talking about it everywhere, at work, at schools, wherever, to say this is not acceptable. And so at the very least, we can all say, ‘look, we spoke up against this. We did as much as we could do for this issue, and we tried our best.’ I think everybody should be able to say that.Thank you for supporting independent media. Help us tell the stories of the people in Palestine by sharing this interview. 00:00 Intro 01:42 Amy Klobuchar gets CAUGHT 11:36 Republicans ADMIT why they're hiding Epstein files 16:56 AOC throws her friends under the bus 24:25 Someone snuck a camera into the ICE detention center 26:33 Doctors Mohamed Nour and Ahmed Twaij interview 56:18 What YOU can be doing! 58:37 Mosab Abu Toha interview 01:25:01 A poem reading Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/useful-idiots-with-katie-halper-and-aaron-mate/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    1h 33m

About

Useful Idiots is an informative and irreverent politics podcast with journalist Aaron Maté and podcaster/writer Katie Halper. Episodes feature analysis of the political news of the week and exclusive interviews, with humor, commentary and dissection of why both Republicans and Democrats suck. Join Aaron and Katie as they examine important stories that have slipped through the cracks and what the media got wrong – and laugh about whatever is left to laugh about.

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