244 episodes

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.

Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Mat‪é‬ Cumulus Podcast Network

    • News
    • 4.5 • 4.3K Ratings

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.

    US Media is STILL lying about October 7 after UN debunks Israel

    US Media is STILL lying about October 7 after UN debunks Israel

    For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
    Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: US Politicians Ban TikTok to Save Free Speech https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/us-politicians-ban-tiktok-to-save?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
    “This propaganda is a weapon to kill Palestinians.”
    The New York Times, the US government’s most prestigious arm of state media, has continued to churn out headlines accusing Hamas of a systematic and deliberate campaign of sexual violence as a weapon of war. An independent UN investigation, as well as countless journalists and primary sources, has shown these claims to be completely evidence-free. Even factions within the Times have refused to go along with the story.
    This has not stopped the paper of record.
    Throughout history, rape accusations have been a tool of dehumanization. Claims of sexual violence have been used to justify colonialism, slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, and the West’s violent regime change in Libya.
    “The bottom line,” explains guest Ali Abunimah, editor of the Electronic Intifada, “is we are now well into the sixth month of this genocide which is partly justified on the basis of these allegations and other claims of atrocities that have turned out to be false. To this day, not a single specific victim, living or dead, has been identified. We keep hearing the refrain ‘believe Israeli women;’ to this date there is not a single Israeli woman who has come forward to say that she was a victim of this kind of assault.”
    So where are these rumors coming from? After the lies were debunked by journalists, a UN report was published though as it admits it was not “investigative in nature.” Ali explains, “What the UN report did was simply to compile allegations from the Israeli military.”
    Even this biased non-investigation debunks specific claims of violence and proves that sexual violence was not systemic, and yet you’d never know that from the way legacy media is covering the report. 
    But while journalists like Ali Abunimah are kept busy debunking these dehumanizing lies, Israel’s assault on Gaza continues. And the independent journalists who are busy covering that are putting themselves in serious danger to shed light on the genocide. Ali reports that four journalists from the Electronic Intifada have been killed and many more are in daily danger.
    “People do not know from hour to hour if they will live or die.”
    Hear and share the important voice of Ali Abunimah and the reporting of the brave journalists at the Electronic Intifada. Your support of independent media makes a difference.
    00:00 Intro
    02:59 The Four Food Groups of News
    16:20 Ali Abunimah interview
    16:51 Claims of sexual violence on Oct 7
    21:29 New York Times LIES
    26:42 Source revealed: the Israeli government
    35:52 Israel can't keep its story straight
    45:35 Hillary Clinton and the history of spreading these lies
    50:19 Israeli officials in US media
    55:41 Digging into the dodgy NYT story
    1:06:13 How the justify the genocide
    1:17:41 Dems pivot on Netanyahu
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    • 1 hr 26 min
    "This is for Gaza" – UK's George Galloway returns to office to challenge pro-war elites

    "This is for Gaza" – UK's George Galloway returns to office to challenge pro-war elites

    Click here for the full interview with George Galloway: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/george-galloway-returns-to-office?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
    See Katie LIVE TONIGHT in-person or on Zoom: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/laughs-for-good-tickets-793162168397
    For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
    Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: "F you!" – Morning Joe gets desperate https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/f-you-morning-joe-gets-desperate?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
    “This is for Gaza!” announced the veteran British politician George Galloway in his victory speech, shocking the UK establishment with his win in Rochdale to rejoin the country’s parliament nearly forty years after his first election. He addressed his words to Kier Starmer, the leader of the UK Labour Party: “You will pay a high price for the role that you have played in enabling, encouraging, and covering for the catastrophe in occupied Palestine.”
    Galloway explains that the parties in the UK aren’t much different than the Democrats and Republicans: you have Rishi Sunak and his Conservative Party, who send weapons to Israel and prolong the proxy war in Ukraine, and then you have Starmer and the Labour Party, who are in complete lockstep.
    After Biden waited until the very end of his State of the Union address to even mention the crisis in Gaza and Trump recently called for Israel to finish the job, the Uniparty is alive and well in both our countries.
    And like everyone brave enough to speak out against the War Party and its genocide in Gaza, Galloway gets accused by good narrative-following Twitter users of spreading hate speech. However they, and the entire UK media, were largely silent when George was viciously assaulted by a pro-Israel supporter. He describes the harrowing attack and shares the origin story of how it led to his iconic hat.
    Subscribe to hear the full interview with MP George Galloway on his relationship with former Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn, the immediate goals of the Workers Party, and the smears and lies that he most wants to debunk.
    Thank you for supporting independent media.
    00:00 Intro
    03:13 The Four Food Groups of News
    19:51 Something funny
    22:00 George Galloway interview
    27:53 Rishi Sunak is MAD
    31:23 The Hat origin story
    34:50 Spanking Kier Starmer
    38:27 Running to help Gaza
    44:55 UK's role in Ukraine
    48:04 BREAKING: Leak from Germany
    52:05 Jeremy Corbyn
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    • 56 min
    “Biden is a senile warmonger” – veteran US Diplomat Chas Freeman

    “Biden is a senile warmonger” – veteran US Diplomat Chas Freeman

    Click here for the full interview with Chas Freeman: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/biden-is-a-senile-war-monger-veteran?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
    For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
    Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: CNN Melts Down Over Uncommitted Voters https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/cnn-melts-down-over-uncommitted-voters?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
    “Our foreign policy is diplomacy free.”
    As he watches the escalating crises in our world today, this is the main takeaway for Chas Freeman, who, as the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War, knows a thing about diplomacy.
    “It’s a lot cheaper and more effective to sit down and talk to someone than to pull a gun on them and shoot them,” he says. “But that’s what we seem to have substituted for our normal course of diplomatic interaction.”
    Freeman explains the leading cause of forever wars: “There's nobody quite as bloodthirsty as a civilian with no experience of war.” As shown in the episode thumbnail above (side note: you know it’s a bad crew if the most likable character in the picture is Matthew Miller), the warmongers in charge of foreign policy are all civilians. When the top US general Mark Milley called for peace talks in Ukraine, it was these bad actors who shut it down.
    “The military know that they can die in a war, that their comrades will die,” says Freeman. “They know that you should never enter a war without figuring out first how you're going to end it, on what terms, and with whom.” But the ‘leaders’ we do have never had to fight. “Civilians typically define no end state, have no war termination strategy, which is why we get forever wars.”
    And the future only looks bleaker.
    “Here we have an election which is between someone who is widely regarded as a senile war monger and somebody who has been correctly diagnosed as a malignant narcissist.”
    Subscribe to hear the full interview with Chas Freeman on why the protest vote against Biden in Michigan was “very significant,” how the New York Times has been complicit in the information war, the main similarity between the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza (bet you can guess it), and the main difference between the genocide in Israel and the one in South Africa:
    “South Africa was on the verge of having a race war but it never had one. Israel is having a race war.”
    Freeman’s important voice makes this an episode of Useful Idiots you’re not going to want to miss. Subscribe now to hear the full interview and support independent media.
    00:00 Intro
    00:51 The Four Food Groups of News
    08:49 Chas Freeman interview
    09:29 Uncommitted shocks Biden
    14:01 Our foreign policy is diplomacy-free
    20:33 Does Israel have a right to exist?
    23:43 Israel vs South Africa
    28:08 Aaron Bushnell
    33:23 Has this ever happened before?
    36:47 Palestine vs Ukraine
    41:19 Diplomats kill peace in Ukraine
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    • 46 min
    "Insanity" – John Mearsheimer on the US role in Gaza and Ukraine

    "Insanity" – John Mearsheimer on the US role in Gaza and Ukraine

    Click here for the full interview with John Mearsheimer: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/insanity-john-mearsheimer-on-the?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
    For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
    Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Nancy Pelosi needs Russiagate Detox https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/nancy-pelosi-needs-russiagate-detox?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
    Professor John Mearsheimer, whose political analysis predicted today’s horrors in Ukraine and Palestine, joins Useful Idiots to give his take on what’s next in the world’s biggest wars.
    And since he’s been largely excluded from corporate media for his dissenting views, it’s more important than ever to get his word out.
    “What you have here is a real disjuncture between what the elites think and what the publics think,” he says of the two conflicts, in what is already a clear affront to the narratives of elitist western media. “There are recent polls produced by the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Quincy Institute that show that only 10% of Europeans and 12% of Americans think that Ukraine can win the war.”
    And when it comes to Israel, Mearsheimer explains that US policy is even further from what the people want. It’s not the voters who have a say, and even Congress (as pro-Israel as they are) isn’t in control: “I believe that 90% of it is accounted for by the [Israel] lobby.”
    Professor Mearsheimer deep dives into each war: he explains why the US tanked Ukraine’s peace talks to further instigate Russia and what he would do now if he was in Biden’s or Putin’s position. He also delves into the influence of the Israel lobby and how Biden has given impunity to Israel’s killing Gaza killing spree.
    Subscribe for the full interview for his full analysis and predictions on Israel’s assault on Gaza.
    00:00 Intro
    00:53 The Four Food Groups of News
    22:17 Professor John Mearsheimer interview
    23:17 Schools of political science thought
    26:23 Is Ukraine losing?
    29:26 What does Putin want?
    38:47 Who's the real puppet?
    44:07 Why does the US want war with Russia?
    51:21 Western leaders screaming the quiet part
    59: 42 When will the truth come out?
    1:03:43 Gaza and US support for Israel's assault
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    • 1 hr 9 min
    “Pure evil” – Dr. Mads Gilbert on Israel’s attacks on Gaza’s hospitals

    “Pure evil” – Dr. Mads Gilbert on Israel’s attacks on Gaza’s hospitals

    For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
    Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: AOC calls Genocide Joe "the most successful US president" https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/aoc-calls-genocide-joe-the-most-successful?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
    For 30 years, Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert has risked his life to give medical care to Palestinians, performing surgeries, training medical students, and supporting their renowned healthcare system. But in their most recent assault, Israel banned Dr. Gilbert from entering Gaza.
    “This is the politics of elimination,” Dr. Gilbert tells us. “Israel is the only nation on Earth who has a military strategy to attack, to kill, and to dismantle civilian hospitals.”
    Forced to watch the unfolding tragedy from afar, Gilbert struggles to believe the horrors he’s seeing. “It is such an avalanche of human suffering that it is almost incomprehensible. And it’s all done with full will, planning, dedication. It is a 100% man-made disaster, designed to achieve exactly the goals that they have achieved: to maim and destroy Palestinian society.”
    What should have led to a huge uproar has instead been tolerated and even encouraged by Western politicians and media outlets, who have laundered false claims about militant hideouts at Palestinian hospitals.
    But while the genocide of Palestinians has only just broken through to mainstream consciousness, Dr. Gilbert explains that none of this is new.
    “Israel is going against absolutely every international law aimed at protecting civilian hospitals. This is unprecedented, but I’d like to add that for us who have been working with the Palestinians and their healthcare for many years, it’s not a new feature. The Israelis have always been attacking healthcare. In last year’s report from WHO, they reported 600 attacks on healthcare in the last two years.”
    And in the latest assault on Gaza, there have been “hundreds and hundreds” more. “We’ve seen attacks in the West Bank where they even dress up as doctors and kill patients in their beds.”
    Gilbert gives his scathing post-mortem: “This is a historical low point in human history. This enormous collapse of western morality and principles. We’re back to the jungle.”
    Hear the full, unpaywalled interview with Mads Gilbert, and listen to the end for his message on how to help. “We can all do our part: write a poem, sing a song, participate in a demonstration, write a letter to your politician. Take part in history because we need to change history now.”
    He finishes, solemnly: “What you are doing now, or what you are not doing now, is what you would have done, or not done, during the Holocaust.”
    00:00 Intro
    5:55 The Four Food Groups of News
    20:57 Dr. Mads Gilbert interview
    22:13 Israel warns of new hospital attack
    27:35 Stories of killed doctors
    40:34 Israeli doctors sign letter to BOMB MORE HOSPITALS
    55:13 Israeli protesters block humanitarian aid
    1:00:58 Israel shuts of water
    1:09:13 Answering Israeli arguments
    1:23:40 Rafah update
    1:29:01 HOW TO HELP
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    • 1 hr 33 min
    Dennis Kucinich Takes on the War Machine

    Dennis Kucinich Takes on the War Machine

    Click here for the full interview with Dennis Kucinich: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/dennis-kucinich-takes-on-the-war?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
    For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
    Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Tucker Carlson's Putin interview enrages MSNBC https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/tucker-carlsons-putin-interview-enrages?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
    Mayor, Congressman, and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich is making his triumphant return to Useful Idiots. Oh, and also to Congress.
    After serving as an Ohio Representative for more than 15 years until 2013, Kucinich has been out of politics for over a decade. And after watching his country decline both internationally and domestically, the veteran lawmaker and peace advocate realized that his service is needed once again.
    “We have to consciously evolve in our politics as a nation to recognize that human unity is the underlying truth of our existence,” he says. “It’s about time that we called for a ceasefire, we gotta make sure that people aren’t paying another $97,000 out of their pockets for the next war.”
    Homelessness rates are at an all time high and half of Americans can’t afford their rent, but instead of fixing anything, Congress is sending all of our money to the military.
    “The sons and daughters of America are being sacrificed in unnecessary wars,” Kucinich says. “Their service is honorable. But the people who sent them there? Not honorable.”
    Which is why he’s running against Rep. Max Miller (just wait until you hear this war monger boast about turning Gaza into a parking lot) to rejoin Congress as an Independent.
    “People are horrified about the direction the world’s going in, and I’m stepping forward as a voice of sanity, common sense, and a willingness to say the obvious: war is stupid!”
    Subscribe to hear our full discussion with Dennis Kucinich, and if you want to help kick a psychopath out of Congress and replace him with someone fighting for peace, you can support Dennis’ campaign here.
    00:00 Intro
    00:27 The Four Food Groups of News
    17:24 Dennis Kucinich interview
    19:16 Psychopath Max Miller
    23:51 Why he's running for Congress
    27:31 Homeless as a child
    35:27 What can a member of Congress actually achieve?
    40:40 $$$ to Israel and Ukraine
    44:29 What the US SHOULD be doing
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    • 48 min

Customer Reviews

4.5 out of 5
4.3K Ratings

4.3K Ratings

Darling Tonia ,

A Favourite Since Episode One

I have been listening to this podcast since it first started. I am so grateful for these two wry, insightful journalists, and their stellar lineup of guests. Expect incisive critiques of imperialism, US militarism, neocons/liberals, and mainstream media. Despite often heavy topics, they manage to keep the show entertaining — an impressive feat which makes the program feel like time spent with particularly informative friends.

Those trying to smear the show as anti-Semitic are full of bull! Katie Halper and Aaron Mate are both JEWISH. So get outta here with that nonsense.

Johan Pablo ,

Started off strong

I’ve been a weekly listener of Useful Idiots since 2019. Back then, the show was funny and irreverent as its description claims. Between Matt and Katie, there was no subject that was safe from a cynical skewering, and the focus on our various domestic political absurdities kept listeners like me engaged. At a certain point in late 2021 or so, Matt clearly ran out of steam and quit the show, leaving Katie to figure things out with temporary host turned insufferable mainstay, Aaron Mate. Since then, the show has become a slog of Aaron’s foreign policy fixations as Katie seems increasingly uninvolved in the show’s production and execution. It’s mostly just Aaron ranting alongside random characters from across the globe who nod along and affirm his worldview. Since Oct 7, the show has been uniformly one-note, highlighting the tragedies unfolding in Gaza. As someone who is sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians, even I can only listen to the same talking points so many times. Irreverence at Useful Idiots has given way to sanctimonious, impotent virtue signaling.

MFoxley ,

Sad

This show is just another propaganda show it’s getting so difficult to find a show with just facts and not pushing an agenda you never hearing the facts from the horses mouth they always put their own spin on everything like they are getting “facts” from the mainstream media sad but you lost me no big deal but sad

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