The Intercept Briefing

Today we’re presenting a podcast special from our Intercept colleagues in DC. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joins Intercept reporters Ryan Grim and Briahna Joy Gray for an in-depth conversation about her fresh approach to politics, her thoughts on 2020, and her insurgent congressional campaign. As a new member of the House Financial Services Committee, she’s already shaping the conversation with her call to raise the top marginal tax rate to 70%. And former North Carolina congressman Brad Miller, a progressive Democrat who served for years on the committee, joins the conversation to talk about the challenges Ocasio-Cortez will face there. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Longtime investigative journalist Michael Isikoff of Yahoo! News analyzes the Buzzfeed News bombshell report that Trump ordered Michael Cohen to lie to cover up a planned Trump Tower in Moscow. Robert Mueller is disputing the report and Isikoff offers his own critique of the story and what we know to be true thus far. Popular economist and adviser to Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign Stephanie Kelton talks about Modern Monetary Theory, the lies told by Republicans and Democrats about deficits, and whether young workers will ever get Social Security benefits. Los Angeles public school teachers appear to have won some major victories as a result of their historic strike. We speak to Noriko Nakada, an 8th grade English teacher at Emerson Middle School in LA, and labor journalist Sarah Jaffe, who covered the strike for The Nation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Trump says he wants to end U.S. wars abroad, while he threatens to use emergency powers to further militarize U.S. immigration enforcement. On Twitter, Trump advocates isolationism, while embracing lifelong warmongers like John Bolton and Benjamin Netanyahu. Investigative reporter and historian Gareth Porter analyzes Trump's pledge to pull troops from Syria and Afghanistan. He breaks down why Israel and the Pentagon don't want to see an end to U.S. militarism. Historian Greg Grandin lays out the nativist roots of the U.S. Border Patrol, its connection to CIA dirty wars in Latin America, and nearly 100-years of brutality and impunity. Sudan has been rocked by large demonstrations for the past month, threatening the regime of Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court. Despite Bashir’s pariah status, Trump has lifted some longstanding sanctions against his regime. Journalist Hana Baba discusses her recent trip to Sudan and what the protests are really about. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Introducing Murderville, a new investigative podcast from The Intercept.  Episode 2: The Trial. Devonia Inman goes on trial for his life. But there’s really no evidence against him. Witnesses keep changing their stories. And the jury never hears about an alternate suspect — a man who was just arrested for a brazen murder of two prominent community members.The full seven-episode Murderville series is available now on Stitcher Premium, or free on all platforms starting December 20. To subscribe, go to theintercept.com/murderville. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Introducing Murderville, a new investigative podcast from The Intercept.  Episode 1: Murder at Taco Bell. A murder in the small southern town of Adel, Georgia, sent Devonia Inman to jail 20 years ago.  He was accused of robbing and shooting a woman named Donna Brown in a Taco Bell parking lot.  He swore he was innocent and there were good reasons to believe him. And while he awaited trial, three more brutal killings took place in Adel. Did police get the wrong man?The full seven-episode Murderville series is available now on Stitcher Premium, or free on all platforms starting December 20. To subscribe, go to theintercept.com/murderville. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dan Kaufman, author of "The Fall of Wisconsin: Conservative Conquest of a Progressive Bastion and The Future Of American Politics," digs into the history, analyzes the latest Republican conspiracy and lays out why we all should study the Wisconsin model. Longtime criminal justice reporters Liliana Segura and Jordan Smith talk about their gripping new true crime podcast, Murderville, which tells the story of a series of grisly killings in a small Georgia town and the man they believe has been wrongly imprisoned. Canadian hip-hop artist and host of Netflix's "Hip-Hop Evolution," Shad, talks about his roots, class warfare, and his imaginative new album “A Short Story About a War.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy Scahill details the crimes of George H.W. Bush, the sick propaganda of the corporate media memorials; and the trail of blood, death, and tears Bush leaves behind. Independent journalist Arun Gupta covers decades of Bush, from his time at the helm of the CIA, to the presidency. Gupta discusses Bush’s support for Manuel Noriega and his eventual invasion of Panama, the pardoning of Iran-Contra criminals, the dirty wars in Central America, the support for Saddam Hussein, and the launch of the Gulf War. Acclaimed Iraqi poet and scholar Sinan Antoon describes his life under the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Saddam, the horrors of the Gulf War, and how Bush’s destruction of Iraqi civilian society led to the rise of ISIS. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Decades of CIA death squads, economic warfare, coups, and support for authoritarian rule played a central role in the exodus of refugees from Central America. Donald Trump is now threatening to shoot the fleeing victims. Honduran professor Suyapa Portillo Villeda analyzes how Washington created the crisis. Jeremy Scahill details the history of John Negroponte and the Contra death squads in Nicaragua and the case of a U.S. Jesuit priest murdered in Honduras during Negroponte’s tenure. The Intercept’s Ryan Devereaux and Melissa del Bosque of The Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute talk about the militarization of the border, the prosecution of humanitarian volunteers who help immigrants and the nativist, white supremacists driving U.S. policy. Director Alex Winter talks about his film documenting the hundreds of reporters who produced the Panama Papers — more than 11 million documents showing systematic tax evasion and money laundering by some of the world’s most powerful people. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chicago-based hip-hop artist Vic Mensa not only raps about Chicago police killings of black and brown people, about apartheid in Palestine, the poisoning of the water in Flint, Michigan, but he also goes to where the silence is and speaks out. In the aftermath of the police shooting of Laquan MacDonald, Mensa was in the streets and gave voice to the movement that led to the conviction of second-degree murder for Chicago Police officer Jason Van Dyke. Mensa has traveled in Palestine with the poet Aja Monet, and he has gone to Flint to help amplify the voices of a community that was poisoned and continues to be poisoned. During the Standing Rock movement, he joined to support the water protectors fighting against the Dakota Access Pipeline. He speaks about his activism, what he saw in Palestine, being a gun owner who supports gun control, and the revolutionary figures that inspire his work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Columbia University professor Bernard Harcourt lays out the multi-decade history of paramilitarized politics in the U.S., how the tactics of the “War on Terror” have come back to American soil, and why no one talks about drone strikes anymore. Academy Award-winning director Michael Moore talks about his recent visit from the FBI in connection to the pipe bomb packages and who he thinks should run against Trump in 2020. Journalist and lawyer Josie Duffy Rice analyzes the battle over vote counts in Florida and Georgia, the Republican campaign to suppress black voters, the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, and why she isn’t protesting the firing of Jeff Sessions. Jeremy Scahill explains why Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer need to go away. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.