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On this week’s show, you’re getting two scoops.

It’s a Useful Idiots double header, with former CIA Agent Barry Eisler, who left the CIA to become a spy-thriller novelist (get his latest book The System at barryeisler.com), and Ben & Jerry’s Cofounder Ben Cohen, who was arrested recently for interrupting RFK Jr.’s congressional testimony to protest US funding of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

First, Barry Eisler explains his role as a covert operative in the CIA, and the truth it taught him about American tribalist politics.

I spent three years in a covert position in the CIA. It taught me a lot about the culture and machinations of the U.S. government and what some call the deep state. And it became great fodder for a guy who then went on to become a full-time thriller writer.

What I found there is in some ways a microcosm of tribalism politics in America. And it's this.

A lot of people think, ‘oh, is it a bunch of liberals there? Or is it a bunch of conservatives?’ But the fundamental, underlying, and much more meaningful political culture in the CIA is the belief that ‘Hey, America is a force for good in the world. And everything we do, whether it's traditional espionage or shading off into coups or even invasions and occupations, that's all just to make the world a better place.’

It's that more fundamental thing where they really believe that America is a force for good in the world and that our mistakes are just innocent mistakes, rather than something much more nefarious.

Subscribe for the full interview with Barry Eisler, where we discuss Russiagate from a CIA perspective, watch Palantir’s Alex Karp let slip that his AI kills people, and the connection Barry’s spy thrillers have to Aaron’s nonfiction writing.

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Next we talk to Ben Cohen, cofounder of Ben & Jerry’s.

After disrupting a Senate testimony from RFK Jr. to protest US funding of weapons for Israel’s mass assault on Gaza, he was hauled out by police and arrested. He explains why he did it:

Everybody has their breaking point. I was reading about the slaughter of all these innocent children in Gaza. And then I read another article in the paper about another outbreak of lead poisoning in Milwaukee. Lead poisoning creates irreversible brain damage and there's nothing you can do about it.

And we know how to prevent it! It's chipping lead paint and lead in plumbing pipes and we could fix it, for a minuscule five percent of the Pentagon budget!

And so those two things: we’re making a conscious decision to provide the bombs as a gift to Israel that they use to kill kids in Gaza. And we're kicking kids off Medicaid and not preventing lead poisoning, an easily preventable permanent disease.

So I said, I’ve got to make my voice heard. I’ve got to take the most serious action that a citizen can take, which is an act of civil disobedience. And so that's what I did.

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Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Ukraine Proxy Warriors Have Second Thoughts about WWIII

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In March 2023, Ret. Gen. Keith Kellogg told Congress that it's the "acme of professionalism" to use Ukraine to fight Russia because that "takes a strategic adversary off the table" without "using any US troops."

He’s now Trump’s special envoy to Russia and Ukraine. And he’s changing his tune:

“Risk levels are going way up,” he said this week after Ukraine carried out drone strikes on four Russian airfields. “When you attack the Russian nuclear triad, the risk level goes up.”

And he’s right: according to President Trump, Putin said on a phone call this week that “he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields.” This new risk, on top of the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians killed so far, is making hawkish proxy warriors regret their provocation.

 

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This week’s Thursday Throwdown showcases hypocrisy, lies, and regrets all across the media spectrum: Republicans are now admitting that the “Big, Beautiful Bill” that “wouldn’t touch Medicaid” will, in fact, cut Medicaid. Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL (short for Apartheid Defense League) said the quiet part out loud, insisting that social media companies should remove anyone who doesn’t support Israel. An embarrassing Fox News guest thinks he’s funny when singing a song about how he doesn’t like children’s educator Ms. Rachel. And former Biden Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is the latest to jump ship from the Democratic Party, announcing she is now an Independent.

Everything’s terrible and everything’s ridiculous. Watch with Katie and Aaron so you can laugh instead of cry at it all.

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