Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:

This week we’re joined by California Congressman Ro Khanna, one of the only members of Congress willing to appear on shows that are to the left of the Democratic Party. Our conversation spans from working with “bad guy” Republicans on releasing the Epstein Files, protecting Medicare, stopping Trump’s regime change operations in Venezuela, and taking on AIPAC:

Useful Idiots: You've been spearheading an effort to get Trump to recognize Palestinian statehood. Can you tell us more about this effort and any new developments around it?

Rep. Khanna: We have twenty six signatures to officially recognize a Palestinian state. Now people say, ‘Is this just moral preening? Why does it matter?’ First of all, it obviously matters to Netanyahu and it matters to AIPAC because they have been very opposed to it. So there is real value in recognizing the humanity of the Palestinian people and their national aspirations.

Secondly, the Palestinians need some hope, a horizon of hope to overcome the destruction and extremism that they are seeing. And third, the reality is that the United States recognizing a Palestinian state, unlike all the other countries, really matters because we have the ability to have consequences based on our aid and our support.

Useful Idiots: So when you bring this pitch to your colleagues in Congress, what kind of pushback are you getting? Why are they not on board with this yet, even though it's supposed to be U.S. policy to support a Palestinian state in just twenty two percent of their homeland?

Rep. Khanna: The reality is that when you have the United States actually do it, it sets a marker that says ‘if Israel is not committed to actually taking steps to recognizing a Palestinian state, then there are going to be consequences.’ And that is a red line for AIPAC. It's a red line for Bibi. And so members of Congress have been reluctant to get on.

Subscribe for our full interview with Rep. Ro Khanna on AIPAC ousting progressive members of Congress, why he’s teaming up with GOP Reps Massie, Mace, Greene, and Boebert to release the Epstein Files, and why even though he doesn’t support Maduro he is fighting Trump’s regime change operations in Venezuela.

Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Putin-Xi-Modi Summit Causes Neocon PANIC on CNN

Watch the full episode here:

On today’s Thursday Throwdown, we’re watching everyone’s favorite channel: CNN! And Fareed Zakaria’s guest of the week is The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum, a neoconservative pundit who has supported every single U.S. regime change war and once advocated the murder of Palestinian journalists.

So naturally, she should be asked for her thoughts on the recent summit that brought together Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Narendra Modi:

Fareed Zakaria: You've been talking about this alliance. What keeps them together? Because there is fundamentally the shared opposition to a Western-led world and American power, right? Is there more to it?

Anne Applebaum: These are powers that have very different ideologies: nationalist, communist, theocratic in the case of Iran. What unites them is their dislike of us, and by us I mean the democratic world, and the language of rule of law, because of course that's the language of their own internal oppositions. And China and Russia in particular, but the rest as well, have been working for many years to delegitimize that language, to get the idea of human rights out of international institutions.

Oh, yes.

It's only those states that hate the language of human rights. As opposed to us who support, for example, Israeli mass murder in Gaza, tried to destroy any type of UN oversight of Israel, and has been trying to undermine the UN Human Rights Council. And they just hate us.

Have we ever considered maybe we hate them, given that we're always blaming them for every single problem under the sun and trying to overthrow their governments? Whereas the entire existence of the establishment Applebaum is a part of is to constantly demonize other states and gin up hatred towards them.

But maybe calling for the murder of journalists in Palestine really is the language of the rule of law…

Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:

Useful Idiots takes to the High Seas this week.

We’re looking at two ships: the Venezuelan boat that was bombed by the Trump Administration which they claimed carried drug-smuggling terrorists, and the US Veterans Flotilla attempting to sail to Gaza to break Israel’s deadly blockade.

Calling in from that Flotilla, which took off from shores in Spain during our conversation, is former Army Ranger Greg Stoker. His ship of veterans is bravely leading the charge to Gaza, with the hope that even Israel won’t face the PR battle of keeping a group of US war veterans hostage in torture prisons.

But, as drones fly over the boat and the crew sails closer and closer to Israeli waters, Stoker explains how what he’s seeing in Gaza is different than anything he saw as a soldier.

“I did four combat deployments in the Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment, which is the U.S. Special Operations Unit to Afghanistan,” he tells us. “I was there in tactical operations centers watching Obama's drone strike campaign play out and kind of got radicalized into an anti-imperialist position.

There was just no standard of proof for who we were killing. Basically if a guy ended up in the wrong contact list on someone's phone, could have been a Taliban sublieutenant's baker, he was probably going to eat a hellfire missile.

And I thought that was bad enough. I just have never seen anything like what Israel's done. As horrible as what we did during the global war on terror, kill millions of people in five different countries, this is completely beyond the pale. And the entire world is less safe because of the precedent set in Gaza over the past two years, a complete disregard for international law and humanity.”

The louder we amplify the voices on the Freedom Flotilla, the better chance they’ll have of breaking the siege. Greg explains:

I hope everybody watching this supports us because we don't have any diplomatic, economic, or military support. We are a humanitarian effort and we will be confronted by a rogue genocidal actor. The only cover that we get is global engagement.

What we're going to try to do is wage an information war against Israeli military propaganda to call out different actions that they will take in the global forum and try to make them politically non-viable. So we appreciate your support and engagement over the next two weeks as we try to break the siege. Because y'all's engagement is the only cover we're getting.

Share

We also talk to historian and journalist Vijay Prashad after the White House posted a video this week allegedly attacking a ship in what they’re calling a huge drug bust against Venezuelan cartel smugglers.

To find out why Vijay “scoffs” at the Trump administration’s “ridiculous” story and calls it a joke, please become a paid subscriber. Your support keeps us independent.

You’ll also get this week’s Thursday Throwdown: David Pakman PANICS After Dark Money Dems Scandal Revealed

Thanks for being part of the Useful Idiots community. Watch the full episode here: