CIA's Secret Drug War, Exposed

Useful Idiots

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Useful Idiots

December 05, 2025

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This week we’re speaking to Pulitzer-Prize winner Greg Grandin about the Trump Administration’s regime-change war in Venezuela, which now is mired in controversy not just because we’re trying to overthrow a foreign government yet again, but also because Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth presided over a blatantly unconstitutional strike on a speedboat in the Caribbean.

Useful Idiots: Can you walk us through what Trump is doing right now in Venezuela and what is motivating him?

Greg Grandin: The big picture is the America First movement, which imagines that the United States no longer superintends a global liberal political economy in which everybody plays by the rules. That’s happened in the past, and Latin America is key to that.

But then, of course, there’s Venezuela and there’s oil. There was a split within the Trump administration between so-called moderates, who are tied to Chevron, and the war party, Miller, Rubio, and Hegseth. I think those speedboat attacks were the war party’s attempt to preempt any normalization of relationships with Venezuela.

And with Rubio, it’s a confluence of two different strands. One is he was a neocon before he became America First. But he’s also from South Florida, and he’s got deep ties to the Cuban community. And Venezuela is seen as the first step towards taking out Cuba, denying it its oil. So he’s doing it under the rubric of the War on Drugs, which of course is not Donald Trump. That’s a fifty year war.

Behind every single horror that Donald Trump represents exists a long train of U.S. presidents that had first put in the policies that make what Trump does today possible. And that’s nowhere clearer than in the Drug War, which started formally with Richard Nixon in 1973. So there’s many things flowing into it.

Useful Idiots: Do you think Trump will succeed with these plans in Venezuela?

Greg Grandin: The momentum to get Maduro out is quite strong and surprisingly orchestrated, which included the Nobel Peace Prize Committee giving María Corina Machado the prize, and she immediately fulfilled her role as everybody’s worst expectation of what could possibly happen. I can’t imagine any other Peace Prize winner immediately embarking on an alliance with Donald Trump to stage a coup. But that’s where we are.

I think that Trump wants Venezuela settled. That either means Maduro’s gone and some provisional government favorable to the United States is in power, or it means the Chevron faction within the Trump administration keeps Maduro and establishes some semblance of normalcy and keeps the oil pumping.

Now deportation flights have restarted after being halted for a little while. That’s where I’m a little bit dubious about whether Trump is going to go all in on Rubio’s visions. They don’t have enormous support in the United States. It doesn’t have support in the MAGA base. And obviously Hegseth is having all of these problems. The leaking of the footage of that double-tap speedboat killing suggests there’s deep discontent within the military…

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Jake Tapper: Iran Wants Us to Bomb Them!

Plus, Palantir CEO Alex Karp brags that his AI was used to kill 170 young girls in an Iranian elementary school

According to the Financial Times, the US and Israel have launched strikes against more than 17,000 civilian sites in Iran since the beginning of their war of choice, and people are understandably asking: How do Iranians feel about their country being bombed?

Well, who better to tell us how Iranians really feel than an Israeli-American, because that’s who Jake Tapper asked.

“How do Iranians see the future unfolding in Iran?” Tapper asks Israeli-activist Emily Schrader.

“By and large, the responses from Iranians that I have spoken to has been overwhelmingly in favor of the United States’ and Israeli action on the ground. They’re very happy!”

That’s right, the voice of Iranians, according to Jake Tapper, is an Israeli who literally works with Israeli intelligence, who claims that Iranians are happy that we assassinated their leader, murdered over 170 girls during school hours at an elementary school, bombed multiple hospitals, and are targeting countless civilian sites.

This isn’t journalism, Jake, you’re a pro-Israel activist white-washing the war crimes and genocide of an illegal regime.

But he isn’t alone! In this Friday Free-for-All, we’re watching a CNN panel call Megyn Kelly “antisemitic” for claiming that this is “Israel’s war,” Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin claims the Russians are secretly aiding Iran to destroy America, Palantir CEO is so excited that his AI is killing school children, and Lindsey Graham finally mentions his actual constituents in South Carolina after years of only discussing Israel and Ukraine (but just to tell them to send their children to fight and die for him in the Middle East…)

Everyone’s bad! But watch em with us, so you can laugh instead of cry at all of them. It’s our Friday Free-for-All. Subscribe to support independent media and watch the full episode here:

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Useful Idiots@UsefulIdiots

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Let's talk about the Democrats who gave Trump a standing ovation for bombing Iran

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“No war with Iran,” Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted on Tuesday. “The American people want President Trump to focus on making life more affordable for working families here at home, not sending our military into another endless war in the Middle East.”

The resistance lives! No more forever wars! No more regime change! Help struggling Americans! No more suffering! Go Elizabeth Warren!

So later that night, we hoped, at Trump’s State of the Union Speech, surely Senator Warren would stand by these antiwar values and protest Trump’s warmongering against Iran, right? Right?

“These are horrible people,” Trump says. “After Midnight Hammer” (the illegal operation in which the US and Israel attacked Iran in the middle of peace negotiations, “they were warned to make no future attempt to rebuild their weapons program,” which, according to the Trump administration’s own report, they haven’t, “and are at this moment again pursuing their sinister ambitions.” Not true.

He continues with the lie: “We haven’t heard those secret words that we will never again pursue a nuclear weapon.”

And she’s up! Not protesting or booing but applauding, a standing ovation from the Massachusetts senator, alongside other Democrats Chuck Schumer, Amy Klobuchar, Chris Coons, John Fetterman, and more.

Trump continues. “One thing is certain. I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror, which they are, by far, to have a nuclear weapon.”

And they’re up again! Democrats and Republicans alike, cheering on the president’s lies, no different than the WMD hoax of the Iraq War.

Luckily Katie and Aaron are here to mock the warmongering senators as they cheer.

Also in this week’s Friday Free-for-All: JD Vance is still blaming Joe Biden for Americans suffering in poverty, Dr. Oz announces new sweeping cuts to Medicaid, and Bill Maher rolls around in a big pot of slime while talking about Ilhan Omar.

Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:

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Useful Idiots@UsefulIdiots

February 20, 2026

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“Could our soldiers be hit in the region? Absolutely they could. Can Iran respond if we have an all-out attack? Absolutely, they can.”

In what sounds like the beginning of the worst inspirational speech in history (‘Will tens of thousands of people needlessly die? Sure! But will this increase the possibility of world-ending nuclear war? Yes!’ and so forth), Senator Lindsey Graham gave a saber-rattling rant in Tel Aviv this week to echo Hillary Clinton in begging President Trump to bomb Iran.

He continues: “I think the risk associated with that is far less than the risk associated with blinking, pulling the plug, and not helping the people as you promised.”

So… it’s more risky NOT to go to war with Iran than blinking, taking a breath, and considering diplomacy? Terribly enough, this viewpoint has become the norm among our politicians across the political spectrum.

Joining Graham and the aforementioned Clinton in warmongering bomb-pushing are Democratic Senator Mark Warner, former top Biden official Brett McGurk, and the nation’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. We watch clips of each of them as they parade their missiles on the world stage.

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It’s all this, and more, on this week’s Friday Free-for-All. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:

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