By pressuring broadcast giant ABC to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show—a decision that ABC reversed this week—the Trump administration has taken its assault on the First Amendment to new heights over the past week. Kimmel’s show is back on the air for now, but the whole debacle has revealed just how vulnerable free speech in America is to political and corporate authoritarianism. This is a crisis, and both Democrats and Republicans have set the stage for it. “As corporate media accelerate their censorship of comedians and journalists,” renowned media analyst Jeff Cohen writes, “we must realize that we got to this dire situation because of old-fashioned, bipartisan corruption in Washington, DC.” In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Cohen about how the consolidation of corporate control over the media, mixed with a ravenously censorious Trump administration, has left free speech in America hanging by a thread.Guest:

• Jeff Cohen is a retired journalism professor at Ithaca College and the author of Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media. In 1986, Cohen founded the media watch group FAIR; he is also the co-founder of RootsAction.org.

Additional resources:

• Jeff Cohen, Salon, “Kimmel’s suspension shows media censorship is a structural problem”
• Bobby Allyn, NPR, “Legal experts say pulling Jimmy Kimmel from air may amount to illegal ‘jawboning’”
• Paul Starr, The American Prospect, “Capture the media, control the culture?”

Credits:

• Producer: Rosette Sewali
• Studio Production: David Hebden
• Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

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In our mythological retelling of the Civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. vanquished the racist apartheid system of Jim Crow in the American South. However, in her groundbreaking new book, historian Jeanne Theoharis argues that King’s time in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago—outside Dixie—was at the heart of his campaign for racial justice. As the book description lays out, “King of the North follows King as he crisscrosses the country from the Northeast to the West Coast, challenging school segregation, police brutality, housing segregation, and job discrimination. For these efforts, he was relentlessly attacked by white liberals, the media, and the federal government.” In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Professor Theoharis about the MLK Americans have deliberately forgotten, and what this recovered history tells us about how to fight against injustice today. 

For full show notes and transcript, click here.

Credits:

• Producer: Rosette Sewali
• Studio Production: David Hebden
• Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

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The unnerving alliance between Big Tech and the second Trump administration goes much deeper than many in the public realize. What factors are motivating President Trump and Silicon Valley’s monumental investments in “artificial intelligence” infrastructure and the expanded integration of “AI” into military and governmental operating systems? What is their endgame? What will their vision of an AI future mean for the rest of us? In his new investigative series Military AI Watch, produced in partnership with Project Censored, award-winning science reporter Peter Byrne explores “how Silicon Valley, corporate media, the Department of Defense, the banking industry, and scientific institutions all intersect in the effort to militarize AI.” In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Byrne and TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez about “AI” today and the techno-dystopian future on the horizon. 

For full show notes and transcript, click here. 

Credits: 

• Producer: Rosette SewaliStudio
• Production: David Hebden
• Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

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“Colonial racism helps explain the Trump administration’s adulation of Israeli violence against Palestinians,” Professor Aviva Chomsky writes at The Nation. In fact, colonial racism is the common thread binding the violent, eliminationist politics of Donald Trump in the US and Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel. In this installment of our ongoing series “Not in Our Name” on The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Professor Chomsky about how Israel’s US-backed genocide in Gaza is the grim culmination of the settler-colonial project of Zionism, and how the repression of political dissent under the guise of “combatting antisemitism” is an extension of that violent project.

Guest:
Aviva Chomsky is a professor of history and the coordinator of Latin American studies at Salem State University in Massachusetts. She is the author of many acclaimed books, including Central America’s Forgotten History: Revolution, Violence, and the Roots of Migration; and Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal. 

Additional resources:
Aviva Chomsky, The Nation, “Colonialism is alive and kicking in the US’s obsession with Israel” Aviva Chomsky, The Nation, “This group’s definition of antisemitism is providing cover for genocide” 

Credits:
Producer: Rosette Sewali
Studio Production: Cameron Granadino
Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

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Professor Haim Bresheeth is the son of Holocaust survivors, raised in Palestine and Israel, and a founder of the Jewish Network for Palestine. He served in the Israeli army during the Six-Day War in 1967—an event that transformed his life forever. On Nov. 1, 2024, Bresheeth was arrested in London after giving a speech at a pro-Palestine rally outside the home of Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom. In this installment of our ongoing series “Not In Our Name” on The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Professor Bresheeth about his path to becoming an Israeli Jewish scholar and activist fighting for Palestinian liberation and fighting against the horrors of Zionism, including Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Guest:
Haim Bresheeth is a filmmaker, photographer, and a film studies scholar, retired from the University of East London, where he worked since early 2002. He is the son of Holocaust survivors and a founder of the Jewish Network for Palestine. His books include the best-selling Introduction to the Holocaust—the first version, which was reprinted numerous times, was titled Holocaust for Beginners (1993), has been translated into multiple languages, including Turkish, Croatian and Japanese.

Additional resources:
Jewish Network for Palestine website
Derek Seidman, Truthout, “Jewish anti-Zionist activist describes his arrest under UK’s Anti-Terror Law”
Marc Steiner, The Real News Network, “Holocaust survivor Gabor Maté: Gaza genocide ‘the worst thing I’ve seen in my whole life’”
Marc Steiner, The Real News Network, “Yes, goddamnit, it’s genocide!: A conversation with Norman Solomon”

Credits:
Producer: Rosette Sewali
Studio Production: Cameron Granadino
Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

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“Texas Democrats who left the state to stymie Republicans over redistricting have returned to Austin,” Politico reports, “ending a two-week standoff over President Donald Trump’s plan to carve out five new GOP congressional seats.” The end of the Texas lawmaker walkout means that the Texas legislature will now be able to proceed with passing a vote on Republicans’ gerrymandered Congressional map—so what did the walkout achieve? In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with legendary populist and former Texas Commissioner of Agriculture Jim Hightower about the significance of the political showdown in Texas, and the longer-term fight ahead for Democrats and for working people of all stripes in the face of MAGA authoritarianism and corporate tyranny.

Guest:

• Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book, Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow. From 1983-1991, Hightower served as Commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture. He publishes “Jim Hightower’s Lowdown” on Substack.

Additional resources:

• Liz Crampton, Politico, “Texas Democrats have returned home, ending redistricting standoff”
• Marc Steiner, The Real News Network, “'Death Star' State: The GOP's War on Democracy (DOCUMENTARY)”
• Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, “Republicans are trying to rig the midterms. Will Democrats actually fight back, or cave?: A conversation with Beto O’Rourke”

Credits:

• Producer: Rosette Sewali
• Studio Production: Cameron Granadino
• Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

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“I was in Auschwitz 6-7 weeks ago,” world-renowned author and physician Dr. Gabor Maté says, “at the very spot where my grandparents landed, before they were sent to the gas chambers, where my mother and I almost ended up in June of 1945. We came very close. And nothing in the world ever resembles the horror of Auschwitz, but the spirit of it, the inhumanity, the cruelty of it, the starving of people, the killing of starving people—that's going on right now, and the world is watching.” In this urgent installment of our ongoing series “Not in Our Name” on The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Dr. Maté about growing up Jewish in the wake of the Holocaust and being Jewish in the midst of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Guest:

• Dr. Gabor Maté is a Hungarian-born Canadian physician, Holocaust survivor, and a world-renowned expert on addiction and trauma. Dr. Maté has written several bestselling books, including the New York Times bestseller The Myth of Normal, the award-winning In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction; When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress; and Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder. He is also the co-author of Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers. His works have been published internationally in more than forty languages.

Additional resources:

• Dr. Gabor Maté, Toronto Star, “Beautiful dream of Israel has become a nightmare”

Credits:

• Producer: Rosette Sewali
• Studio Production: Cameron Granadino
• Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

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Dr. Feroze Sidhwa is an American trauma surgeon who has served in multiple volunteer medical delegations to war zones around the world, including delegations to Ukraine and Gaza. In this urgent episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Dr. Sidwha about the unfathomable carnage of Israel’s genocidal destruction of Gaza and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. “70% of structures in the Gaza Strip, human-built things, have been destroyed. That didn't happen with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. This is insane. We're just leveling a whole society for the sake of doing it.”

Guest:

• Dr. Feroze Sidhwa is a general, trauma, and critical care surgeon in California. He is also a humanitarian surgeon, having worked most extensively in Palestine, but also in Ukraine, Haiti, Zimbabwe, and Burkina Faso. Dr. Sidhwa most recently volunteered at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza, from March 25-April 8, 2024 with the World Health Organization, and again from March 3-April 1, 2025 with American NGO MedGlobal.

Additional resources:

• Mark Perlmutter & Feroze Sidhwa, Politico, “We volunteered at a Gaza hospital. What we saw was unspeakable”

Credits:

• Producer: Rosette Sewali
• Studio Production: David Hebden
• Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

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As the Trump administration ramps up its violent immigration raids around the country, increasingly targeting immigrants with no criminal record, and racially profiling Latinos to meet arrest quotas, immigrant communities in Baltimore and beyond are living in terror. In this urgent episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with two immigrant justice organizers in Baltimore—whose identities are being protected to ensure their safety—about the horrifying reality that immigrant families, particularly Latino families, are experiencing right now. “If you don't look Latino, do you tell your child to carry around their passport or their birth certificate?... US citizens are being detained only because they look Latino, because they are Latino.”

Additional resources:

• Maanvi Singh, Will Craft, & Andrew Witherspoon, The Guardian, “How Trump has supercharged the immigration crackdown - in data”
• Jaisal Noor, Baltimore Beat, “Baltimore residents are mobilizing to protect their immigrant neighbors from ICE”
• Tara Lynch, CBS Baltimore, “Community demands release of Maryland pastor who was arrested by ICE”

Credits:

• Producer: Rosette Sewali
• Studio Production: David Hebden
• Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

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“With only rare exceptions,” Norman Solomon writes, “US news media and members of Congress continue to dodge the reality of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, normalizing atrocities on a mass scale.” How did we end up in this Orwellian situation, where the reality of genocide is so thoroughly denied by pundits and politicians even as that genocide is unfolding in front of our eyes? How do we combat this level of inhumane violence and propaganda? Solomon, co-founder of Roots Action, joins The Marc Steiner Show for an urgent discussion about Israel’s manufactured genocide of Palestinians and how the media manufactures consent to, at best, hide and, at worst, justify Israel’s heinous actions.

Guests:

• Norman Solomon is the cofounder of RootsAction.org, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, and the author of numerous books, including War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death and War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of the Military Machine.

Additional resources:

• Norman Solomon, Common Dreams, “In too much of the US, Israel's Gaza genocide has been made invisible”
• Norman Solomon, Common Dreams, “Who’s afraid of Zohran Mamdani? Billionaires”
• Norman Solomon, Common Dreams, “Bombing Iran Is part of the USA's repetition compulsion for war, war, war”

Credits:

• Producer: Rosette Sewali
• Studio Production: David Hebden
• Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

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Follow us on:
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Instagram: @therealnewsnetworkOn June 13, military veterans and their families and supporters protested in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, demanding that taxpayer dollars for Donald Trump’s ill-fated military parade and decision to send troops to Los Angeles should be used for housing, healthcare, food, and taking care of veterans. Around 60 demonstrators were arrested by Capitol police. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with veterans Michael T. McPhearson, Kevin Benderman, and Amber Mathwig, two of whom were arrested on June 13, about the duty they feel to oppose the Trump admistration’s actions and the vital role veterans have to play in the larger fight against the Trump agenda.

Guests:

• Michael T. McPhearson enlisted in the US Army Reserve while in high school at age 17 in 1981. A distinguished military graduate, McPhearson received an ROTC commission from Campbell University. He served five years on active duty as a field artillery officer in the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division during Operation Desert Shield/Storm (the Gulf War). McPhearson separated from the US Army as a Captain in 1992. He is a member and the Executive Director of Veterans for Peace. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

• Kevin Benderman served in the US Army for ten years of active duty, eventually reaching the rank of E-5. He deployed to Iraq in 2003. He became opposed to the continued occupation of Iraq after his initial deployment, and he filed for conscientious objector status and was eventually court-martialed. He is a disabled veteran and lives in Augusta, Georgia. Kevin is a longtime member of About Face: Veterans Against the War.

• Amber Mathwig enlisted in the US Navy in 2002, serving 10 years in various duty stations, including a deployment to Baghdad, Iraq, in 2008-2009 and a deployment to the Middle East in 2010-2011 on a ship that participated in the bombing of Libya. These experiences, combined with what she witnessed in regards to the culture of sexism and sexual assault in the military, sparked her journey to understanding the stranglehold the military-industrial complex has on our country. In addition to being a longtime member of About Face: Veterans Against the War, she is a member of Teamsters Local 638, and an organizer who focuses on the intersection of labor and the military-industrial complex. 

Additional resources:

• Veterans for Peace website

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