Scott talks to Danny Sjursen about the latest in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, where Sjursen says about 5,000 people have likely been killed. The media narrative about this situation, explains Sjursen, has always been that Russia is providing material support to Armenia, and encourages the fighting for their own geopolitical purposes. In reality though, Russia supports both sides to some extent, and really only has an interest in peace, since these countries are...

Daniel Davis is back, this time for a discussion of Trump and Biden’s foreign policy positions in light of last night’s presidential debate. Overall Davis thinks it’s good that Trump hasn’t started any new wars—unlike all of his recent predecessors—but is disappointed by the extent to which he has been unable to put his antiwar campaign promises into practice. Davis think Trump made good strides toward peace with North Korea, something that Biden predictably attacked him for during the debate....

The great Daniel Ellsberg shares his thoughts on Julian Assange’s extradition hearing, comparing the situation to his own trial in the 1970s. Ellsberg, of course, was acquitted—in part because it was proven that the government spied on confidential conversations with Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. The CIA and its allies have been shown to have done the same thing in Assange’s case, surveilling both his doctors and his lawyers. On these grounds alone, Ellsberg believes the case should be thrown out....

Scott talks to Dave DeCamp about a handful of his recent antiwar.com stories, with a focus on President Trump’s efforts to bring troops home from overseas wars. Trump has issued a series of tweets calling for troop reductions, particularly in Afghanistan and Somalia, but DeCamp says that this is mostly just PR—after all, Trump is Commander in Chief, and could bring the troops home if he wanted to. Scott and DeCamp also discuss the Hunter Biden email story and Twitter’s censorship of the New...

Eric Margolis discusses President Trump’s recent peace deals between Israel and some of the Arab states. First Margolis explains that these aren’t really peace deals; what they do is simply make public the normalization of relations between countries that were already tacitly at peace. More importantly, they help further isolate the Palestinians from their supposed allies, which will most likely make it much easier for Israel to continue annexation in the future. Finally, these deals...

Scott interviews Aaron Maté about his testimony to the UN Security Council regarding the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria in 2018. After the Trump administration authorized retaliatory bombing in response to the incident, the OPCW sent investigators to follow up on the claims of chemical weapons use. After a year, they released a report justifying the U.S. response. The trouble, as Maté explains, is that OPCW inspectors then started coming forward claiming that their findings...

Scott interviews Andrew Cockburn about the steady growth of unconstitutional powers that the federal government—and the president in particular—can summon during “emergencies.” Some of these powers are well-known, like extraordinary law enforcement and surveillance techniques that have been justified by the war on terror and the war on drugs. Others are more secretive, and the American public has basically no way of finding out about such powers until the government decides to use them....

Scott talks to Matt Agorist about some recent cases of unlawful police killings and police abuse in this country, both the high-profile incidents and the ones that escape mainstream notice. Agorist reminds us of the details of the Breonna Taylor case, in which police officers who were actually looking for Taylor’s ex-boyfriend fatally shot her in the middle of the night while executing a no-knock warrant. The ex-boyfriend, it turns out, had already been arrested by that point. One officer has...

Scott interviews Daniel Davis about his new book, Eleventh Hour in 2020 America, which explores the unhealthy expansion of the U.S. military over the last few decades, to the point that America’s very future as a democratic republic is at risk. Davis begins the interview by detailing how America built up its military into the world’s most efficient and advanced fighting force, epitomized by his experiences in the first Iraq War—a war that Davis calls a “success” by the military’s standards....

Scott interviews Charles Glass about Julian Assange’s extradition hearing. Glass has focused on Assange’s treatment at the hands of the U.S. and British governments and their allies, including his subjection to solitary confinement, the denial of medical treatment going back to Assange’s time in the Ecuadorian embassy and the illegal monitoring of communications with both his lawyers and his doctors. On these grounds alone, says Glass, Assange’s prosecution should be thrown out. But more...

Ray McGovern discusses the lasting impact of the “Russiagate” conspiracy, which Democrats have continued to push throughout President Trump’s entire first term. McGovern reminds us that according to recorded testimony released only this year, CrowdStrike (the technology tasked with investigating the DNC email leak) admitted all the way back in 2017 that they had no evidence for the allegation that Russian agents had perpetrated any sort of hack. That means that a narrative that has continued...

Scott talks to William Smith about the threat to republican government posed by America’s growing world empire. The founders of this country, Smith explains, knew that perpetual war would lead to the uncontrolled growth of government power, and that meddling in foreign affairs would lead to decline and ruin at home. More recently, Eisenhower warned about the same things in his celebrated military-industrial complex speech. In a recent piece, Smith warns about the use in the 2020 presidential...

Scott talks to Harry Kazianis about America’s relationship with North Korea. Kazianis argues past much of the noise surrounding the effort to get North Korea to denuclearize, proposing instead that America actually could tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea, just like we do most of the other countries that have them. Kazianis reminds us that nuclear weapons for North Korea are primarily about survival for the Kim family; the U.S. simply does not go to war with nuclear-armed countries....

Reason Magazine’s Matt Welch follows up on Scott’s Jacob Sullum interview with his own case against Donald Trump. The clearest point to hit Trump on, says Welch, is probably his complete abandonment of curtailing government spending, as he has presided over the biggest budgets in American history. Welch also notes that despite Trump’s foreign policy rhetoric—which, he admits, has done a good job moving Republican voters toward the anti-war position—he has done fairly little to actually bring...

Reason Magazine’s Jacob Sullum discusses the case against Joe Biden, including his record on crime, the war in Iraq and the surveillance state. Sullum focuses on Biden’s history as a “tough on crime” democrat, explaining the ways Biden worked closely with senate Republicans during the 1980s to pass laws creating differential sentencing for crack and powder cocaine, establishing mandatory minimums and abolishing parole. Sullum says that Biden wanted to position himself as a moderate, who could...