American Prestige

News — US-Iran Hormuz Standoff, Saudi-Pakistan-Turkey Alliance, Israeli Settlers Besiege West Bank Community

Subscribe now for an ad-free experience and all of our episodes. Danny and Derek bring you the headlines against their better judgment. In this week’s news: Western Europe and the U.S. set new temperature records (2:05); in Iran, the Islamic Republic demands reparations and sanctions relief before reopening the Strait of Hormuz (4:22), Trump declares that the U.S. will keep control of the Strait (8:20), and Iran makes a wave of hardline appointments (10:25); in Yemen, Houthi forces strike a cargo ship in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait (13:02); Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey form a new defense alliance (15:00); Netanyahu rejects Hamas's disarmament plan as the Board of Peace agreement collapses (18:11), plus Israeli settlers besiege a Palestinian American family's home in a West Bank village (19:48); a Syrian court sentences Bashar al-Assad to death (in absentia) for war crimes (22:19); a new UN report finds that violence against civilians rises in Myanmar (23:43); in Darfur, the Sudanese military and allied militias make key territorial gains against the RSF (25:49); Ukraine bombs the Russian port of Novorossiysk as tensions in the Black Sea push global food prices higher (28:23); Abelardo de la Espriella takes office as Colombia's new far-right president and joins the U.S.-backed Shield of the Americas (31:58); Trump secretly flees Turkey on a decoy aircraft amid reports of an Iranian assassination plot (34:06); and the Pentagon claims its Yemen strikes caused the only U.S.-inflicted civilian casualties of 2025 (37:31). Watch yesterday’s livestream here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

E261 - The History of the Jewish Bund w/ Molly Crabapple

Subscribe now for an ad-free experience. Danny and Derek speak with artist and writer Molly Crabapple about her book on the history of the Jewish Labor Bund, Here Where We Live Is Our Country. They discuss Molly's personal connection to the story, the Pale of Settlement and Jewish emancipation, the founding of the Bund in 1897, the Bund's armed self-defense against pogroms, its fraught relationship with Lenin and the Bolsheviks, the Bund's rivalry with Zionism, the flourishing of Bundist culture in interwar Poland, and the lessons of the Bund’s story for the Jewish left today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bonus - The Democratic Foreign Policy Cartel w/ Matt Duss (Preview)

Subscribe now to get the full episode. Danny and Derek welcome Matt Duss, Executive Vice President at the Center for International Policy, back to the show for a conversation on the fractured foreign policy consensus in the Democratic Party. They talk about Rahm Emanuel's recent Tel Aviv speech, the primacist versus restraint divide in the party, accountability for Blinken and Sullivan's Gaza policy, the Iran war and the collapse of the JCPOA, China and Taiwan, and the contradiction of supporting Ukraine while enabling the Gaza genocide. Read Matt’s piece for The Nation, “Rahm Emanuel’s Speech in Tel Aviv Breaks With a ‘No Daylight’ Approach.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

News — Gaza Disarmament Agreement Collapses, Ceuta Migrant Crisis, Iran Nears Hormuz Deal

Subscribe now to skip the ads and get all of our episodes. Danny and Derek always use their good side when posing for a Flock cam. In this week’s news: Trump backs off of his latest threat against Iran amid a potential Hormuz deal (2:01); in Gaza, the Board of Peace’s Hamas disarmament deal collapses within a day (13:22); Red Sea shipping falls after new Houthi attacks (18:16); in Sudan, the RSF mobilizes tribal levies to make up for lost troops (20:26); the TPLF and federal forces clash again in Tigray (24:45); Ukraine runs out of Patriot missile interceptors (27:39); a migrant influx kills dozens in the Spanish exclave Ceuta (31:33); the U.S. suspends the Brazilian ambassador’s visa due to a diplomatic dispute (38:25); and America’s Operation Southern Spear kills 221 people but fails to curb the drug trade (41:52). Order your copy of Danny’s new book, Imperialist Realism, now. Watch the replay⁠ of last night's livestream with Becca Lewis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

E260 - Imperialist Realism w/ Danny Bessner

Subscribe now to skip the ads and get all of our episodes. Derek welcomes back to the show his very own co-host, Danny Bessner, to talk about his new book, ⁠Imperialist Realism: Politics and Culture at the End of the American Century⁠, and how we see imperialist realism in American foreign policy and popular culture. They talk about the concept’s inspiration from the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, the end of mass politics, the decline of grand ideology in U.S. foreign policy, the core features of imperialist realism, the Protestant missionary roots of American foreign policy, and a democratic socialist alternative to current U.S. foreign policy. Order your copy of the book now. Read the new piece from Danny’s Imperialist Realism Substack, “Empire of Grunge.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices