The Chris Hedges Report

In this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, Chris Hedges speaks with Kshama Sawant, a revolutionary socialist based in Seattle, Washington, who is challenging long-time incumbent Democrat Adam Smith for Congress. Sawant served in the Seattle City Council for more than a decade during which she and her supporters won unprecedented victories for higher wages, affordable housing, taxing Amazon, LGBTQ rights and more. She then went on to organize a national working-class movement, Workers Strike Back.
Sawant is building on that work by running a courageous and unabashed anti-capitalist campaign for the working class. Her platform includes defunding and opposing wars and genocide, supporting universal public health care, education and affordable housing, challenging the power of police and ICE agents, and advocating for LGBTQ rights, issues to which Democrats, even those who claim to be progressive, pay lip service at best. She frames her campaign in the current political moment where the billionaire class is wreaking havoc on people and the planet with the help of Democratic and Republican parties and gatekeepers in the labor movement who engage in ‘business unionism,’ which she describes as “being aligned with the bosses, having made peace with the bosses, which also means… being aligned, intertwined with the bosses’ parties.”
Sawant, who has faced these attacks throughout her time in political office and prevailed, sheds light on how the Democrats, in collusion with Republicans, deploy Machiavellian schemes to thwart anti-establishment candidates; they will run multiple candidates to split the vote, exclude challengers, malign them in the media, and, if a figure becomes threatening enough, ignore them outright. She says, “If you are fighting for the working class, you will become enemy number one of the Democratic Party,” a title she proudly embraces. Despite the many obstacles, Sawant has built a powerful base of support locally and nationally.
During her time in city council, Sawant succeeded because she used her platform and office to organize an unwavering and strategic working-class base focused on specific demands and confronted anyone who attempted to undermine their efforts. She explains how one office in Congress that does the same could make significant breakthroughs in policy. For those who say that electoral politics in the United States are a dead end, Sawant responds, “Capitalism is class war. Working people didn’t choose the system, but this is the system, and our only choices are we sit down and accept the class war from the billionaire class against us, which is the status quo under capitalism, or we stand up and go to class war back against the billionaire class and their political representatives.”

Since the Zionist siege of Gaza began 19 years ago, people from around the world have been organizing to break through it and establish a humanitarian corridor to guarantee that Palestinians receive the supplies they need to survive. International flotillas are one way people challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza. As is occurring with all forms of resistance to the Zionist State, retaliation against activists is escalating. Participants on the most recent flotillas have been subjected to abuse, torture and rape perpetrated by the Israelis with near impunity.
On this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, Chris Hedges speaks with longtime flotilla organizer and pro-Palestine activist Thiago Ávila to describe his harrowing experience in an Israeli torture dungeon. Ávila recounts in detail the illegal kidnapping of flotilla activists this spring, the abusive treatment, and the activist’s courage in resisting the efforts of the Zionists to intimidate them and attempt to prevent future flotillas. He places the work of the flotilla organizers in the context of a global struggle, which employs a variety of tactics, in support of Palestinian liberation.
While flotilla participants are almost guaranteed to be detained and subject to abuse by Israelis on their humanitarian missions, this last effort was met with a uniquely brutal response by the Israelis. Activists were locked in cold cells with minimal water, kept from getting their medications, and when they demanded better treatment in protest, Israeli flashbangs were thrown into their cells and disoriented them as Israeli soldiers launched further physical violence against them. Ávila in particular was brutally tortured, beaten unconscious by Israelis, locked in solitary confinement while blindfolded and zip tied, and constantly threatened with hanging by the Zionist officers jailing him.
Despite the horrors inflicted upon the flotilla participants, Ávila emphasizes that their treatment pales in comparison to the severe abuse of Palestinian prisoners, which include children, and the genocide. Hedges states that the actions of the Zionist state are a mirror into “the inversion of the international and moral order” and the West’s complicity, which impacts everyone. Ávila agrees, and adds, “The Palestinian people… show us the lenses to see society as it really is, but also show us the map, that there’s no way out of this except for resisting, except for mobilizing.”

As the global economy teeters on the brink of a major crisis, the United States, with the aid of the Pakistani government, is once again attempting to finalize an agreement to end the war on Iran that could be signed this weekend. There are still many steps that must be taken before there can be a complete cessation of US/Israeli hostilities on Iran, but as oil reserves dwindle, time is running out. And, of course, even if a deal is signed, it remains to be seen whether the United States and Israel will violate it.
In this episode, Chris Hedges speaks with Professor Mohammad Marandi, who is a former adviser to Iran’s nuclear negotiating team, about the status of a peace agreement and how the war on Iran has reshaped the geopolitical configuration of the Middle East. Dr. Marandi notes that the power dynamics have shifted in Iran’s favor since the Twelve Day War on Iran last year, which is a significant change from the environment during the negotiations of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015.
Professor Marandi states that Iran has surprised and impressed the world and even its own population with its successful military strategy in the current conflict. Now, Iranians are, for the most part, confident that they can win the war and are unwilling to make significant concessions to the US and Israel. Marandi recounts how Iranians, who view this as “a war for their survival” are undaunted. He describes the Iranian culture as one of resilience and deeply embedded resistance. Iranians are also resolute in their support for Palestinians and the Lebanese people.
Hedges and Marandi discuss the failure of many Arab states to counter the Zionist vision of a Greater Israel and its brutal attacks on Gaza and Beirut, calling their leaders “traitors”. They predict that the Israeli regime won’t survive after this, describing “the war between Trump and Iran [as] a historical moment and probably the most important event in world affairs in recent decades.”

The US-Israeli war heated up again over the weekend as Iran launched “Operation Victory” in response to Israel’s continued attacks on Southern Lebanon and attacks on Iranian infrastructure, and the United States bombing islands in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend. In this episode, Chris Hedges speaks with former British Diplomat Alastair Crooke of the Conflicts Forum Substack, who explains that given the failure of diplomatic negotiations, Iran has entered a new phase of the war utilizing the methodology of ‘escalatory deterrence’ in which every attack on Iran will be met with an increasingly greater response.
A change in Israel’s military strategy has occurred following the events of the 7th of October 2023. Crookes describe this as a shift away from primarily using military force to expand settlements to a focus on ‘permanent security’ — aimed at eliminating any potential threats in the region. Israel is on a mission to establish a Greater Israel by force, but this is taking a toll on the Israeli military, which is at a “point of implosion.”
Both Netanyahu and Trump have boxed themselves in with the wars on Palestine, Lebanon and Iran, generating heavy losses and little possibility of victory but no clear politically acceptable path to a resolution. Both face declining support in the polls and are likely to fare poorly in the next elections. The Likud party is fragmenting, and Crooke explains that “it’s quite possible that the machine that [Netanyahu’s] put into place over 20 and more years could implode.”
For President Trump, the outcome will be decided by what happens to the global economy as shortages of critical resources — fuel, fertilizer and industrial inputs — cause a growing crisis. “Pain is a great transformer,” states Crooke, which may lead Western allies to accept greater concessions to Iran. In the big picture, Hedges and Crooke concur that the West, with its failing institutions, is in a process of catharsis, a period of decline, which is necessary, they say, for there to be any possibility of its renewal and restoration. “This is the process we’ve got to start slowly addressing.”

The release of the Epstein Files has shocked the public with unimaginable stories of the pedophilia, exploitation of women and brash depravity of the ruling class. While these stories have been the major source of public outrage, a deeper dive into the Epstein Files reveals the inside world of how the billionaire class operates to control information and collude with each other - hide their crimes and gain massive wealth at the expense of the working class.
In this episode, Chris Hedges speaks with Maureen Tkacik, an investigative journalist who has studied and written about the Epstein Files for The American Prospect and The Nation. Tkacik exposes the players behind the looting of the Soviet Union after its collapse, the truth about Larry Summers’ abrupt resignation from Harvard, the controversy around the death of the media magnate Robert Maxwell and more.
In addition to providing women for wealthy men, Epstein became their trusted finance manager, funneling money to Israel and other members of the elite class. Epstein was also talented at building friendships with their wives, such as Noam Chomsky’s wife Valeria Wasserman and Woody Allen’s wife Soon-Yi Previn, for example. Tkacik describes Epstein as “a magnet for these sort of ‘much older man with money and younger wife’ combinations,” exploiting these connections to divert the finances of these aging men to his, and the class he represents, preferred causes.
Tkacik concludes the interview with a discussion of the liberal media’s complicity in hiding the crimes of the ruling class and federal law enforcement’s disinterest in holding the powerful to account. “Ponzi schemes, money laundering, intelligence, you see that triumvirate over and over again,” Tkacik explains. Tkacik refers to the current times as “bleak” but also “very illuminating.” In summary, Hedges states, “It’s the depravity, the greed, the hedonism, the lack of empathy, the callousness, the cruelty that has defined all oligarchic classes throughout history.”

In the United States, but also around the world, fascism is on the rise again, similar to what occurred in Germany and Italy after World War I. Its foot soldiers in the US include right wing extremists who enter the military, where they are welcomed and encouraged, for empowerment and training. The current Trump administration, includes Christian Nationalists, such as Pete Hegseth who heads the Pentagon, and openly supports fascist and Zionist leaders — Javier Milei in Argentina, Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, to name a few.
To understand the rise of neo-Nazis in the US military and law enforcement, Chris Hedges speaks with British investigative journalist Matt Kennard. For his new book, “Irregular Army,” Kennard interviewed hard-right veterans who were open about enlisting to gain the skills they need to wage RaHoWa, a Racial Holy War, at home.
The book demonstrates that the War on Terror gave rise to the Trump presidency. He cites the repressive powers granted to the state under the Patriot Act, the rise of the Imperial Presidency, the loosening of restrictions on qualifications for military recruitment, the cover up of atrocities committed by military members in Afghanistan and Iraq and the epidemic of PTSD as factors that allowed White Supremacy and racism to flourish in the United States government and military brass.
Hedges asks if an even more extremist body politic could develop. Kennard’s response is that many alarm bells are ringing: “I think that we’re on a slippery slope and things have been normalized now that we wouldn’t have even believed could be normalized a long time ago.” The fact that those in power do not have a cohesive strategy provides a ray of hope, but if we are to develop strategies to stop the rise of fascism, we must first understand the social and political factors that underlie it.

“We tell the stories that perpetuate the narrative or the myth we want, and we erase the others,” Chris Hedges states in this interview with Ray Nayler about his new book, “Palaces of the Crow,” which centers around four teenagers from varying backgrounds who struggle to survive during World War II. The war, Nayler says, fundamentally reshaped the world geopolitically, technologically and socially in ways that have profoundly impacted the environment in which we live today. Critical lessons from that moment in time are being lost, with media and governments covering up the deep and long-lasting wounds inflicted upon tens of millions of people. Nayler says that “We can’t move away from that time period before understanding it.”
During World War II people were trapped in unimaginably horrible circumstances and were forced to make difficult, and at times self-sacrificial, decisions. The story of the “ways in which people came together to protect their neighbors, to protect family members, to protect friends, to protect strangers” is rarely told, Nayler says.
In Nayler’s novel, crows play an essential role in the story. Like humans, crows are social animals. He describes the crows’ niche as the flock and the flock as a type of organism whose niche is the forest, much like the human’s niche is society and our society’s niche is the world. Contrary to their typical association with death and destruction, Nayler utilizes them as “a symbol of cooperation and group living and non-violence.” From this viewpoint, one sees that human connection, cooperation, nonviolence and mutual aid are fundamental to survival.
The theme of connection, “a primal sense of togetherness,” is central to the story of the four teenagers thrown together under hostile conditions. This connection allows people, and other animals, to find common ground and get along despite their different cultures. Civilization, which Nayler portrays as “being inside a painted box and trying to ignore what’s out there,” is an obstacle to connection that prevents us from recognizing reality. We erase the reality that humans are social, nonviolent, interconnected and caring beings at our own peril.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud, a Palestinian historian and author, in his new book, “Before the Flood: A Gaza Family Memoir Across Three Generations of Colonial Invasion, Occupation, and War in Palestine,” traces the long arc of Palestinian resistance to the Zionist settler-colonial state leading to its current form in Hamas. It is resistance, defined by Palestinians themselves, as Dr. Baroud explains, that is the “sole leverage” of the Palestinian people in their struggle for existence, which began before the Nakba of 1948.
In this episode, Chris Hedges speaks with Professor Baroud about his deep personal connection to this struggle. Dr. Baroud’s family lived in the village of Beit Daras before being forcibly displaced to Gaza during the Nakba. In the current war, more than a hundred of his family members have been murdered by the Israeli Occupying Forces, including his sister, Dr. Soma Baroud, who was a physician and community leader. His losses go beyond that. Professor Baroud explains that due to the decades of confinement in Gaza, “everyone who dies in Gaza is somehow family, friend, neighbor, relative, connection of some kind.”
Dr. Baroud describes the “slow-motion genocide” of Palestinians through the blockade of Gaza and regular attacks, cruelly referred to by Zionists as ‘mowing the lawn’, which led to the Palestinian uprising on October 7, 2023. The world watched as the Israeli state waged a full-blown genocide that destroyed 92% of Gaza. Now, Palestinians are being squeezed into an even smaller area without the infrastructure they relied on previously. He describes the situation as more dire than before as “[Gazans] are being asked to engineer a miracle of survival while the world is looking on somewhere else.”
Hedges and Baroud discuss what the future holds for Palestine. Baroud is hopeful that Palestine will prevail given the steadfastness and ingenuity of Palestinians in their fight for survival. In his book, a type of people’s history that challenges the mainstream Zionist narrative, Baroud explains that even though there are divisions in Palestinian society - as there are in all societies and national liberation movements – there is an underlying unity he refers to as the “secret code of Gaza.” Palestinians also have a long history of “scholar-warriors” who have led successive liberation movements and have fostered connections with other liberation movements around the world. The Zionist state can only exist through military force, and Palestinians have demonstrated their powerful abilities to resist. Dr. Baroud admits proudly, “I don’t want to say [we are] super humans in Gaza, but our story speaks for itself.”
 

The global economic impacts of the American-Israeli war on Iran are already being felt, particularly in Asia, through shortages of fuel and other necessities, the closure of factories and the loss of jobs. We are now on a path heading for a global recession, or even worse, a global depression. To sort out what potentially lies ahead and the likelihood of preventing the worst outcomes, Chris Hedges speaks with economist Richard D. Wolff, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Wolff begins the interview by discussing the weaknesses of the capitalist economic system. Since the 1970s, corporations have been moving production to areas of the world where they can maximize profits. This has created fragile supply chains that are vulnerable to changes in the availability of energy and the fallout of political turmoil.
Research demonstrates that capitalist systems result in cyclical downturns every four to seven years. The last economic crisis was five to six years ago, so we may very well be on the edge of another one. Wolff reports that it is too early to determine if that will result in inflation, stagflation or deflation. For the United States, commitments to greater military spending, a historically high debt of $40 trillion and a declining credit rating will force the government to borrow money at higher interest rates, adding to the burden of an already financially stressed population.
Wolff states, “We are living through the end of the empire and that end has been accelerated and brought closer by everything going on in the Middle East.” The United States faces a critical decision. If it chooses to escalate the war on Iran, the risk of a global depression rises. The future appears to be grim. At this time, there is an absence of a functioning international mechanism through which countries can solve the current crises cooperatively. For the United States, there is also denial about the state of our falling empire. Wolff concludes: “It’s not a question of maintaining your dominance. That’s gone. It’s a question of working things out. Our leaders don’t think or talk like that.”

The United States, in its recent war on Iran, has completely misread the Iranian people and failed to recognize the deep revolutionary spirit that pervades Iranian culture. Rather than inciting Iranian people against their government, the US-Israeli war on Iran has united the population. Rather than promoting democracy in Iran and empowering the people, US economic punishment and aggression have accomplished the opposite and have made life more difficult for most Iranians. Like Cuba, Iran is being targeted because it will not relinquish its sovereignty. As Chris Hedges explains, Iran is being punished for “its refusal to become a client state aligned with American interests in the region.”
In this episode, Hedges speaks with Professor Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, the author of “The Long War on Iran: New Events, Old Questions” (OR Books, January 2026). Ghamari is currently a visiting scholar at the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York. In his book, Ghamari tackles the myths perpetuated by the United States to demonize Iran in order to justify the imposition of severe sanctions and to go to war on Iran twice in less than one year. He discusses the many reasons why the Islamic Republic does not trust the United States to negotiate in good faith.
Year zero in the current struggle, Ghamari explains, was 1953 when the United States and the United Kingdom conducted a successful coup of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. This led to the Iranian Revolution in 1979, described by Ghamari as “the largest, most populous revolution in world history [that] defeated the fifth largest military in the world at the time.” Following that, events such as the Eight Year War, in which the United States provided the tools for chemical warfare on Iranians by Iraq, and the betrayal of Iran by President Bush, calling it part of the Axis of Evil despite Iran playing an instrumental role with the US in defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan, have created the conditions for “ the transfer of collective revolutionary consciousness generation after generation.”
Ghamari discusses Iran’s support for the Axis of Resistance as a way to create a “Ring of Fire” around it, opportunities to struggle against US and Israeli imperialism outside of Iran’s borders with the hope of avoiding a war at home. He states that initially Iranians opposed the use of resources to support Palestinians, Hezbollah and the defense of Syria, but now they understand the utility. Iranians see themselves in these struggles, and that is why a popular movement has taken the streets night after night against US attacks.
The outcome of the current conflict is uncertain, but Ghamari theorizes, and Hedges agrees, that Iran has a strong hand to play and the best result would be a return to a lifting of the economic sanctions in return for limits on Iran’s nuclear enrichment efforts, as was agreed in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015. The wildcards are the United States and Israel, who may be unwilling to compromise and may resort to dropping nuclear bombs in desperation.