The Real News Podcast

The Real News Podcast

Daily Reports, specials, and podcasts by The Real News Network (TRNN). TRNN makes media connecting you to the movements, people, and perspectives that are advancing the cause of a more just, equal, and livable planet. TRNN is a nonprofit media organization. We do not accept advertising revenue or corporate sponsorship. Sign up for our newsletter at therealnews.com Text us at (410) 431-0868 Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

Episodes

Brazil’s Battle Against Fake News & the US War to Undermine it

July 9, 2026 • 78 mins
This is really a tale of two countries: The United States and Brazil. In both countries, far-right presidents come to power — Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. In both those countries, the presidents spent several years unraveling democratic institutions and public policy. Both presidents then ran for reelection. Both presidents lied about their country's voting systems in order to undermine the elections and whip up...
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Establishment Democrats PANIC as Socialists Keep Winning

July 7, 2026 • 30 mins
Establishment Democrats have racked up disastrous electoral losses over the past decade—so why are they furious when their own party actually wins? Taya Graham and Stephen Janis break down the meltdown of Democratic "centrist" operatives and pundits after recent socialist victories in New York and Colorado, from James Carville calling for a party "schism" to Rep. Josh Gottheimer's panicking about the future of the party on CN...
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Train Crashes Destroyed Their Towns. Will Yours Be Next?

July 6, 2026 • 72 mins
10 years before the catastrophic train derailment and chemical disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, one of the deadliest rail disasters in North American history took place in the Canadian town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec.

On July 6, 2013, an unattended freight train that had been parked on the tracks overnight began to roll downhill and gather alarming speed as it careened towards the city center of Lac-Mégantic. The train, which ...
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Rebels with a Cause: The Black Panther Party and Socialism in Practice

July 6, 2026 • 23 mins
On this episode of Rattling the Bars, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party in 1966, host and former political prisoner Mansa Musa speaks with Dr. Joy James and Dr. K. Kim Holder about the history of the Panthers and their unique approach to, and practice of, communal socialism.

This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. Watch Part 1 here.

Guests:
  • Dr. Joy James is Ebenez...
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What Is Free Speech? America at 250

July 2, 2026 • 69 mins
On the eve of the United States' 250th birthday, Michael Fox sits down with Mansa Musa — longtime activist, former Black Panther, host of TRNN’s Rattling the Bars, and a man who spent nearly 49 years in prison — to ask a deceptively simple question: what does free speech actually mean?

From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to Quito, Ecuador, to Frederick Douglass's 1852 address "What to the Slave is the Fo...
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Toxic Avengers: America’s Poisoned and Abandoned Communities Must Stand Together or Die

July 1, 2026 • 68 mins
From the explosion of AI data centers to the increasing number of toxic spills, explosions, and industrial disasters happening across the country, corporations and the government are turning the USA into one giant “sacrifice zone.” In “red” states and “blue” states, in rural areas and urban areas, poor and working people are suffering the toxic effects of a crisis that has resulted from decades o...
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What Would the Black Panthers Say About DSA Today?

June 30, 2026 • 22 mins
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Black Panther Party, founded in Oakland, California, in 1966. On this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with Dr. Joy James and Dr. K. Kim Holder about the legacy of the Panthers today, and about the important differences and intersections between democratic socialism and the Black Panther model of communalism.

This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Subscribe ...
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The US, Israel, and Latin America’s Far Right Are Plotting to Crush the Left

June 30, 2026 • 46 mins
Leaked audio recordings between powerful right-wing figures in Latin America have revealed a massive and shocking conspiracy—involving the United States and Israel—to forge an international political network with the expressed purpose of undermining leftist leaders in the region. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Latin-America-based journalist and TRNN correspondent Michael Fox about “Hond...
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‘You Can’t Serve People You Hate’: Rep. Summer Lee Breaks Down the War on the Poor

June 29, 2026 • 21 mins
In this exclusive interview, recorded earlier this month at the Netroots conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Rep. Summer Lee explains her concerns about the Trump administration's push to interfere in the upcoming 2026 midterms, and argues that the best path to achieving public policies like "Medicare for All" is to take billionaires' money out of politics and to fight for electoral reforms. 

Credits:
  • ...
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Rep. Justin Pearson: MAGA Eliminated My Congressional District. I'm Still Running.

June 29, 2026 • 5 mins
After an April decision by the US Supreme Court gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Tennessee became the first state to redraw its Congressional district maps, resulting in the 9th District—a solidly Democratic seat representing the only majority-Black district in the state—being erased. We speak with Tennessee State Representative Justin Pearson, who has been running to represent Tennessee’s 9th District in the US...
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UAW Becomes First Major Union to Divest from Israel

June 26, 2026 • 64 mins
At the 39th Constitutional Convention of the United Auto Workers (UAW) in Detroit, Michigan, union delegates debated and affirmed the aggressive direction the UAW has taken under current President Shawn Fain, supporting pushes to increase shop-floor militancy, support new organizing efforts, and take stronger stances on the political crises working people face today. Among the major developments to come out of the UAW Constitutiona...
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Attacks on Press Freedom: Lawsuits, Intimidation, and the War on Journalists | Ep. 4

June 25, 2026 • 72 mins
Photojournalist Nick Stern still has nightmares from the night an officer fired a flashbang into his leg as he covered the LA immigration protests. He's one of dozens of journalists assaulted, arrested, or deported in Trump's second term — a year that pushed the US to 64th on the World Press Freedom Index, its lowest ranking ever.

In this episode of The Battle for Free Speech, Michael Fox is joined by Real News investi...
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‘Beyond the Wire’: A Grassroots Perspective on Baltimore

June 24, 2026 • 26 mins
Beyond the Wire, a new, thought-provoking documentary by filmmaker and researcher Dr. S. Rasheem, offers an indespensible representation of "The Greatest City in America" and a powerful counternarrative to the popular crime series The Wire. In this exclusive interview for Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with Dr. Rasheem about how her background in community organizing compelled her to tell a different story of Baltim...
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FBI Raids Homes of Michigan Students and Workers for Palestine Activism

June 24, 2026 • 25 mins
On June 10, early in the morning, FBI agents raided the homes of individuals involved in Palestine solidarity activism at the University of Michigan. As Yarden Katz and Stephen M. Ward report in Mondoweiss, “with help from local and state police departments, including the University of Michigan Police, the raids unfolded simultaneously in Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin…The case is now known as the Michigan Eight. Th...
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Steven Thrasher: Black Cops, Latino ICE agents, and the "Overseer Class"

June 23, 2026 • 65 mins
We sit down with Dr. Steven Thrasher to talk about his new book, The Overseer Class; how our police state today evolved from yesterday’s slave plantations; and why Dr. Thrasher has been blacklisted from academia after defending his students at Northwestern University during the Palestine encampment movement in 2024. 

Guests:
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Rep. Jamie Raskin: ICE is Acting Like a Secret Paramilitary Police Force for President Trump

June 19, 2026 • 10 mins
TRNN reporter Stephen Janis speaks with US Rep. Jamie Raskin about the unprecedented power of ICE in light of the $70 billion in additional funding just approved by Congress, his opposition to the proposed "anti-weaponization fund," and why the Epstein scandal needs further scrutiny. 

Editor's note: This interview was recorded at the 2026 Netroots Nation conference on June 6.

Studio Production: Taya Graham, Maxim...
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Working People LIVE SHOW w/ Kim Kelly, Alex Press, and Hamilton Nolan

June 18, 2026 • 72 mins
The world as we know it is facing unprecedented crises today that are all converging at once, from “end-times fascism” and full-blown oligarchy to “artificial intelligence,” endless wars, and genocide. The formal institutions of American democracy and organized labor have shown that they cannot stop the ruling-class onslaught on working people’s lives, livelihoods, and futures, so it’s up to rank...
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How Trump and Big Tech Are Gutting Free Speech: AI, Censorship, and Media Mergers

June 18, 2026 • 70 mins
On the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration—January 20, 2025—the heads of many of Silicon Valley’s most powerful tech firms sat in the rows just behind Trump. It was a sign of Trump’s deep ties to the industry and to these powerful individuals who are transforming how we communicate, and not for the better.  

In this episode, Michael Fox visits Silicon Valley to try to understand the str...
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Adam Johnson: The Media’s Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza

June 12, 2026 • 50 mins
As a writer, podcaster, and columnist for TRNN, Adam Johnson has been one of the fiercest, sharpest, and most consistent critics of legacy and Western media’s roles in laundering, obscuring, justifying, and manufacturing consent for crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza genocide by Israel and with the full support of the United States. But critique is not enough anymore; to ensure that these horrific crimes don’...
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A History of Free Speech from Abolitionists to Berkeley

June 11, 2026 • 72 mins
Free speech in America was never given — it was fought for, bled for, and died for. In this episode, hosts Marc Steiner and Michael Fox dive into the history of the movements that built and defended the right to speak out: the abolitionists who continued to speak — even as mobs attacked the building where they gathered — Ida B. Wells, who exposed the truth about lynching in Jim Crow Memphis, and the students at UC...
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