by Maximillian Alvarez | Feb 27, 2026 | big tech, Gaza, ICE, Israel, Palestine, Podcast, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, Working People
In just six months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) more than tripled the amount of data stored on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, The Guardian reports, “at the same time that its arsenal of surveillance technology ballooned.” This week, tech workers with the No Azure for Apartheid (NOAA) campaign staged a protest and informational picket at Microsoft’s global headquarters in Redmond, Washington, demanding that Microsoft cancel all contracts that provide technological support for Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and ICE’s campaign of terror in the US. We speak with Ibtihal, a former software engineer at Microsoft and an organizer with the NOAA campaign.
Additional links/info:
No Azure for Apartheid Instagram and Linktree
Harry Davies & Yuval Abraham, The Guardian, “ICE reliance on Microsoft technology surged amid immigration crackdown, documents show”
Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “‘Microsoft workers refuse to be complicit in the genocide’”
Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “Microsoft cancels Israeli spy unit access after tech worker revolt”
Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “The biggest labor story in the US right now is happening at Microsoft”
Featured Music:
Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song
Credits:
Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Maximillian Alvarez:
I got work to do. All right. Welcome everyone to Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and is brought to you in partnership within these Times Magazine and the Real News Network. This show is produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like you. My name is
by Marc Steiner | Feb 27, 2026 | Iran, Israel, Middle East, Podcast, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, The Marc Steiner Show, Trump
Urged on by Israel and neocon war hawks, President Trump has brought the US to the verge of a war with Iran, amassing more American military forces in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Trita Parsi, co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, about the disastrous ramifications such a war would have—and what options still remain to avoid it.
Guests:
Trita Parsi is an Iranian-born Swedish writer and policy analyst and the co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He is an award-winning author and the 2010 recipient of the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. He is an expert on US-Iranian relations, Iranian foreign policy, and the geopolitics of the Middle East. He has authored four books on US foreign policy in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Iran and Israel.
Additional links/info:
Trita Parsi, Common Dreams, “How does this end? Even a ‘small’ US strike on Iran by Trump would be disastrous”
Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “Jeremy Scahill: Prospects for avoiding US-Iran war ‘remain fragile’”
Credits:
Producer: Rosette Sewali
Studio Production: David Hebden
Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Marc Steiner:
Welcome to the Marc Steiner Show here on The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. It’s great to have you all with us. We are on the verge of a war with Iran, a war that could unleash a conflict that can lead to a wider war in the region and have devastating effects on
by Maximillian Alvarez | Feb 25, 2026 | Iran, Middle East, Podcast, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, Trump
With President Trump marshaling the largest buildup of US military forces in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the threat of an imminent conflict—or even a major war—between the US and Iran is ever present. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with journalist Jeremy Scahill of DropSite news about where things stand now, the fragile state of this week’s talks between the US and Iran, and all that hangs in the balance.
Guest:
Jeremy Scahill is an independent journalist, author and filmmaker. He is co-founder of the investigative news organization Drop Site News. Scahill is author of the international best-selling books Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army and Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield. His film, Dirty Wars, won widespread acclaim and was nominated for an Academy Award in 2013 for Best Documentary Feature.
Additional links/info:
Jeremy Scahill & Murtaza Hussain, DropSite News, “Iranian officials to Drop Site: Tehran is showing “unbelievable level of flexibility” in talks to prevent US war”
Credits:
Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Welcome everyone to the Real News Network podcast. I’m Maximillian Alvarez. I’m the editor in chief here at The Real News, and it’s so great to have you all with us. We’re recording this podcast on Tuesday, February 24th, and I genuinely don’t know if the United States will be at war with Iran by the time that you hear it. In their latest report for DropSite News, Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain write,
The U.S. and Iran are headed to a new
by Marc Steiner | Feb 24, 2026 | education, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Podcast, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, The Marc Steiner Show, Trump
Bending to economic coercion and political pressure from the Trump administration, once-venerable institutions like Columbia University have compliantly become third-party collaborators in the assault on our Constitutional rights. In this episode of the Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Amy E. Greer and Zal K. Shroff, two members of former Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil’s legal team, about how the persecution of Khalil and other Palestine solidarity protestors is reshaping the future of free speech in America.
Guests:
Amy E. Greer is an associate attorney at Dratel & Lewis, and a member of Mahmoud Khalil’s legal team. Greer is a lawyer and archivist by training, and an advocate and storyteller by nature. As an attorney at Dratel & Lewis, she works on a variety of cases, including international extradition, RICO, terrorism, and drug trafficking. She previously served as an assistant public defender on a remote island in Alaska, defending people charged with misdemeanors, and as a research and writing attorney on capital habeas cases with clients who have been sentenced to death.
Zal K. Shroff is an assistant professor at CUNY School of Law and director of the Equality & Justice In-House & Practice Clinic. Shroff is a civil rights lawyer and has been a lead attorney in more than two dozen impact cases across the United States spanning police and prosecutorial accountability, voting rights, First Amendment protest/political speech, race and religious discrimination, conditions of confinement, and poverty discrimination.
Additional links/info:
Marc Steiner, The Marc Steiner Show / TRNN, “Trump’s government hasn’t won its case against Mahmoud Khalil—yet”
Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “‘Call Amy!’: Lawyer for Mahmoud Khalil reveals how he won his freedom”
Credits:
Producer: Rosette Sewali
Studio Production: David
by Maximillian Alvarez | Feb 23, 2026 | ICE, Podcast, Politics and Movements: US, Prisons and Policing, Texas
Hundreds of children are currently incarcerated at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, TX, and the stories leaking out to the public about the conditions inside are shocking. We speak with Stephanie Koithan, journalist and digital content editor of the San Antonio Current.
Additional links/info:
Stephanie Koithan, San Antonio Current, “Two-month-old baby ‘choking on his own vomit’ while detained in Dilley”
Stephanie Koithan, San Antonio Current, “Staff at Dilley raiding cells to confiscate kids’ letters and drawings detailing conditions inside”
Mica Rosenberg, ProPublica, “The children of Dilley”
Austin Kocher, Substack, “Dilley Family Detention Center triples in size amid growing controversy over conditions”
Credits:
Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Welcome everyone to the Real News Network podcast. I’m Maximillian Alvarez. I’m the editor in chief here at The Real News, and it’s so great to have you all with us. Every day brings with its stories of new humanitarian horrors perpetrated by our own government in the execution of President Trump’s mass incarceration and deportation campaign, and I’m sorry to say this, but things are shaping up to get a lot worse before they get any better. As the guardian recently reported US Citizenship and Immigration Services expects to spend an estimated $38.3 billion on a plan to acquire warehouses across the country and retrofit them into new immigration detention centers with capacity for tens of thousands of detainees according to documents the agency sent to the government of New Hampshire. For journalists and civilians alike, we need to be as clear and precise as possible with
by Michael Fox | Feb 20, 2026 | ICE, Minneapolis, Podcast, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, Prisons and Policing, Trump, Under the Shadow, Venezuela
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: Minneapolis has been on fire.
People in the streets against an onslaught from Trump’s ICE agents the likes of which the country has never seen.
Homeland Security has deployed thousands of agents, unleashing an assault that has ripped apart families and neighborhoods. They’ve killed two people, under shocking circumstances. Both U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Federal agents have arrested 4,000 people in Minnesota alone since they launched Operation Metro Surge two months ago.
KRISTI NOEM [CLIP]: But we’re surging operations because of the dangerous situation we see in this country and because we’re no longer going to allow illegal criminals to damage and harm, to kill, to sexually abuse, to proliferate drugs, and to steal American taxpayers dollars.
MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: That’s Kristi Noem. The head of the Department of Homeland Security. Of course, none of it’s true. But that doesn’t stop her or president Donald Trump from repeating these lines.
And Minneapolis, Minnesota, is just the latest city on Trump’s hit list.
SARAH LAZARE: I mean, there are so many horrific stories.
MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: Sarah Lazare is a labor journalist based in Chicago who’s traveled to Minneapolis in recent weeks to cover the ICE attack and the people’s response.
SARAH LAZARE: And really, the federal assault is only growing more intense. Like Chicago was really bad. There were really terrible things that happened. And you don’t want to compare tragedies at all because it’s all horrible. But the federal occupation of Minnesota, just in terms of scale and numbers, is just
