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 Jake Johnson | Feb 24, 2026 | Article, Iran, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, Reprint, Trump
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Feb. 24, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
President Donald Trump admitted Monday that a US assault on Iran would be disastrous for the Middle East nation’s people as he considers options for a military attack, reportedly drawing private warnings from the United States’ top general.
In a Truth Social post, Trump pushed back against reports that Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has voiced concerns about the potentially massive risks of attacking Iran, a country of more than 90 million people. Trump has previously claimed that Caine believed any military conflict with Iran would be “something easily won.”
“He has not spoken of not doing Iran, or even the fake limited strikes that I have been reading about, he only knows one thing, how to WIN and, if he is told to do so, he will be leading the pack,” Trump wrote of Caine in his Monday post.
The US president—who blew up a landmark diplomatic agreement with Iran during his first term—added that if a new deal with the Iranian government doesn’t materialize, “it will be a very bad day for that Country and, very sadly, its people, because they are great and wonderful, and something like this should never have happened to them.”
Trump’s acknowledgment that a US military assault would likely be devastating for ordinary Iranians runs counter to the narrative pushed by supporters of war, who claim conflict and regime change is necessary to aid Iran’s population.
“The stakes are clear,” the National Iranian American Council, an advocacy organization that has vocally opposed a US attack on Iran, wrote late Monday. “President
by Mansa Musa | Feb 23, 2026 | ICE, Minneapolis, Politics and Movements: US, Prisons and Policing, Rattling the Bars, video, White Supremacy
From the very beginning, the United States of America has been at war—not just abroad, but domestically. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with scholar and author Dylan Rodriguez about how the US operates as a nation in a perpetual state of internal war, and how the white supremacist legacy of domestic warfare has reached terrifying new heights in the Trump era.
Resource Links:
Purchase Dylan Rodriguez’s book White Reconstruction
Revolt against the carceral world
COVID-19 pandemic illuminates anti-Chinese racism and xenophobia
Why corporate media doesn’t talk honestly about racism
Credits:
Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host Mansa Musa. In this country, in the United States of America. If we was to put alongside of Germany or any other fastest totalitarian government, it would not be no difference in comparison in this country. Today, we find ourselves in a place where we’re in the constant police, in the form of what they call ICE or any other police force. We find ourselves in a situation where all the institutions that’s in this country right now is being dismantled to the point where people don’t have no jobs, people can’t afford medical people are being forced into homelessness. In the face of all this, we find ourselves at the crossroad of making analysis of what this is and how do we go forward. Joining me today is a Dylan Rodriguez, professor of Media and Culture Studies and UC Riverside and one
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 Taya Graham and Stephen Janis | Feb 20, 2026 | ICE, police accountability, Police Accountability Report, Politics and Movements: US, Prisons and Policing, video
Are we protecting communities or redefining rights as optional? Join reporters Taya Graham and Stephen Janis for this special Police Accountability Report and conversation with three voices who have spent years documenting government power up close: James Freeman, Ismael Rincon, HBO Matt.
Credits:
Written by: Stephen Janis
Produced by: Stephen Janis, Taya Graham, David Hebden
Transcript
A transcript will be provided when ready.
