Powered by RND
PodcastsNewsMehdi Unfiltered
Listen to Mehdi Unfiltered in the App
Listen to Mehdi Unfiltered in the App
(398)(247,963)
Save favourites
Alarm
Sleep timer

Mehdi Unfiltered

Podcast Mehdi Unfiltered
Zeteo
A new weekly show that delivers unfiltered news, bold opinions, and challenging interviews you won't find elsewhere. zeteo.com

Available Episodes

5 of 68
  • ‘Palestine Is a Case of Criminally Postponed Decolonization’: Indian Author Pankaj Mishra on Gaza, Censorship, and India’s Parallels to Israel
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit zeteo.com“As citizens of democracies, we will be primarily concerned with situations where our own governments…our own political classes, our media classes are complicit. And that is what is going to outrage us long before we get outraged about what is happening in East Timor or Myanmar.”That’s just one of the many reasons Indian Author Pankaj Mishra has spent so much of the past year advocating against Israel’s war on Gaza, and has now even gone as far as to write a whole book on the subject – The World After Gaza: A History.The book is of course inspired by Mishra’s London Review essay and lecture, ‘The Shoah After Gaza’ – which drew up controversy last year, after the Barbican backed out of hosting Mishra’s lecture, all before he even gave it.“I’m not actually quite sure what happened there at the Barbican, but they certainly pulled out at the last moment, fearing that they might also attract the same malicious charge of antisemitism,” Mishra says.Asked whether he was ever concerned about being accused of antisemitism himself, Mishra said, “We've seen horrific things in the last 15 months. There's so much more to fear at this point than the charge of antisemitism.”On the topic of censorship, Mishra criticized the way in which last year’s pro-Palestine student protests were suppressed and sabotaged by those in power.“The way in which mainstream newspapers, mainstream politicians collaborated in demonizing those student protesters and then obviously kind of crushing them... that was one of the most horrific events of the last year, obviously in addition to what was going on in Gaza itself,” Mishra tells Mehdi. “I still think that those student protesters, even though they were crushed and silenced, offered us a modest hope.”Mishra also went on to draw parallels between the state of Israel and his home country of India, specifically in relation to what India is doing in Kashmir.“There are sort of these parallels not just between Israel and India, but also various other post-colonial states, including Indonesia for that matter,” Mishra explains. “What we look at is essentially a state – a newly sovereign state – unable to deal with problems of dispossession, the problems that obviously emerged during the creation of these states, and resorting to really naked violence to solve these problems.”Watch the full interview with Mishra to hear him discuss the implications of Israel’s impunity, US President Donald Trump’s re-election, and his spats with far-right writers Jordan Peterson and Niall Ferguson. Free subscribers can watch the first 6 minutes of the interview. Become a paid subscriber to watch the full 24-minute interview and join the conversation in the comments below!
    --------  
    6:11
  • 'Taking Food From People Who Are Starving': Ben & Jerry's Founder Speaks to Mehdi on USAID Cuts
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit zeteo.comDonald Trump hasn’t even been in office for a month, and already, his administration is dismantling key agencies of the federal government, including USAID. Much of this work is being done by shadow president Elon Musk, whose so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been wreaking havoc on key systems at the Treasury, the Department of Education, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.If DOGE really plans on cutting $2 trillion from the federal budget, there’s one place progressives say he can start: the Pentagon’s whopping $850 billion budget.“If you’re going to say that you’re going to deal with government waste and you’re not going to be dealing with the Pentagon, you’re just one big hypocrite,” Ben Cohen, progressive activist and co-founder of the ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s, tells Mehdi.“If the Pentagon were a publicly held company, the executives would be in jail today,” Cohen says.For Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist who served in Trump’s first-term State Department, DOGE’s efforts to destroy USAID are a big concern.“I’m all for reforms, but you would be naive not to recognize the miracle work they do each and every day around the world,” Bartlett says.Cohen points out that defunding USAID not only takes food out of the mouths of people who are starving; it results in “essentially killing newborn babies by getting rid of HIV/AIDS treatment for their moms.”In recent days, Trump has touted his plan to “take over” Gaza and said in a Fox interview that Palestinians won’t have the right to return to the territory. It’s a move Bartlett says “is more than problematic.”“For a lasting peace to ever be a notion in this world, the Palestinians need to have sovereignty,” Bartlett tells Mehdi. “They need to have their homeland returned to them.”If you are a paid subscriber, you can watch the full panel discussion with Ben Cohen and Matthew Bartlett above to hear Mehdi question the latter about why and how he served in Trump’s first administration, and to hear Cohen’s response to whether Trump’s plan for Gaza amounts to ethnic cleansing and why parent company Unilever is trying to suppress Ben & Jerry’s stance on Palestine.Free subscribers can watch a 4-minute preview. Do consider becoming a paid subscriber today to watch the full interview and let us know in the comments below who you would like to see on ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ next!
    --------  
    4:35
  • ‘The Level of Stupidity is Embarrassing’: Rep. Ilhan Omar on Musk and the GOP’s Attacks on Her
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit zeteo.comLast week, Democratic Congresswoman and ‘Squad’ member Ilhan Omar became Elon Musk’s latest target on Twitter, after he falsely accused her of breaking the law for sharing legal advice to undocumented immigrants.In this interview on ‘Mehdi Unfiltered,’ Rep. Omar sits down with Mehdi to discuss Musk’s attack on her, as well as the ongoing effort to dismantle federal agencies funded by Congress.“He wakes up lying. He goes to sleep lying,” Omar said. “And frankly, I don't think he understands the laws of this country. I don't think he understands the Constitution. I don't think he understands the power that we have as members of Congress. And I don't think he understands or thinks that people are entitled to rights under the Constitution if he doesn't like them.”Omar slams freshman GOP House Member Brandon Gill who launched his own attack on her by saying that the US would “be a better place” if Omar – a lawmaker and a US citizen! – were deported.“I'm at the point where it's become really hard to have an intellectual debate with any of these people because the level of stupidity that they are displaying every single day is frankly embarrassing,” Omar tells Mehdi.Since the interview took place, Rep. Gill has doubled down on his attacks on the congresswoman, urging his supporters to sign a petition for her deportation in a fundraising email.Omar also criticizes Trump and Musk’s claims of massive fraud in the government agencies they are attempting to shut down.“No one has shown us a single example of the fraud that he's [Musk] finding. What ‘fraud’ is, is what we as members of Congress debated and decided to fund legally. That to him is fraud,” Omar says.Watch the full interview to hear Rep. Omar discuss the need for the Democratic Party to get more aggressive and use the leverage it has; Trump’s plan for the US to illegally take control of Gaza; and JD Vance’s suggestion that the White House can simply ignore court rulings against Trump’s executive orders.It’s a fascinating and wide-ranging interview. Free subscribers can watch a 5-minute preview; paid subscribers can watch the whole thing. To access the full interview, do please consider upgrading to a paid subscription.
    --------  
    5:40
  • ‘Apartheid on Steroids’: South African Ambassador on Gaza, Musk, and Trump Cutting Off Aid
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit zeteo.comLast week, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order freezing US aid to South Africa, saying that their new land ownership law – meant to address the legacy of apartheid – “blatantly discriminates against ethnic minority Afrikaners.” This came just days after Elon Musk railed against the law on Twitter, calling it “openly racist.”In this interview, South Africa’s Ambassador to the US Ebrahim Rasool sits down with Mehdi to discuss the new law, as well as Trump and Musk’s decision to “interfere” with South Africa’s internal politics.“Even his [Musk’s] own supporters back home are reeling under the impact of what has been occasioned,” Rasool tells Mehdi. “They know that there is no land confiscation. They know that 30 years later, this is the most benign land reform that has come in. They know that Afrikaners and whites own 70% of the land to this day and all the farms – mostly – in South Africa.”The ambassador also discussed the country’s ICJ case against Israel, which the Trump administration cited as one of the reasons for freezing aid to South Africa.“The growing consensus in South Africa is that whatever we've experienced in South Africa is on steroids in Palestine,” Rasool tells Mehdi. “The template of apartheid has been completely magnified… That is the kind of DNA that we recognized as South Africans.”Rasool criticized Trump and Musk for meddling in other countries’ politics, telling Mehdi that, “South Africa will not be falling into the temptation that President Trump and Mr. Musk have fallen into themselves, and that is to interfere in the internal politics of other countries, as was done with Britain and Germany and others.”Watch the full interview above to hear the two discuss South Africa’s new coalition government, reports that South Africa may give Musk’s companies a pass on the country’s Black empowerment rules, and Rasool’s response to Trump’s plan to take over Gaza.Free subscribers can watch a 6-minute preview of the interview. To access the full interview, consider upgrading to a paid subscription.
    --------  
    6:18
  • ‘The Whole World Feels Really Dystopian’: Award-Winning Director Asif Kapadia on the Inspiration Behind His New Film, ‘2073’
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit zeteo.comDo you ever wonder where the world will be in 50 years?This is the key question that award-winning filmmaker Asif Kapadia – best known for his films ‘Diego Maradona’, ‘Amy’ and ‘Senna’ – seeks to answer in his newest work, ‘2073.’ And the answer is a lot scarier than perhaps the flying cars we imagined for the future.‘2073’ gives us a look at just one of the possibilities if the world continues to devolve at its current pace. A world almost unrecognizable as citizens of ‘New San Francisco’ face the fall of democracy and the harrowing effects of climate change. (Be sure to watch the exclusive clip from the film at the end of the interview above.)“I thought the whole world feels really dystopian – everything that happens every day that I read, everything I see happening around me – and I thought, how do I express this feeling, this fear about where we're heading?” Kapadia tells Mehdi.He continues, “My main aim with this film was to kind of almost have a God's eye view of the whole world. Because my background is from India, I've worked in Brazil, I've worked in Europe, I live in the UK, I've worked in the US. I just saw the same kind of elements, the same playbook happening everywhere.”Thus, ‘2073’ depicts the confluence of climate change and the rise of authoritarianism in the dystopian city of New San Francisco, where there’s no privacy, no freedom, no democracy. The film is a warning of what is to come if we let oligarchs go unchecked.But it’s not all doom and gloom, because as much as ‘2073’ serves as a warning, it also is a call to action.“The film is there to create a dialogue for us to be talking now, for you, for me, for everyone to be saying, what can we individually do? I don't think it's as simple as putting a neat little moment at the end of the film and saying, if you do this, everything will be great. I mean, the struggle is much more complex and the fight for freedom and democracy is much more layered than me just saying go out and vote. There's something else going on here and we're going to have to talk about it,” Kapadia explains.He concludes, “I think partly it starts at home. It starts with you, starts with your kids, it starts with your family, your parents, your aunties and uncles, but then also a kind of wider community about what are we going to do to protect ourselves from what is happening. We're not crazy. This stuff is happening. And I think the film, part of the process of showing it, has been almost therapy for people.”Watch the full interview above to hear what Kapadia’s take is on the mainstream media’s coverage of the issues he highlights in ‘2073’, and the exclusive clip, only for Zeteo paid subscribers
    --------  
    17:50

More News podcasts

About Mehdi Unfiltered

A new weekly show that delivers unfiltered news, bold opinions, and challenging interviews you won't find elsewhere. zeteo.com
Podcast website

Listen to Mehdi Unfiltered, When the Facts Change and many other podcasts from around the world with the radio.net app

Get the free radio.net app

  • Stations and podcasts to bookmark
  • Stream via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth
  • Supports Carplay & Android Auto
  • Many other app features

Mehdi Unfiltered: Podcasts in Family

Social
v7.7.0 | © 2007-2025 radio.de GmbH
Generated: 2/16/2025 - 9:36:08 AM