Gaslit Nation
415 episodes - English - Latest episode: 13 days ago - ★★★★★ - 3.7K ratingsGaslit Nation provides a deep dive on the news, skipping outrage to deliver analysis, history, context, and sharp insight on global affairs. Hosted by journalist and filmmaker Andrea Chalupa, an expert on authoritarian states who warned America about Russia and election hacking before the 2016 election.
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Episodes
The Endgame
December 04, 2019 05:24 - 1 hour - 60.8 MBNever take democracy for granted! This week we discuss the last two weeks of impeachment hearings and the witnesses, among them several immigrant Americans who are experts on the former USSR and know all too well how fragile our freedom really is.
Election Hacking: Help Protect Our Democracy
November 27, 2019 05:00 - 37 minutes - 34.3 MBWe discuss the lack of integrity in the 2016 election and potentially in the 2020 election, and Andrea interviews community organizer Deborah Porder of Indivisible Scarsdale about an initiative created in New York state to help secure our elections. Like Deborah and her Indivisible community, you can build a movement for election security where you live.
Brexit and Bannon
November 20, 2019 05:00 - 54 minutes - 44.1 MBPropaganda researcher Dr. Emma Briant discusses the role of far-right extremism, including Steve Bannon, in the alleged corruption that drove the Brexit vote.
Mafia State U.S.A.
November 13, 2019 05:00 - 1 hour - 58.2 MBFor the entire duration of the Trump-Russia crime spree, the people who spoke out hardest – and paid the worst price – have been women. That trend continued this week with the testimony of national security advisor Fiona Hill, who reconfirmed what Gaslit Nation already knew (that Putin had been interested in Trump for ages) and paid the price with death threats.
Robert Mueller Will Not Save You (The Remix)
November 06, 2019 05:00 - 58 minutes - 59.4 MBThere aren’t really words to describe the feeling of your worst suspicions being ceaselessly confirmed as your country crumbles around you, but we try to find them nonetheless on this week’s Gaslit Nation. In October 2018, we did an episode called Robert Mueller Will Not Save You in which we warned that the probe was far too lenient toward dangerous criminals. Now thanks to a FOIA-prompted document release from the intrepid reporters of Buzzfeed, we give you “Robert Mueller Will Not Save Y...
Lock Him Up, Because He’s an Actual Criminal
October 30, 2019 04:13 - 54 minutes - 52.3 MBGaslit Nation is back and we are disregarding your fatuous calls for civility! This week we discuss Trump getting booed at the World Series in an inverted Trump rally of sorts, and what it means for the reality TV president to finally confront a crowd he can’t control. Dictatorship is a brand and Trump’s was tarnished thanks to Americans engaging in a great American pastime – protest!
The Tulsi Gabbard Episode
October 23, 2019 04:00 - 1 hour - 62 MBTulsi Gabbard is a long-time supporter of dictators--including Assad, Sisi, and Modi--and has backed a number of horrible policies, like making it harder for Muslim refugees to enter the U.S., tolerating Russian war crimes in Syria, voting against the Magnitsky Act, and vouching for the Bill Barr fake version of the Mueller report. We did not think this fringe candidate deserved any oxygen, especially when famous Tulsi Gabbard fans like white supremacists Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson had ...
Fraud Guarantee: Ukraine, Syria, and the Trump Crime Catastrophe
October 16, 2019 04:00 - 54 minutes - 53 MBThis week we discuss Rudy Giuliani, his goons Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, their mafia master Dmytro Firtash, and their connections to the Trump/Kremlin mafia states. We discuss the welcome testimony of former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and the latest news on the whistleblower. Then we turn our attention to the horrors taking place in northern Syria, where our Kurdish allies face genocide and the balance of world powers shifts further toward an axis of autocrats.
The GOP Is an Unregistered Foreign Agent: Part II
October 09, 2019 04:00 - 48 minutes - 49.2 MBThis was our first new episode since June and we had so much to discuss that it ended up being a two-parter. This week our conversation continues on impeachment, the attacks on “the Squad,” the strategy of Bill Barr, the downfall of the New York Times, Brexit, and much more!
The GOP Is an Unregistered Foreign Agent: Part I
October 02, 2019 04:00 - 56 minutes - 57.8 MBGaslit Nation is back with an exciting new addition! We are thrilled to announce that Andrea had a baby girl while you were all listening to our prerecorded Get Un-Gaslit Reading Series over the summer. We celebrate the new arrival in our podcast family the way only Gaslit Nation can, by noting that Andrea’s baby shares a birthday with Ukrainian dissident filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and discussing the power of resilience in the face of autocracy. Here’s to the future!
The Gold Standard of Voting
September 25, 2019 04:01 - 29 minutes - 34.1 MBWe interview Nicole Hobbs of Every District, a grassroots organization working to flip states blue. Hobbs shares their report called Blue States: A Voting Rights Action Plan that provides a scorecard of states where there’s already political will to expand voting rights. So if you live in a progressive state, do not take that for granted: get to work ensuring that your state checks all the boxes of the gold standard. She explains what citizens in every state can do to fight for voting rights.
Gaslit Nation Climate Crisis Special
September 18, 2019 04:01 - 52 minutes - 57.1 MBThis week on Gaslit Nation we devote a whole episode to the climate crisis, featuring an interview with climate change expert Daniel Zarrilli. No major issue is unconnected to the climate crisis. Climate change impacts the economy, immigration, infrastructure, health care, and needs to be factored into every policy debate. One also cannot separate the climate crisis from the rise of autocracy.
Olga Lautman on the Russian Mafia
September 11, 2019 04:01 - 55 minutes - 127 MBIf you are on Twitter, you know that there is no one more deeply versed on the Russian mafia’s incursion into American business and politics than New York’s Olga Lautman, a freelance researcher and analyst who worked on Craig Unger’s House of Trump, House of Putin and on Malcolm Nance’s The Plot to Betray America, among other projects. Raised on Brighton Beach and fluent in Russian, Lautman was wise to the danger of Donald Trump from the start.
Craig Unger on Kleptocracy
August 21, 2019 04:01 - 1 hour - 63.6 MBWe interview Vanity Fair contributor Craig Unger, the author of the New York Times-bestselling book House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia, a must-read and deeply researched book that reminds us yet again that Trump properties are a laundromat for Russian mafia money, and what this means for our democracy.
Crystal Fleming on White Supremacy
August 14, 2019 04:01 - 1 hour - 71.2 MBThis week marks the two-year anniversary of the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville where anti-racist activist Heather Heyer was murdered. In this episode of Gaslit Nation, Sarah speaks briefly about the legacy of Charlottesville before Andrea continues our Get Un-Gaslit Summer Reading Series with an interview with sociologist Dr. Crystal Fleming, the author of How to Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy and the Racial Divide.
Dear Graduates: The Gaslit Nation Anniversary Special
August 07, 2019 04:01 - 56 minutes - 64.5 MBOur little podcast is 1-year-old. We cannot express our gratitude enough to our Patreon donors and all our listeners who helped turn a fledgling biweekly show that we thought only our moms and our far-right stalkers would listen to into a community, giving us the independence we need to speak out on the issues of the day. We end the show by giving advice on how to survive encroaching authoritarianism and list some of the things we are grateful for – and that we will continue to fight for, od...
Malcolm Nance on Asymmetric Warfare - Part II
July 24, 2019 04:01 - 38 minutes - 35.3 MBHere is Part II of our interview with the counter-terrorism and intelligence expert Malcolm Nance. Nance is an MSNBC commentator and author who is today best known for being the first person to write THE book about Russia’s attack on the 2016 election as it was happening. (That book – The Plot to Hack America: How Putin's Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election – was published in October 2016).
Malcolm Nance on Asymmetric Warfare - Part I
July 17, 2019 04:01 - 47 minutes - 44.3 MBOur Get Un-Gaslit Summer Reading Series continues with this two-part interview with the counter-terrorism and intelligence expert Malcolm Nance. Nance is an MSNBC commentator and author who is today best known for being the first person to write THE book about Russia’s attack on the 2016 election as it was happening. (That book – The Plot to Hack America: How Putin's Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election – was published in October 2016).
Greg Sargent on American Authoritarianism
July 10, 2019 04:01 - 1 hour - 73.6 MBThis week we kick off our Get Un-Gaslit Summer Reading Series with Greg Sargent, the author of the 2018 book An Uncivil War: Taking Back Our Democracy in an Age of Trumpian Disinformation and Thunderdome Politics. Sargent is also known for writing The Plum Line blog for The Washington Post.
A Republic, and How to Keep It: The Gaslit Nation July 4th Special
July 03, 2019 04:01 - 48 minutes - 110 MBHappy Fourth of July! In 1787, Benjamin Franklin famously declared “A republic – if you can keep it.” In these compiled interviews, experienced grassroots leaders tell us how we can keep our republic.
Movie Night: Clue with Mueller, She Wrote
June 26, 2019 04:01 - 1 hour - 154 MBWe join the women of the great podcast Mueller, She Wrote to debate a matter of vast geopolitical importance – the 1985 black comedy Clue! (In case you are counting, that’s one plus two plus one plus one people appearing on this show). Together we discuss why the McCarthy-era Clue explains so much about our Roy Cohn-created present, including our tenuous grasp on reality and our deep longing for alternative endings.
Reality Winner is in Prison While the Traitors Walk Free
June 19, 2019 13:50 - 56 minutes - 54.5 MBThis week, we interview Billie Winner-Davis, a social worker and the mother of Reality Winner, an air force veteran and the former NSA contractor who provided The Intercept with an NSA report on the Kremlin’s hacking of US voting systems at a time when the issue was still largely being debated and the public kept very much in the dark.
Will Giuliani be the Manafort of 2020?
June 12, 2019 16:26 - 1 hour - 73.3 MBWe are back with Part II of our discussion of the 2020 battleground state Ukraine. Our special focus again is on Rudy Giuliani who multiple experts have said should register for the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) given his many clients overseas, including several who serve the Kremlin’s interests. Will 2016 repeat in 2020, with Giuliani filling the role of Paul Manafort who worked as an unregistered foreign agent?
The Alexandra Chalupa Interview
June 05, 2019 17:21 - 1 hour - 80.4 MBWe continue our interview with Andrea’s sister Alexandra Chalupa, the former DNC contractor who was one of the first people in the US to warn officials about Russia’s attack on the 2016 election. For the first time, Alexandra tells her story in depth in her own words, including how she discovered new Riker’s Island inmate Paul Manafort was conspiring with Russian actors to help Trump win, her unheeded warnings to the DNC about email hacks and Wikileaks, and the terrifying aftermath of the 20...
Mueller Speaks!
May 30, 2019 20:31 - 1 hour - 75.2 MBHey, it can talk! In this episode of Gaslit Nation, we break down Mueller’s surprise press conference on Thursday with a special guest – Alexandra Chalupa, the independent researcher who was one of the first people in the US to warn officials about Russia’s attack on the 2016 election.
Dirty Dirty Giuliani
May 22, 2019 17:26 - 1 hour - 70 MBNow that Manafort is in prison, Giuliani seems to have taken his place, especially in trying to drum up Democratic scandals to distract from Trump’s many investigations. We examine one of Giuliani's longtime moneymakers: Ukraine.
Elizabeth Warren: Nazi Hunter
May 17, 2019 04:24 - 1 hour - 61 MBWe start off by looking at The Week The Mueller Probe Died in light of new information that’s been revealed since March. We go on to discuss the 2020 race, threats to election integrity, and the novelty of Elizabeth Warren.
The Constitution is Clear: Impeachment Hearings Now
May 08, 2019 00:34 - 1 hour - 58.3 MBConstitutional law and voting rights attorney John Bonifaz answers our questions about one of the most contentious topics today – whether, when, and how to impeach Donald Trump. Bonifaz is the president and co-founder of Free Speech for People, a non-partisan advocacy group for a new constitutional amendment to limit campaign spending and repeal Citizens United, and the author of Warrior-King: The Case for Impeaching George W. Bush. He is also the co-author of the January 2019 op-ed “Time t...
Roy Cohn White House: The Mueller Report Special, Part II
April 29, 2019 18:44 - 1 hour - 91 MBThis episode picks up where we left off last week in our breakdown of the Mueller Report, in particular the role of Paul Manafort who flagrantly announced his crimes and no one did anything to stop him; the constant underestimation of this transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government that spurred both the press and the Mueller probe to give them a pass; and the revelation that all fifty states were targeted and potentially compromised by Russia in 2016, despite earlier denials.
Roy Cohn White House: The Mueller Report Special, Part I
April 23, 2019 21:03 - 1 hour - 82.1 MBAt long last, the Mueller Report is here, and we are…underwhelmed. In the first episode of a two-part Mueller Report Special, we do an overview of the bizarre sequence of events that led to the Barr Report and the Mueller Report, which have been eclipsed by propaganda and atrocious media coverage. We examine the contents of the report itself, and ask questions like: why did Mueller fail to indict? Why did it take two years for Mueller to release a report on crimes that were documented in the...
Impeach the Nazi-in-Chief
April 10, 2019 04:30 - 1 hour - 74.4 MBWe lay out, yet again, the urgent arguments for impeachment, and fact-check those we often hear against it. We also interview Alexandra Flores-Quilty (@AFQ_92) of the grassroots group By the People (@by_the_ppl) that works with Rep. Rashida Tlaib and other Congressional leaders to call for impeachment hearings. The worsening crisis at the U.S. border; the continued purge of our government leaving crucial key positions unfilled, threatening our national security and public safety; politica...
Lisa Page
April 04, 2019 02:40 - 1 hour - 83.4 MBWe discuss the Barr memo fallout, the insipid media coverage, the unchecked assassins of Russia and Saudi Arabia, Ukraine's election, FBI purges, and more.
The Barr Report
March 27, 2019 22:22 - 1 hour - 99.6 MBAs we’ve said repeatedly at Gaslit Nation, the crisis in the US was never about Trump vs Mueller, but about corruption and exploitation – about massive institutional failure that worsened over multiple decades, culminating in a kleptocracy backed by a transnational crime syndicate. We discuss what’s next for the US and the world as the Trump team ramps up its autocratic goals.
Oleg Sentsov Directs a Film from a Siberian Prison
March 20, 2019 21:53 - 29 minutes - 29.4 MBMarch 2019 marks the five-year anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea. We explain why the fake referendum in Crimea is called a "referendum by gun point" and provide background on Russia's annexation which had been in the works since the mid-2000s. The story of human rights abuses that continue to this day in Russian-occupied Crimea are told through the political prisoner Oleg Sentsov, a filmmaker kidnapped from Crimea and held in a Siberian penal colony on trumped up charges. Despite ...
Impeach Normalization
March 14, 2019 22:18 - 1 hour - 87.5 MBImpeachment sends a message about who we are as a country and what we will accept and abide. The rule of law demands action. Refusing to take action is normalizing atrocity. Lawlessness must be confronted regardless of the outcome, as a matter of principle and conscience. Fighting only the battles that you know you will win is a sure way of ensuring you lose; preemptive surrender, in a rapidly consolidating autocracy, is permanent surrender. The American people have suffered enough under Tru...
Rotting Monuments
March 06, 2019 17:43 - 1 hour - 65.2 MBLike Trump Tower Moscow, which was supposed to be the tallest building in Europe with a penthouse for mass-murderer Putin and an Ivanka Trump branded spa, the White House was another monument for Trump, in a long list of monuments he's built for himself over the years, and one that would help him and his family continue to live above the law.
Brexit and Trump are the Same Crime: The Carole Cadwalladr Interview
February 27, 2019 06:11 - 48 minutes - 39.3 MBWe are thrilled to welcome Carole Cadwalladr to Gaslit Nation. Carole is an investigative journalist who breaks major stories on the Kremlin and Mercer-backed Brexit vote, revealing a cast of nefarious characters that were also behind the election of Donald Trump. Her brave reporting, which won her the Orwell Prize and makes her a target of hit pieces, has uncovered the growing vulnerability of elections in a time of kleptocracy.
Transnational Emergency
February 20, 2019 21:56 - 1 hour - 65.7 MBWe break down decades of intertwined corruption in both the US and the UK and urge officials to seek actual accountability, because time is running out. Kleptocracy anywhere is kleptocracy everywhere, and it is ordinary citizens who pay the most painful price.
Lessons from Ukraine Five Years After the Revolution
February 13, 2019 20:20 - 49 minutes - 46.4 MBUkrainian journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk, the head of the independent media network Hromadske TV, co-founded by a journalist - Mustafa Nayyem - that launched the EuroMaidan revolution with a Facebook post, looks back on lessons from Ukraine for the West. The discussion includes important insights for understanding international conflicts generally, like Ukraine and Venezuela, by focusing on the people caught in the middle and resisting seeing the world as a geopolitical chessboard. Gumenyuk sh...
The Trump Brand of Death
February 06, 2019 16:55 - 1 hour - 84.2 MBThis week, we discuss the continued economic, environmental, and psychological fallout of the government shutdown, and speculate on what’s in store later this month. We have a long discussion about the horrific forced separation of migrant children and parents at the US-Mexico border, which both violates the UN’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and is reminiscent of the worst racist abuses of America’s past. For a family, especially kleptocrat princess I...
Roger Stone: Democracy's Undertaker
January 30, 2019 23:08 - 1 hour - 89.4 MBWelcome to a very angry episode of Gaslit Nation! The government may be back open, but the US is not out of danger – we are merely in the eye of the hurricane as damage from the shutdown mounts and Trump threatens both another shutdown and a scheduled “national emergency.” Sarah and Andrea discuss the toll the shutdown took on workers and how the broader ambition of the GOP – to strip the US down and sell it for parts – continues unimpeded. We note how female representatives like Nancy Pelos...
Coalition of Corruption
January 24, 2019 02:20 - 1 hour - 70.9 MBWe breakdown Trump's war on America in the form of the longest government shutdown in our nation's history, the urgent case for #ImpeachmentNow, and examine Deripaska's very sweet sanctions deal.
The Comey Effect
January 16, 2019 21:49 - 1 hour - 71.1 MBThis isn’t just a shutdown – it’s a hostile restructuring. As the longest shutdown in US history drags on, Sarah and Andrea discuss the incredible toll it’s taken on workers, the economy and national security. We discuss the apocalyptic vision of much of the GOP elite, including rapture-fiend Mike Pompeo and nuke-lover Trump, and how their destructiveness ties into the current goals of the shutdown. We also discuss the NYT non-revelation that Trump is a Russian asset (see every damn episode ...
American Carnage
January 09, 2019 18:13 - 1 hour - 60.8 MBWe continue examining the diastrous fallout of the government shutdown and the toll it’s taken on unpaid federal workers, national parks, and public safety. We debunk the myth that Trump did not understand what the shutdown would entail and argue that this is exactly what he and his camp have wanted: controlled chaos that allows him and other operatives to more easily strip the country down and sell it for parts. With Trump raising the prospect of a “national emergency," we stand on the prec...
Cabinet of Horrors
January 04, 2019 19:31 - 1 hour - 64.7 MBThere is treason in the treasury, nepotism in the government, and corruption everywhere – it may be a new year, but it’s the same sad story for the US! This week Sarah and Andrea discuss the cabinet shakeups that have left our government in the hands of a criminal syndicate bound by blood, marriage, and guilt; the retirement of James Mattis and what it means for US foreign policy, especially in Russia and Ukraine; the explosive Buzzfeed expose on how the Treasury was compromised by the Kr...
Festivus Special: Mueller's Low Hanging Fruit
December 19, 2018 23:23 - 1 hour - 94.6 MBAt Gaslit Nation, every week is Festivus because we have so manygrievances to air! Our Feat of Strength is that we survived 2018. This week, Sarah and Andrea’s Airing of Grievances includes an in-depth look at Russian spy Maria Butina and her NRA “lover” Paul Erickson; a recap of the many criminal acts of Michael Flynn and some speculation as to why he may be eluding punishment; and a long, hard look into the way the mainstream media has covered – or shall we say covered up – the Trump-Russi...
Individual One: The New Name of the GOP
December 12, 2018 22:03 - 1 hour - 75.3 MBIt’s another wild week in the United States of America, where any child can grow up to be Individual One! Actually, that’s not true, you have to choose a life of crime and complicity, and this week’s Gaslit Nation discusses what’s new for the indicted (Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort), the people who failed to stop them (James Comey), the accomplices (John Kelly, Nick Ayers), and the new guy who will likely let everyone walk, Iran-Contra style (William Barr). Sarah and Andrea discuss how extrem...
Kleptocracy World Order
December 05, 2018 22:39 - 1 hour - 92.5 MBIn this week’s Gaslit Nation, Sarah and Andrea express their ongoing frustration about last week’s deja news avalanche of stories about corruption that remains unpunished. As America, the land of collective amnesia, realizes yet again that Trump is a Russian asset following the confessions of Michael Cohen, Sarah and Andrea discuss what it means for brazen, blatant criminals to go caught but unpunished.
Gaslit Nation Featurette: Pass a Law
November 28, 2018 16:40 - 45 minutes - 44.2 MBIn this special episode of Gaslit Nation, Andrea interviews her mother Tanya Chalupa who championed the child carseat law and the seatbelt law in California, as well as working on other child safety bills. She explains how to get a law passed even if, as she was, you're an outsider with very little experience. And yes, the big news of Manafort Monday is broken down - the explosive Guardian scoop - and Russia's escalation of its invasion of Ukraine. Next week, we'll be back to unpack the l...
Happy Thanksgiving: We're Grateful for Canvassers
November 21, 2018 21:54 - 1 hour - 70.1 MBHappy Thanksgiving, Gaslit Nation listeners! Sarah and Andrea are hosting a feast of interesting (and terrifying) commentary from folks around the US as they welcome winners of the Gaslit Nation Get Out the Vote contest onto the show. Our special guests – Valerie Carzello (@ScullyBully) of South Burlington, Vermont, Catherine Snyder (@catherinecritz) of Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Brian Covey (@hidvorak) of Seattle, Washington discuss their experiences as activists in the 2018 election, th...