
Scheer Intelligence
Scheer Intelligence features thoughtful and provocative conversations with "American Originals" -- people who, through a lifetime of engagement with political issues, offer unique and often surprising perspectives on the day's most important issues.
Latest episodes

Oct 29, 2021 • 45min
Daniel Hale and America’s unending persecution of whistleblowers
John Kiriakou joins Robert Scheer to discuss the plight of the whistleblower, sentenced to 45 months in prison for revealing how often drone strikes kill civilians.

Oct 22, 2021 • 42min
God “caged” in Jersey
Chris Hedges on his 10 years as a teacher and pupil creating theater in the U.S. prison plantation system.

Oct 15, 2021 • 33min
The brave boys who helped end the Vietnam War
Documentary filmmaker Judith Ehrlich joins Robert Scheer on this week’s “Scheer Intelligence” to discuss “The Boys Who Said No,” a documentary about the Vietnam War draft resisters.

Oct 8, 2021 • 56min
Is America’s view of ‘evil’ Russia merely projection?
Joseph Weisberg, a former CIA officer and the creator of the TV show “The Americans,” joins Robert Scheer to examine common misconceptions about the Cold War.

Oct 1, 2021 • 42min
War is a multi-trillion-dollar racket and the Pentagon knows it
Andrew Cockburn brilliantly documents the motivations behind the U.S. military’s war lust in his new book, “Spoils of War.”

Sep 24, 2021 • 37min
The British-American lie that started 30 years of carnage in the Middle East
Journalist Stephen Davis documents in detail the lead up, cover up and aftermath of a 1990 hostage crisis that few recall.

Sep 10, 2021 • 1h 3min
A traitor to torture
In this week’s installment of Scheer Intelligence, host Robert Scheer hears from Kiriakou the inside story of how the the program started as part of a cynical power struggle between the CIA and FBI, why torture does not save lives or secure better intelligence, and how, while the program was started under Republican President George W. Bush, it was a top appointee of President Obama, himself a key architect of the torture program, who chose to prosecute him five years after his interviews with ABC which should have made him a national hero instead of a disgraced felon.

Sep 3, 2021 • 43min
Paradoxical past, present and future of China's "socialist market"
In this week's Scheer Intelligence podcast, host Robert Scheer discusses the paradoxical past, present and future of China's "socialist market" economic model with Nathan Gardels, author of "It Is No Longer Glorious to Get Rich in China," published this week by Noema, a magazine of the Berggruen Institute.

Aug 27, 2021 • 37min
America’s war machine refuses to let Afghanistan go
Maj. Danny Sjursen weighs in on the U.S. exit from Afghanistan and Gen. David Petraeus’ dangerously false narrative about our country’s longest war.

Aug 20, 2021 • 40min
Democrats’ destruction of America’s welfare system is coming back to haunt them
Peter Edelman examines how Americans are still tormented by the specter of President Bill Clinton’s worst domestic policy failure.