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Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté

Israel’s Plan BACKFIRES, Iranians Rally Around Government

Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté

Useful Idiots, LLC

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.54.6K Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2026

⏱️ 38 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Check out Ali's excellent YouTube show Jedaal: https://www.youtube.com/@JedaalEnglish

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Click here for the full interview with Iranian Journalist Ali Alizadeh: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/full-episode-israels-plan-backfires?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Watch this week's Friday Free-For-All: Let's talk about the Democrats who gave Trump a standing ovation for bombing Iran https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/lets-talk-about-the-democrats-who?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Join us LIVE on Youtube every Monday at 10am EST for Monday Mourning, where we watch the Sunday morning news shows so that you don't have to.

The big question hanging over the world right now is whether Trump, the guy who campaigned against endless wars, especially in the Middle East, is about to launch another endless war in the Middle East, assembling the largest military deployment there since the Iraq War and threatening to bomb Iran.

There have been indirect talks in Geneva between the US and Iran, but the Trump Administration is still talking as if it wants to go to war because it sounds a lot like the Bush Administration when they were making the case to go to war with Iraq.

Just this week, Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff claimed, without evidence, that Iran is a week away from having enough uranium for a nuclear weapon. Which means the WMD hoax is back in full swing.

To understand all this, we spoke with Iranian journalist Ali Alizadeh, host of the excellent YouTube show Jedaal.

Useful Idiots: There has just been a third round of indirect talks held between the US and Iran in Geneva. Based on what you’ve heard so far, what is your assessment of these talks?
Ali Alizadeh: Americans have claimed they don’t want Iran to ever reach nuclear weapons, and Iranians have provided something which can give them such guarantee.
But then if you just listen to the Americans, just before the two sides were supposed to sit at the negotiation table, it seems that they are cheating. Vance talked about the fact that the president has all the options on the table, and again threatened Iran militarily. Marco Rubio suddenly said Iran’s missiles and navy are a threat to the peace and security of America.
Since when has Iran’s navy has been a threat? Iran has a navy in its own waters, which is called the Persian Gulf, and it’s been called that since 2,500 years ago.
And then your navy and your aircraft carriers have come from 15,000 kilometers away to their land. So how can the Iranian Navy be a threat to your security? And so they are constantly adding pressure and trying to squeeze other things into the negotiation, which in my opinion can sabotage the deal.
Useful Idiots: Do you think there’s a chance of an actual deal being reached?
Ali Alizadeh: If Iran and America were sitting at a negotiation table, I think Iran could have given Trump something which was stronger than the JCPOA and would send him home happy so he could sell it to his people that he did something better than Obama.
But is Iran negotiating with the United States? Or is it negotiating with Israel? Who is Steve Witkoff? Who is Jared Kushner? Because it seems that Israel has a completely different agenda, which is constantly pushing Trump. And now Trump, I think because of his lack of expertise in diplomacy and politics, despite what he thinks of himself, has badly cornered himself.
Useful Idiots: You spoke about how you think that Trump miscalculated the strength of the Iranian government and how he’s actually strengthened the government, because the actions of the United States and the actions of Israel, flaunting the role of foreign intervention in people’s faces, has actually rallied the masses around the government. Can you talk more about that?

Subscribe to watch our full interview with Ali Alizadeh on what actual Iranians want to change about their government, Nancy Pelosi’s murderous threat to working-class Iranians, and an update on the Geneva talks from an Iranian official.

00:00 Intro

00:59 JD Vance WMD Hoax

02:32 Marco Rubio CONTRADICTS Trump

03:24 Sen. Markwayne Mullin does the dumb version of warmongering

05:39 Does he really not know who the leader of Iran is?

06:14 Ali Alizadeh interview

08:56 Israel is trying to sabotage US-Iran talks

11:46 Marco Rubio makes up a threat

23:58 EMBARRASSING moment in Congress with the National Endowment for Democracy

34:40 Do Iranians like their government?



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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello and welcome to Useful Idiots.

0:07.0

I'm Katie Halper.

0:08.0

I'm Mary Matte. Thank you so much for being here. Our website is Useful Idiots Podcast.com.

0:12.0

Go there to support the show and get bonus content. This week, we'll be talking about Iran. Is

0:18.6

Trump going to bomb or will diplomacy succeed?

0:22.2

There has been a round of talks in Geneva that apparently went not bad. And so we'll see if

0:29.1

another U.S. intervention for the very same kind that Trump claimed he was against when he ran for

0:34.5

office will be avoided. And we'll be speaking to Ali Ali Zadeh, who is an Iranian political analyst all about that.

0:42.1

And what's happening inside of Iran as the country faces the threat of a Trump regime change war.

0:49.3

But first, we do a weekly recap segment called the Friday Free For All.

0:52.6

It's for our paid subscribers.

0:53.6

If you're a free subscriber, here is a preview.

0:58.8

The big question hanging over the world right now is whether Trump, the guy who campaigned

1:02.9

against endless wars, especially in the Middle East, is about to launch another endless war

1:08.0

in the Middle East, assembling the largest U.S. military deployment

1:11.4

in the Middle East since the Iraq War, threatening to bomb Iran. They're having these talks

1:15.9

in Geneva, indirectly between the U.S. and Iran. Reportedly, as we're recording this,

1:23.1

at least the Iranian side says that they've gone positively, so we'll see where that goes. But the Trump

1:29.6

administration is still very much talking as if it wants to go to war because it sounds a lot like

1:34.9

how the Bush administration sounded when they were making the case to go to war with Iraq,

1:39.2

claiming there's a big threat that we have to stop. Steve Wickoff just a few days ago said that Iran is a week away from having enough uranium for a bomb. And here is Vice President Jady Vince picking up the baton when it comes to fear mongering over Iran's supposed nuclear ambitions. But the principle is very simple. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

2:02.1

If they try to rebuild the nuclear weapon, that causes problems for us.

...

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