Welcome to Useful Idiots Monday morning where we watch the Sunday morning news show so that you do not have to. I'm Erin Matte. Katie Halper is out this week and she has, I think, probably the best excuse you could possibly have if you're the founding co-host of a show called Useful Idiots. She's literally in Cuba. I can't think of a better reason to not co-host your show called Useful Idiots than literally

visiting Cuba and trying to break the illegal siege that the US has put on Cuba.

That's what Katie is doing today, visiting the island, seeing for herself the impact of the US blockade.

And so that's a great reason to not be co-hosting useful idiots today.

Because as we know from the years of the Cold War,

if you're someone who like doesn't go along with starving Cuba,

you're called a useful idiot.

So Katie's doing something very noble and we look forward to having her back to report

back on what she sees firsthand on the ground.

Taking her place today, we're very fortunate to be joined by a previous useful audience guest.

She is a journalist, media critic, former correspondent for Al Jazeera, Sana Saeed.

Welcome, Sana.

Thanks for having me back. and I've got big shoes to fill.

Well, I can't think of someone more qualified to sit in today because we're going to be talking about

warmongering in West Asia, blatant bigotry, all the things that you've taken apart for so long.

People will recognize your work from Al Jazeera, the explainers you've done, and just the, you've taken on throughout the course of your career, the barrage of propaganda that we are subjected to to enlist people and things like regime change wars, especially in West Asia. So with all that going on today, we're very happy

you're here to join us to laugh a little bit at what's happening and also to break it down.

So this is my Monday morning coffee, this, everything you just described.

And I'm like, yeah, let's go for it.

All right.

So there's a lot going on.

We have to get to some breaking news.

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