Glenn Greenwald
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GLENN REACTS TO CBS NEWS VICE-PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

Join us on Locals for our supporters-only After-Show where Glenn reacts, reviews, and critiques the 2024 CBS Vice-Presidential Debate!

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Answering Your Questions About Tariffs

Many of you have been asking about the impact of Trump's tariffs, and Glenn addressed how we are covering the issue during our mail bag segment yesterday. As always, we are grateful for your thought-provoking questions! Thank you, and keep the questions coming!

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In Case You Missed It: Glenn Breaks Down Trump's DOJ Speech on Fox News
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In Case You Missed It: Glenn Discusses Mahmoud Khalil on Fox News
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Listen to this Article: Reflecting New U.S. Control of TikTok's Censorship, Our Report Criticizing Zelensky Was Deleted

For years, U.S. officials and their media allies accused Russia, China and Iran of tyranny for demanding censorship as a condition for Big Tech access. Now, the U.S. is doing the same to TikTok. Listen below.

Listen to this Article: Reflecting New U.S. Control of TikTok's Censorship, Our Report Criticizing Zelensky Was Deleted
U.S. Bombs Iran: Live Reaction & Analysis SOON

Glenn will be livestreaming on YouTube around 1:30pm ET. You can watch live here: https://www.youtube.com/@GlennGreenwald. The reaction will also be posted on Rumble later today.

Sometimes, all we can do is pray for peace -- and meditate on peace. Here's a link to a beautiful 15 minute meditation on peace.

Or just incorporate this affirmation into your own meditation practices:
I am in the temple of quietness
Peace fills my body, peace fills my heart, and dwells within my love
Peace within, without, everywhere.
Infinite peace surrounds all the moments of my existence
Peace unto myself
Peace unto my family
Peace unto my nation
Peace unto my world
Peace unto my cosmos

June 22, 2025

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Ted Cruz with Tucker: a Microcosm of DC's Rotted Wars and Foreign Policy; Will Tulsi Remain as DNI?
System Update #471

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

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We have a great show for you, courtesy of Republican Senator Ted Cruz. The core value of an adversarial press – arguably its only real value – is to force political leaders to account to the public for the decisions they make, especially the most consequential ones. The lack of such an adversarial media, conversely, which is what we have, means that the population never really hears any real explanations for or challenges to their policies. 

Few things illustrate that contrast or illustrates the rot at the heart of America's decades-long bipartisan foreign policy failures quite like the two-hour interview that Tucker Carlson, notably now an independent journalist, conducted this week of GOP Senator Ted Cruz from Texas, who among other revealing statements in that interview, told Tucker that "I came into Congress 13 years ago with the stated intention of being the leading defender of Israel in the United States, and I've worked very hard every day to do that." That's what Ted Cruz admitted to Tucker Carlson for some reason. 

Many of the clips from that interview, published in full just earlier today, quickly went viral all over the internet. That's because it is so rare to watch a U.S. Senator – especially one advocating a brand-new war of regime change in yet another country when usually the media becomes even more subservient than normal, watching a senator be confronted with all the questions every politician ought to be asked in that case, but almost never is. 

In our second segment, what will become of Tulsi Gabbard? She spent years mocking and attacking Donald Trump in his first term for wanting to go to war with Iran instead of reinstating the Iran deal that he withdrew from or renegotiating something similar to it. Her statement as Trump's director of National Intelligence to the Senate just three months ago in March, where she said that the consensus of the intelligence community is that Iran was not seeking nuclear weapons, was not only ignored by Trump, but mocked by him. He said he "didn't care" what Tulsi Gabbard says. She has also been excluded from key war planning meetings leading up to the decision to join or support Israel's war in Iran. Is there any way for Tulsi Gabbard, someone whom I know personally to be a person of integrity and especially personal pride, to cling to this position in light of all of this? 

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I've long been a vociferous critic of the corporate part of the U.S. media, which long was its mainstream faction. It is increasingly no longer the mainstream part, but it's still corporatized and still yields a lot of influence. People often argue whether the media has a liberal or a conservative bias, something I never found helpful as a metric for understanding the real role of the corporate media, the real failure of the corporate media. Being people who graduate from East Coast colleges, especially the national media, located in metropolitan cities on the East Coast, like New York and Washington, of course, most of the people who work in major media outlets are Democrats or even liberals on things like social issues but when it comes to economic policy or especially foreign policy, there is no real left-right ideology that defines most major news outlets. 

They were, after all, despite how liberal you think they might be, the leading institutions that helped sell the war in Iraq. They've long been crucial to propaganda about the Cold War, working together with the CIA and the U.S. government – they continue to do that – they're really servants of the U.S. intelligence community, of the U.S. security state. They help sell wars. As a result, whenever it's time to advocate for a new war, the U.S. corporate media becomes even more compliant, even more subservient in the face of national politicians who are advocating for wars. 

They're treated like purveyors of great wisdom, who are there to be treated with respect and deference because they're advocating war, and it's time to get solemn and united. That's what the media thinks its job is, not to become extra skeptical and extra scrutinizing as they should whenever something as consequential as a war is about to be foisted yet again on the American people. 

That's what made Tucker Carlson's interview of Republican Senator Ted Cruz this week, which is practically two hours long, so notable, so revealing: Tucker not only went in with an extremely adversarial interview. He's been very clear about the fact that he opposes Ted Cruz's foreign policy. Ted Cruz has been a major vocal supporter of financing the war in Ukraine. Obviously, Tucker Carlson was so vocal in opposition to that. That's what got him fired from Fox News, despite being the most watched program in the crucial eight o'clock prime time hour. 

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I'm sure Ted Cruz knew Tucker was going to be adversarial in his questioning. After all, Tucker has also become a leading opponent of having the U.S. and Donald Trump get the United States involved in Israel's war with Iran, whereas Ted Cruz is not only a proponent of having U.S. help Israel destroy its nuclear facilities, but also Ted Cruz wants to be a regime change war. He wants the ultimate goal of this war to be changing the regime of Iran, like we did in 1953 when the CIA engineered a coup of their democratically elected leader and installed a “monarch” who became a repressive, brutal dictator, the Shah of Iran, who ruled over that country for 26 years. He was so hated that that's what provoked the Iranian revolution, the Islamic revolution of 1979. Of course, those people who overthrew that dictator knew the United States was the one who engineered the imposition of the dictatorship, who propped it up, who financed it, who supported it with intelligence and military weapons, that the jails for dissidents were built with American money, the weapons used by their secret police came from the United States. 

Of course, the revolution was ushered in with a lot of animosity toward the United States. That's when they took hostages at the U.S. embassy because they saw the United States, rightfully so, as their enemy, who had imposed this dictatorship for 26 years and then spawned decades of anger and animosity and hatred emanating from Iran, for the same reason that the CIA calls blowback if you go into another country interfering in that country and impose dictatorships on them, bomb them, invade them, you're going to produce a lot of anti-American rage for good reason that would come back at you in the form of terrorist attacks or other things like that. It's very basic human nature. If you attack another country, they're going to dislike you and want to attack back. 

So, the idea of once again doing regime change in Iran, as Ted Cruz wants to, as Lindsey Graham wants to, as Tom Cotton wants to, as Netanyahu wants to – they actually want to install the Shah of Iran's idiot son, who basically has made himself into a loyalist to Israel and the United States, knowing that's how his father kept power as well. He has no connection to Iran, he hasn't lived there for decades, he's been educated in the West, he's being enriched by the West, there are pictures of him in a yamaka at the Western Wall in Israel, constantly making defenses of Israel in the United States. That's who ultimately the Ted Cruzes, Lindsey Grahams and Netanyahus of the world want to reinstall as the leader of this very important country, very important in terms of oil resources, geopolitics, its proximity to the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, all sorts of vital geopolitical and economic resources that currently Iran controls but that the United States wants to control through Israel. 

So it's a massively consequential and an extremely risky proposal, to put that very mildly, to advocate as Ted Cruz is, another regime change war after all the ones we fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Vietnam, which have all been utterly disastrous on every level, not just for the countries where we fought them, but especially for the United States and American citizens as well. 

 

Carlson went to this interview to really get questions about Ted Cruz's view about why it's in America's interest to go and fight for Iran or whether really fighting for Israel. But he also wanted to understand how much Ted Cruz knew and knows about this country, whose government he wants to change, this country that he wants to bomb, have the United States start a new war with and change their government. If you feel competent to say, “We're going to go in and we're going to change that government and good things are going to happen,” you should know a pretty good amount about that country, like who lives there, what the composition of the people are, what their views are, what the factions are, how many people live there, what the size of it is – you know very basic things that you probably would learn from a geography class in 10th grade or like a freshman class on Middle East history in college. You would think a United States senator proposing a major war, especially a regime change war, would know that. 

So, Tucker Carlson wanted to see how much Ted Cruz understood. What was his understanding about this country, Iran, a very complex country with a very long and rich history, from the Persian Empire, how much he actually knows about Iran and how that knowledge integrates into his desire to have the U.S. fight a regime change war. 

Here is the outcome of Tucker Carlson seeking that understanding. 

 

Video. Tucker Carlson, Ted Cruz, TCN. June 18, 2025. 

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Trump Declares the War in Iran to Be His Own; Journalist Ken Klippenstein on Trump's War Plans, DC Dems, and More
System Update #470

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

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Ever since the Israelis attacked Iran on Thursday night, many of Donald Trump's most passionate supporters have raised questions about the extent to which Trump knew or was involved in this new war. In one sense, that concern is understandable. Many of them believe Trump's repeated promises for years to keep the U.S. out of new wars, especially new wars in the Middle East, and they did not want to believe that he had violated that promise so radically and so quickly, less than five months in office by sanctioning and involving the United States in a new war with Iran. 

But those denials have grown increasingly implausible every day as Trump has now boasted of his involvement and repeatedly made clear the central role that he and the United States played in the planning, launching and coordinating of this war. Whatever remaining doubts still lingered about whether Trump's role was as significant as he claimed were completely crushed by Trump himself today, as the President issued a series of tweets – one more unhinged and war-drunk than the next – proclaiming that we – "we" meaning the United States – now dominate and control the skies over Tehran. He also ordered the Iranians to accept the deal that he told them to sign, threatening them with serious devastation if they refused. 

We’ll also talk to the independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, who breaks many stories, genuinely breaking stories on his Substack, where he went after wisely deciding to quit the Intercept last year. He receives many leaks from sources inside the intelligence community – not the official and authorized leaks: those are for Barack Ravid at Axios – but he gets the unauthorized ones from mid-level or even low-level employees of the U.S. Government. 

Ken has a new story out tonight about war plans of Trump for Iran that were leaked to him, regarding the Israelis and the Americans' designs on Iran. We’ll discuss that as well as a variety of other issues concerning this brand-new war, various happenings in Washington, and more. 

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U.S. and Israel vs Iran: Repeating War on Iraq Scripts; Overwhelming Bipartisan Consensus for Israel's Wars
System Update #469

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

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The war initiated by Israel against Iran last Thursday was dangerous from the start and has each day only become more dangerous. President Trump has boasted of his pre-war coordination with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He's already been using U.S. military assets to protect Israel. He's now even re-deploying aircraft carriers in the Pacific, where we're told they are guarding against America's greatest enemy – China – now to the Middle East, where Israel has demanded they go to support its war. 

Just a few minutes ago, President Trump ordered the 16 million people who live in Tehran to immediately evacuate a city where it's now 2 a.m. 

With Israel, as always, demanding more. Now, they want the U.S. planes and bombs to destroy Iran's underground nuclear facilities for them. The former Israeli defense minister went on CNN just an hour ago and told President Trump in the U.S. that it's our obligation to fight this war with them. And for them, President Trump has repeatedly opened the possibility of even greater U.S. involvement in the war. 

There are so many aspects of this new conflict worth covering and dissecting –and we will do so throughout the week – but tonight we want to focus on the amazing ease the U.S. government has in convincing its population to support whatever new war is presented to it. Over four years ago, intense war propaganda from the U.S. political class and media persuaded Americans to want to fund and arm the war in Ukraine – a war that is still dragging on with no favorable end in sight – and overnight huge numbers of people in the United States have suddenly become convinced without having ever said so previously that war with Iran is some sort of moral imperative as well as a strategic necessity for the survival of American citizens of the United States. 

No matter how debunked, discredited and disgraced that Iraq war narrative has become, as long as one just waits 20 or 25 years, then, apparently, that same script just works like magic all over again. You just haul it out, fearmongering, and huge numbers of people respond by saying, "Yes, let's go to war, let' kill people." 

We'll examine all of that, as well as the standard bipartisan unity in support of new American wars and especially wars involving Israel, you hear Democrats almost unanimously, either staying quiet or praising President Trump, with just a few exceptions from both parties. And we'll look at that as well. 

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If you're an American citizen as an adult, you have seen the United States repeatedly go to war. Anyone 18 or over has seen the United States involved in all sorts of wars and that's after the Iraq war, which is now 22 years ago. Essentially, if you're American, it means forever, for a long, long time, for many decades, that you are a citizen of a country that's always at war. 

After World War II, there was a very visible and clear pattern, which is that the U.S. government convinces its citizens, enough of them, to support the war at the beginning. They deluge them with war propaganda, which is extremely strong, primal, tribal and enough Americans initially support the war to let the U.S. government politically go and drop bombs or finance some other country to go drop bombs for it. Then, after six months, a year, or two years, or four years, polls show that Americans overwhelmingly oppose the war that they were convinced to support. Going back to the war in Vietnam, throughout the 1980s’ wars, the War on Terror in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Syria, in Libya, the financing of the war in Ukraine, Israel's destruction of Gaza, bombing Yemin and now this new war that the United States is becoming increasingly involved in, in lots of different ways and we're only on the fifth day.

You just see so many Americans on a dime the minute a new war is presented to them, with whatever pretext can be conjured, even if they're exactly the same pretext that most Americans lived through watching proved to be complete lies the last time it was used in 2003, even though it's exactly the same script, exactly the same pretext, coming from exactly the same people. You can get enough Americans to immediately stand up and start cheering for death and destruction and bombing. Not all, a very substantial minority oppose it, I think if the U.S. overtly gets even more involved in the war in Iran, obviously anything resembling ground troops entering Iran, but even perhaps prolonged bombing of Iran as well through U.S. jets and bombs, as President Trump has indicated and Israel has demanded, maybe some of that will erode, that support will erode. But all that's needed is enough support at the beginning of the war to let the government start it. And once the U.S. government enters the war, it doesn't matter anymore whether the people continue to support it; then it's just already done. All the normal arguments are assembled about why we can't stop, why we can't cut and run, why that would be appeasement, etc., etc. All the same scripts all the time, used over and over, and even though they get proven to be discredited, or unpersuasive, or full of lies, you just use the same ones each time. And that's how the United States stays as a country at war.

We've been hearing a lot of people saying, “Look, I'm happy that Israel is bombing Iran, as long as the U.S. has no involvement in the war, we don't enter it, we don't have to pay for it. As long as it's not our war, I'm fine with it.” But, of course, the entire Israeli military is funded by American taxpayers. Every time Israel has a new war, the weapons that it uses come from the United States, transferred to Israel. We pay for their wars, we arm their wars, we support diplomatically those wars and we use our military assets every single time and our intelligence apparatus to support and enable the war, as the United States is already doing. We already have multiple new U.S. military assets ordered to the region by President Trump. They're already active in protecting Israel from retaliation. President Trump openly said that he is considering the possibility of involving the U.S. even more directly in this war with Iran: "We're not involved in it. It's possible we could get involved. But we are not at this moment involved," the president said. (ABC News. June 15, 2025.)

That all depends on what you mean by ‘involved.’ We're paying for the war, we're arming the war, we've deployed military assets that are actively now trying to shoot down missiles coming from Iran as retaliation for the Israelis launching a completely unprovoked attack on Iran, based on the claim that Iran was about to get nuclear weapons, just weeks away, something they've been saying for 30 years, as we've shown you many times, same thing that was said in 2002. 

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