The CIA’s Assassination Campaign in Mexico
Alexander Aviña on Trump’s new imperialism in Latin America.
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The CIA’s Assassination Campaign in Mexico w/ Alexander Aviña | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
CNN is reporting that the CIA has been actively engaged in assassination campaigns in Mexico targeting alleged members of drug cartels. While both the CIA and the Mexican government have denied these allegations, there is clear evidence of an escalating war in the country that is destabilizing the government. I spoke with Alexander Aviña, a historian at Arizona State University, about the CIA’s activities in the context of the Trump administration’s wider assertion of imperial dominance over the Western hemisphere.
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CIA Director John Ratcliffe and President Trump at the White House on April 6, 2026.
(Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)CNN is reporting that the CIA has been actively engaged in assassination campaigns in Mexico targeting alleged members of drug cartels. While both the CIA and the Mexican government have denied these allegations, there is clear evidence of an escalating war in the country that destabilize the government. I spoke with Alexander Aviña, a historian at Arizona State University, about the CIA’s activities in the context of the Trump administration’s wider assertion of imperial dominance over the Western hemisphere.
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The Nation Podcasts
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
The Obama Center as a Tomb of Neoliberalism w/ Kate Wagner / The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
My Nation colleague Kate Wagner has written a brilliant critical essay on the Obama Center, which just opened in Chicago. I talk to her about how the history of presidential libraries, a now anachronistic form as well as the controversies surrounding the Obama Center’s displacement of public space and the dissatisfying way it memorializes the Obama presidency.
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