Alexander Aviña on Trump’s new imperialism in Latin America.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe and President Trump at the White House on April 6, 2026.(Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)
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.
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.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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.
Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/subscribe.
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.
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.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Jeet HeerTwitterJeet Heer is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation and host of the weekly Nation podcast, The Time of Monsters. He also pens the monthly column “Morbid Symptoms.” The author of In Love with Art: Francoise Mouly’s Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman (2013) and Sweet Lechery: Reviews, Essays and Profiles (2014), Heer has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The American Prospect, The Guardian, The New Republic, and The Boston Globe.