In this conversation, Robert Scheer and Nolan Higdon dig into the contradictions at the heart of America’s elite class — the philanthropists, technocrats, and political leaders who publicly preach democracy, equality, and women’s rights while privately orbiting Jeffrey Epstein long after his crimes were known. Higdon walks through the documents, the lies, the intelligence connections, and the cultural implications of a scandal that refuses to fade. What emerges is a portrait of a society where wealth shields wrongdoing, institutions collapse under their own corruption, and the public is left to pick up the pieces.

On today’s episode of Scheer Intelligence, Robert Scheer sits down once again with former CIA analyst Ray McGovern for a rare, unvarnished look at the war in Ukraine, the collapse of nuclear arms control, and the dangerous return of great‑power spheres of influence. McGovern, who spent 27 years briefing presidents from Nixon to Reagan, argues that the conflict was provoked, that Russia believes it has already won, and that the real negotiations now bypass Europe entirely. Scheer pushes back, insisting on the human cost and the moral urgency of ending the war now — not after another round of geopolitical maneuvering. Together, they cut through media narratives and political posturing to expose what’s really at stake: the future of global security, the erosion of diplomacy, and the lives caught in the crossfire.

Today on the show, Joshua Scheer speaks with award‑winning investigative journalist Peter Byrne about the explosive conclusion to his 10‑part Project Censored series on the militarization of artificial intelligence. Byrne’s reporting uncovers how Silicon Valley billionaires, the Pentagon, Wall Street, and corporate media have fused into a single war‑driven superorganism—one that feeds on conflict, surveillance, and profit while pushing humanity toward nuclear brinkmanship.

In this conversation, Byrne dismantles the mythology surrounding companies like Palantir and Anduril, exposes the New York Times for cheerleading a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget, and explains why China is not the existential threat Americans are told to fear. He argues that AI is already embedded in a self‑propelling war machine that may be beyond meaningful human control.

This is a deep dive into empire, technology, and the death‑driven logic of American militarism—and what it will take for life‑affirming movements to resist it.