For more than a decade, Gelareh Kiazand reported from some of the world's most complicated and misunderstood places.

From covering life under the Taliban in Afghanistan to documenting everyday life inside Iran, her work focused on telling stories from the ground — often in places where politics, war, and international headlines rarely capture the full picture.

In this conversation, Shane Smith sits down with Gelareh to reflect on years of reporting across Iran and Afghanistan, the realities of covering conflict, and what journalists can learn by spending time with the people who actually live through these events.

Featuring archival VICE reporting and footage from recent reporting in Tehran, they discuss war, sanctions, media narratives, daily life, and the challenge of understanding countries that are often reduced to headlines and geopolitics.

After decades covering the region, one thing remains true:Showing up still matters.

In this episode:

• Reporting from Afghanistan during the war
• Life under the Taliban and what changed after the withdrawal
• What everyday life in Iran looks like beyond the headlines
• The challenges of reporting from conflict zones
• Journalism, propaganda, and competing narratives
• Sanctions, politics, and ordinary people
• How VICE reported from places few Western outlets could access
• Why being there still matters

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Ken Burns has spent more than five decades telling America's story. From The Civil War and The Vietnam War to Baseball, Jazz, and The U.S. and the Holocaust, his films have shaped how generations of Americans understand their country.

In this conversation, Shane Smith sits down with the legendary filmmaker to talk about much more than documentaries. Together they explore why America feels so divided, whether we're living through another turning point in history, the collapse of shared facts, the changing media landscape, and why Burns believes understanding our past is essential to navigating our future.

Burns also reflects on his early films Brooklyn Bridge and The Statue of Liberty, the making of The Civil War and The Vietnam War, the importance of PBS, and why documentary filmmaking still matters in an age of algorithms, clips, and social media.

After a lifetime studying America's greatest triumphs and deepest failures, Ken Burns keeps coming back to one simple idea:

"There's only us.”

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In this episode:

• The story behind Brooklyn Bridge and Burns' first documentary

• Why The Civil War became a cultural phenomenon

• The making of The Vietnam War

• Why PBS has been essential to documentary filmmaking

• Journalism vs. history

• The collapse of shared reality

• Social media, AI, and the future of truth

• Political polarization and America's recurring cycles

• What history says about our future

• Why Ken Burns still believes there's reason for hope

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Who actually controls the biggest secret in modern history?

For decades, UFOs were treated as conspiracy theories, fringe science, or tabloid fodder. Today, senators, intelligence officials, military officers, and even presidents are publicly discussing unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs). What changed?

This week, Shane sits down with filmmaker Dan Farah, director of The Age of Disclosure to discuss the growing push for government transparency around UAPs, the role of defense contractors, congressional investigations, declassified documents, and the battle currently unfolding inside Washington over what the public should know.

The conversation goes far beyond aliens.

Shane and Dan explore the idea of a decades-long "legacy program," whether critical information has migrated from government agencies into private contractors, why recent disclosures may be happening now, the role of China and a potential technological arms race, and whether the real story is less about extraterrestrials and more about power, secrecy, and accountability.

They also discuss Steven Spielberg's influence on Farah's work, the making of The Age of Disclosure, media stigma, FOIA requests, whistleblowers, and what full disclosure could mean for science, technology, and society.Topics include:

• The making of The Age of Disclosure

• Steven Spielberg and Ready Player One

• Government transparency and secrecy

• Congress vs. the intelligence community

• The "legacy program"

• Defense contractors and oversight

• China and the UAP technology race

• FOIA and declassified records

• Media stigma around UFOs

• What disclosure could actually look like

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Before the interview, Shane reviewed hundreds of pages of UAP documents in our custom PDF Space. Explore the files yourself here: https://adobe.ly/ViceUAPFilesYT

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Shane Smith and Andrew Callaghan sit down with the anonymous creator behind Explosive Media, the Iranian team whose AI-generated LEGO videos became one of the most viewed and controversial media phenomena of the recent Iran-Israel conflict. With a team of fewer than ten people, their videos reached hundreds of millions of viewers and sparked debate about propaganda, AI, meme culture, and the future of information warfareIn this rare interview, the creators explain why they chose LEGO animation to depict war, how a team of fewer than ten people reached hundreds of millions of viewers, and why they believe modern conflicts are increasingly fought through algorithms, social media, and information warfare rather than traditional media alone.
The conversation explores propaganda, AI-generated content, meme culture, Jean Baudrillard's theory of hyperreality, President Trump's social media strategy, and the future of political storytelling in an age where billions of people experience world events through their phones.
The group also responds to questions about their relationship with the Iranian government, whether their work should be considered propaganda, and why they describe themselves as "guerrilla soldiers in the propaganda war.”
As AI tools become more powerful and media becomes increasingly decentralized, this conversation offers a glimpse into what the future of information warfare may look like.
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What happens when artificial intelligence becomes more powerful than the institutions meant to govern it?
Shane Smith sits down with Aza Raskin, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, creator of Infinite Scroll, and one of the leading voices on AI ethics, for a wide-ranging conversation about the future of AI, warfare, work, politics, and humanity itself. This conversation is a starting point, not a conclusion. Explore additional perspectives, research, and open questions about the future of AI in our Adobe Acrobat PDF Space: https://adobe.ly/SSHQ

Fresh off a trip with the U.S. Army, Shane shares what he saw: autonomous vehicles, AI-enabled systems, and drones that felt like the beginning of a new era of warfare. Together, he and Aza explore the biggest questions facing society as AI rapidly advances.

They discuss:

• Autonomous weapons and the future of war
• Why AI has become a global arms race
• The race between the U.S. and China
• Whether governments understand what's coming
• AI's impact on jobs and the economy
• Social media, Infinite Scroll, and digital addiction
• The future of regulation and governance
• Earth Species Project and using AI to understand animal communication
• Dark matter, intelligence, and human perception

Is AI humanity's greatest tool—or our greatest challenge?

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How is AI changing modern warfare? And are we already entering the age of autonomous war?

Shane Smith and VICE News travel to Morocco for African Lion 2026 — one of the largest military exercises in the world — to get an inside look at the technologies rapidly transforming the battlefield.

From AI-assisted targeting systems and autonomous combat vehicles to suicide drones, robotics, quantum computing, and next-generation military communications, Shane embeds with U.S. AFRICOM and the young soldiers building the future of warfare in real time.

In this episode of Shane Smith Has Questions, Shane speaks with General Davin R.M. Anderson, Commander of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and 1st Lt. Vincent Gasparri, Innovation Team Lead 173rd Airborne Brigade, who leads a new generation of military innovators developing drone systems inspired by lessons from Ukraine, Iran, and modern asymmetric warfare.

The conversations explore:

• AI on the battlefield
• Autonomous weapons systems
• Drone warfare and counter-drone tech
• Robotics and future combat
• Quantum computing and encryption
• The ethics of AI warfare
• Terror threats in Africa
• How Ukraine changed military strategy
• The future of the U.S. military

As wars become increasingly automated, Shane asks the question everyone is thinking:

Are we prepared for a future where AI helps run wars?

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As tensions between the United States, Israel, and Iran continue to escalate, Shane Smith travels to Tehran for a rare interview with Esmail Baghaei, spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry.Esmail Baghaei has been in the news today, confirming that Iran is examining the U.S. response to Iran’s latest peace proposal, delivered through Pakistan. As a potential deal to end hostilities hangs in the balance, we gave the Iranian government representative the opportunity to respond directly to accusations about its nuclear program, President Trump’s claims that Iran is “begging” for a deal, the Strait of Hormuz crisis, sanctions, regional escalation, and the growing fear of a wider war in the Middle East.
The spokesperson argues that Iran has been unfairly targeted by the U.S. and Israel for decades, blames the U.S. and Israel for escalating the conflict, and warns that continued military pressure could destabilize the entire region.

Shane pushes back throughout the interview, asking why Iran continues pursuing nuclear energy despite mounting international pressure, whether peace is realistically possible, and what the Iranian government believes Americans fundamentally misunderstand about Iran.Topics include:

• Iran’s response to Trump and U.S. military pressure
• Israel’s role in the conflict
• The Strait of Hormuz and global energy fears
• Nuclear weapons accusations
• Sanctions and frozen Iranian assets
• Regional escalation and Gulf states
• The collapse of diplomacy after the JCPOA
• Why Iran says it does not want war

Recorded in Tehran.

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After the latest U.S. government release of UAP/UFO files, filmmaker and investigative journalist Jeremy Corbell returns to Shane Smith Has Questions for a deep dive into what may be the biggest disclosure moment yet.

Jeremy and Shane Smith break down the new government “data dump,” the whistleblowers testifying under oath, military footage from Syria and the famous Tic Tac encounters, alleged reverse-engineering programs, non-human intelligence claims, and why Corbell believes this is only the beginning.

They also discuss:

• Corbell’s new documentary Sleeping Dog
• The Pentagon’s latest UAP releases
• The 46 videos Congress allegedly requested
• The Syria 2021 footage
• David Fravor and the Tic Tac incident
• Government secrecy and “the military industrial complex”
• Fear surrounding whistleblowers
• Whether real disclosure is finally happening

“This is the biggest story in human history.” — Shane Smith

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What happens when America never learns the lessons of its longest wars? Former Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko joins Shane Smith for a brutally honest conversation about Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Ukraine, corruption, contractors, the military-industrial complex, and the trillion-dollar cycle of endless war. After overseeing more than 700 investigations into waste, fraud, and abuse during the 20-year war in Afghanistan, Sopko explains how America spent trillions, empowered corruption, radicalized populations, and repeated the same mistakes over and over again — while contractors, bureaucracies, and political interests kept the machine running. The conversation dives into:

• The real legacy of Afghanistan
• Why “nation building” failed
• How war spending fuels the contractor economy
• Why Iran could become another endless conflict
• The “Iron Triangle” between Congress, the Pentagon, and defense contractors
• Ukraine, Gaza, AI warfare, and drones
• Why America struggles to stop wars once they begin
• The dangerous consequences of weak oversight and bad advisors

Sopko also warns that future wars will look nothing like Iraq or Afghanistan — and says the U.S. government is dangerously unprepared for the realities of drone warfare and artificial intelligence. This is one of the clearest insider accounts yet of how modern wars actually work — and who benefits from them.
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San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan joins Shane Smith for a raw conversation about why California feels broken and what it would actually take to fix it.

They discuss the reality behind homelessness, why housing is so expensive, and how bureaucracy and bad incentives have made it nearly impossible to build. Mahan explains how corporate power, regulation, and political complacency have created a system that continually becomes more expensive without delivering better results.

Mahan lays out why he believes California is at an inflection point and what a more pragmatic, results-driven approach could look like if anyone is willing to take it on.

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Scott Galloway sits down with Shane Smith to talk through why the system feels off right now and why more people are starting to notice. They get into how wealth keeps concentrating at the top, why the middle class isn’t growing the way it used to, and how big tech and corporate power quietly shape the rules. Galloway lays out why capitalism only works when the middle class is strong and what happens when it isn’t. The conversation moves through monopolies, tax policy, and the incentives driving both business and politics, all pointing to the same question: what actually changes this trajectory? They also touch on global instability, market fragility, and how close we might be to a real economic reset. It’s a blunt look at where things stand and what could come next if nothing shifts.

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