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Mar 28, 2025
The new documentary The Encampments, produced by Watermelon Pictures and BreakThrough News, is an insider's look at the student protest movement to demand divestment from the U.S. and Israeli weapons industry and an end to the genocide in Gaza. The film focuses on last year's student encampment at Columbia University and features student leaders including Mahmoud Khalil, who was chosen by the university as a liaison between the administration and students. Khalil, a U.S. permanent resident, has since been arrested and detained by immigration enforcement as part of the Trump administration's attempt to deport immigrants who exercise their right to free speech and protest. "Columbia has gone to every extent to try to censor this movement," says Munir Atalla, a producer for the film and a former film professor at Columbia.
We speak with Atalla; Sueda Polat, a Columbia graduate student and fellow campus negotiator with Khalil; and Grant Miner, a former Columbia graduate student and president of the student workers' union who was expelled from the school over his participation in the protests. "Functionally, I was expelled for speaking out against genocide," he says. All three of our guests emphasize their continued commitment to pro-Palestine activism even in the face of increasing institutional repression. The Encampments is opening nationwide in April.
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Mar 28, 2025
We're joined by the four-time Grammy-winning musician Macklemore, a vocal proponent of Palestinian rights and critic of U.S. foreign policy. He serves as executive producer for the new documentary The Encampments, which follows last year's student occupations of college campuses to protest U.S. backing of Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza. He tells Democracy Now! why he got involved with the film and the roots of his own activism, including the making of his song "Hind's Hall," named after the Columbia student occupation of the campus building Hamilton Hall, which itself was named in honor of the 5-year-old Palestinian child Hind Rajab. Rajab made headlines last year when audio of her pleading for help from emergency services in Gaza was released shortly before she was discovered killed by Israeli forces. "We are in urgent, dire times that require us as human beings coming together and fighting against fascism, fighting against genocide, and the only way to do that is by opening up the heart and realizing that collective liberation is the only solution," Macklemore says.
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Mar 28, 2025
Major Earthquake Strikes Burma and Thailand, Collapsing Buildings as Rescuers Rush to Find Survivors, Israeli Attacks on Gaza Continue After It Broke Ceasefire, Killing More Students and Aid Workers, Israel Attacks Southern Lebanon, Beirut in Flagrant Breach of Ceasefire, Marco Rubio Says Rumeysa Ozturk Is One of "More Than 300" Visa Holders Targeted by Trump, U.S. Court in New Jersey Hearing Arguments in Mahmoud Khalil Case, U.S. and Colombia Agree to Share Biometric Data of Immigrants, Protesters in El Salvador Denounce Nayib Bukele's Human Rights Abuses, Collaboration with Trump, Turkish Authorities Escalate Crackdown on Protesters and the Media Amid Political Crisis, U.S. Escalates Yemen Airstrikes, Bringing Total Deaths Since March 15 to at Least 57, U.S. Judge Orders Waltz, Vance, Rubio to Preserve Messages from Signal War Group Chat, HHS Cutting 10,000 More Jobs as DOGE Carries Out Mission to Gut the Government, "We Can Eliminate an Entire District Court": Mike Johnson Escalates Attack on Courts That Defy Trump, Trump Withdraws Elise Stefanik Nom for U.N. Ambassador as GOP Frets Over Slim House Majority, New York County Clerk Refuses to Enforce Texas Penalty Against NY Abortion Provider, Trump EO Orders Gov't Agencies to End Collective Bargaining with Federal Unions, EPA Created Email So Polluters Can More Easily Obtain Exemptions from Environmental Rules, Robert McChesney, Free Press Co-Founder and Staunch Defender of Media and Democracy, Has Died, New Trump EO Aims to Gut Smithsonian Institution
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Mar 27, 2025
Elon Musk was born in 1971 in Johannesburg, South Africa, and raised in a wealthy family under the country's racist apartheid laws. Musk's family history reveals ties to apartheid and neo-Nazi politics. We speak with Chris McGreal, reporter for The Guardian, to understand how Musk's upbringing shaped his worldview, as well as that of his South African-raised colleague Peter Thiel, a right-wing billionaire who co-founded PayPal alongside Musk. "Musk lived what can only be described as a neocolonial life," said McGreal. "If you were a white South African in that period and you had any money at all, you lived with servants at your beck and call."
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Mar 27, 2025
After spending over a quarter of a billion dollars on Donald Trump's presidential election campaign, Elon Musk is pouring money into a Supreme Court election in Wisconsin. Musk has spent more than $18 million to support Trump-backed candidate Brad Schimel over liberal Susan Crawford and has been paying Wisconsin voters $100 to help flip the state's top court. This election could impact abortion rights, unions and Republicans' ability to keep gerrymandered districts in place to control Congress. "The level of corruption at play here, the level of money at play here, really is a warning sign for what's happening to our democracy," says Ari Berman, voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones magazine.
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Mar 27, 2025
Over a thousand protesters gathered near Tufts University on Wednesday after masked plainclothes immigration agents snatched Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts Ph.D. student and Fulbright scholar, from the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts. Surveillance video shows agents approaching her on the streets near her home Tuesday evening and handcuffing her while she screamed for help. Tufts University's president said the school had no prior notice of her arrest. Last March, Ozturk co-wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticizing the Tufts administration's response to Palestinian solidarity protests on campus that were calling for divestment from Israel. Democracy Now!'s Hany Massoud and Ariel Boone were in Somerville at Wednesday's protest. "One of our community members was taken by armed agents of the state who kidnapped her from right outside her home," said Lea Kayali, an activist with the Palestinian Youth Movement. "People are here to stand up for the movement that she was punished for supporting."
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Mar 27, 2025
The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has fired at least five members of its social impact team, including its artistic director, the renowned artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph. The team aimed to expand the art center's reach to diverse audiences and to commission new works by Black composers.
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Mar 27, 2025
ICE Agents Abduct Tufts Ph.D. Student in Escalating Crackdown on Anti-Genocide Campus Protests, ICE Detains Iranian Ph.D. Student in Alabama and Farmworker Union Leader in Washington, Israel Kills Another 25 Palestinians in Gaza, Threatens to "Seize Territory", 17-Year-Old Walid Khaled Abdullah Ahmad Dies in Notorious Israeli Prison, South Sudanese Vice Pres. Machar Is Arrested in Sharp Escalation of Tensions, Sudanese Army Declares "Khartoum Is Free" After Seizing Capital Airport, Brazil's Top Court Says Jair Bolsonaro Must Stand Trial over 2022 Coup, Poisoning Plot, DHS Sec. Noem Parades in Front of El Salvador Supermax Jail as U.S. Courts Block Trump Expulsions, Housing Dept. Collaborating with DHS to Identify Undocumented Residents in Subsidized Housing, White House Announces Scaled-Down Trip to Greenland Even as Trump Insists "We Need Greenland", SCOTUS Backs Regulations on Ghost Guns; Trump Tries to Cancel $65M Teacher-Training Grants, "Capitulation Is the Wrong Way to Go": Dir. Julie Cohen Resigns from duPont-Columbia Award Jury, UC Davis Suspends Law Student Association over Its Vote to Divest from Israel, USAID to Cancel Funding for Global Vaccine Alliance, a Possible Death Sentence for 1.2M Children, Calls Mount for Hegseth and Waltz Resignations as More Signal Chats from Yemen Attack Emerge, "Fire Elon, Not Elmo": Democrats Ridicule GOP Hearing Aimed at Defunding Public Media, Trump Announces 25% Tariffs on Imported Cars and Auto Parts, Democrat Wins PA State Election in Major Upset Ahead of Key U.S. House Races in Florida, Kennedy Center Fires Social Impact Employees, Including Artistic Director Marc Bamuthi Joseph
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Mar 26, 2025
Mass demonstrations are continuing in Turkey, where Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu has been arrested on corruption charges. Since protests broke out last week, Turkish authorities have detained more than 1,400 people, including students and journalists. Imamoglu is the main rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the 2028 presidential election and was recently nominated for president by the Republican People's Party. Erdogan has led the country since 2003, but his popularity has dropped in recent years amid increasingly authoritarian policies cracking down on dissent. "Everyone knows that this is politically motivated and that Erdogan is scared that he's not going to win against Ekrem Imamoglu," says Turkish political scientist Ezgi Basaran.
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Mar 26, 2025
Democratic lawmakers are calling for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Michael Waltz to resign, after they discussed bombing Yemen in a group chat that also included journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. Waltz had set up the chat on the messaging app Signal and appeared to accidentally add Goldberg, who then got a front-row seat as top officials, including Vice President JD Vance, discussed classified information. The attacks ultimately killed dozens of people in Yemen, including children. Journalist Safa Al Ahmad, who has been reporting on Yemen since 2010, says that while Washington is obsessing over the U.S. national security implications of the group chat, there is almost no criticism of the bombing campaign at the heart of the scandal. "They are killing Yemenis with no recourse for Yemenis themselves," says Al Ahmad, who notes that U.S. involvement in attacks on Yemen started almost exactly 10 years ago, when a Saudi-led coalition began bombing the country with support from the Obama administration.
"There was actually no legal rationale under the Constitution for doing these strikes," adds Branko Marcetic, staff writer for Jacobin. "Only Congress is actually able to declare war."
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Mar 26, 2025
The Social Security benefits of millions of people in the United States are at risk as the Trump administration institutes drastic changes billed as "anti-fraud" measures, but which critics say are aimed at weakening the popular program and potentially laying the groundwork to privatize it. The Social Security Administration has already shuttered dozens of offices across the country and is laying off thousands of workers. At the same time, the agency is demanding people make more in-office visits for routine business. The changes are part of government-wide efforts led by billionaire Elon Musk and DOGE, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
"They are destabilizing the program," says Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works and chair of the Strengthen Social Security Coalition. "It's really hard to imagine what they have in mind, what their endgame is, other than destroying our Social Security system."
We also speak with Jacobin staff writer Branko Marcetic, who says Trump's nominee to head the Social Security Administration, financial services executive Frank Bisignano, has a reputation for slashing costs and pushing out staff. "All of that is a pretty grim portent" of his plans for the Social Security Administration, if Bisignano is confirmed, says Marcetic. "The people that are going to be hurt by it are the actual Social Security beneficiaries."
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Mar 26, 2025
Israel Kills 38 Palestinians in Gaza; Israeli Court Orders Dr. Abu Safiya Held for 6 Months More, Palestinian Filmmaker Hamdan Ballal Freed After Being Assaulted by Israeli Settlers & Soldiers, Israel Kills 6 in Syria as U.S. Lanches New Attacks on Yemen, Waltz & Hegseth Face Calls to Resign Over Yemen Attack Plans Disclosure on Signal Chat, U.S. Intelligence Agencies Omit Climate Change as National Threat, Russia and Ukraine Agree to Naval Ceasefire in Black Sea, JD Vance to Join Delegation Headed to Greenland Amid Trump Threats to Seize Territory, ACLU Warns Trump Targeting of Another Law Firm Is "Despotic, Unpresidential", AAUP & Middle East Studies Assoc. Sue Trump for Creating Climate of Repression on Campuses, Salvadorans Protest U.S. Sending Venezuelans to "Imperial Prison", 54 Die in Sudanese Airstrike on Market in North Darfur; South Sudan on Brink of Civil War, 24 Die in South Korea's Largest Wildfires Ever, UNAIDS Warns Millions Could Die from U.S. Aid Cuts, Report: DOGE Employee Known as "Big Balls" Once Helped Cybercrime Gang, Senate Committee Advances Nomination of Dr. Mehmet Oz, Backer of Privatizing Medicare, Trump Signs New Voting Executive Order; Critics Warn Millions Could Be Disenfranchised
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Mar 25, 2025
We go to Gaza for a report on the brutal conditions of Israel's genocide of Palestinians from Abubaker Abed, a 22-year-old journalist who has recently been diagnosed with malnutrition as a result of Israel's total siege of the Gaza Strip. "It's unending misery," says Abed. "We're here stranded. We're seeing the systematic killing of everyone, as Israel is targeting every single one here in Gaza." In the week since Israel's abrupt desertion of its ceasefire agreement, says Abed, the total suffering in Gaza "is much worse than ever before." He pleads for international intervention and accountability. "As long as the world allows Israel to do so, this will not stop."
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Mar 25, 2025
On Monday, Israeli strikes killed two Palestinian journalists: Al Jazeera's Hossam Shabat, who was 23 years old, and Palestine Today's Mohammed Mansour, who was killed in his apartment alongside his wife. This brings the total number of journalists that Israel has killed in Gaza over the past year and a half to 206. Just before his death, Shabat had shared news of Mansour's killing on social media and filed an article with Drop Site News describing Israel's scorched-earth campaign in his hometown of Beit Hanoun. His editor Sharif Abdel Kouddous remembers Shabat as a "warm and funny person," dedicated to his job and his community. In recent months, he had been under increasing surveillance by the Israeli military, which labeled him a terrorist and placed him on a "hit list." Despite being "targeted and openly hunted," Shabat "continued nevertheless to cover the genocide of his people."
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Mar 25, 2025
Hamdan Ballal, the Oscar-winning Palestinian director of No Other Land, was attacked by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank community of Masafer Yatta, arrested by Israeli soldiers and held overnight. The group entered their village and started the assault shortly after residents broke their daily Ramadan fast. Ballal's No Other Land co-director Basel Adra witnessed the attack. He tells Democracy Now! that "settlers and soldiers together attacked [Ballal] physically, brutally, and abducted him," while soldiers pointed guns and fired warning shots at a group of villagers including women and children. Ballal screamed "I'm dying" as he was being beaten. "Although the Israeli military has accused Ballal and two other Palestinians of throwing stones at soldiers, another eyewitness, Jewish American peace activist Anna Lippman, says the accusations are groundless. "The double standard is so strong here in the West Bank that Palestinians know that if they were to touch a stone, that could mean their life." Adra calls on international intervention to end the violent occupation of Masafer Yatta, where "almost every day there is [an] attack." Since this interview was conducted, Ballal has reportedly been released from Israeli custody and returned to his family.
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Mar 25, 2025
"Do Not Let the World Look Away": Israel Kills 2 More Journalists, Incl. Al Jazeera's Hossam Shabat, Israeli Settlers Brutally Attack Hamdan Ballal, Oscar-Winning Filmmaker, in Occupied West Bank, Trump's National Security Team Accidentally Shares Yemen War Plans with Journalist in Signal Chat, U.S. Attacks on Yemen Kills at Least 2 More People in Sana'a, Russian Missiles Injure Dozens in Ukraine's Sumy; Ukraine Kills 6, Incl. 3 Russian Journalists, SCOTUS Rejects Landmark Youth Climate Case, Ending 10-Year Battle That Inspired New Legal Strategy, SCOTUS Rejects Case Challenging NYT v. Sullivan, SCOTUS Hears Arguments in Key Louisiana Redistricting Case, Trump Threatens 25% Tariffs on Countries That Buy Venezuelan Oil, USPS Chief Louis DeJoy Resigns as DOGE Prepares to Gut Agency, U.S. Judge Reaffirms Order Blocking Trump from Expelling Immigrants Using Wartime Order, Columbia Student and Green Card Holder Sues Trump Administration After ICE Attempts to Arrest Her
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Mar 24, 2025
Education Secretary Linda McMahon says Columbia University is on track to regain its federal funding after the Ivy League institution yielded to the Trump administration's demands on Friday. The demands include banning face masks on campus, hiring 36 new security officers with greater power to arrest and crack down on students and appointing a "senior vice provost" to oversee the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies and the Center for Palestine Studies. Students say they will continue to fight for Palestinian rights and for Columbia to divest from Israel, but free speech experts are sounding the alarm. "We have no idea what comes next, but groveling before a bully, we all know, just encourages the bully," says Katherine Franke, former professor at Columbia Law School.
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Mar 24, 2025
Badar Khan Suri is one of the many pro-Palestine scholars being targeted by the Trump administration. Suri, originally from India, is a Georgetown University professor and postdoctoral scholar on religion and peace processes in the Middle East and South Asia. Last Monday evening, Suri was ambushed by masked federal agents with the Homeland Security Department as he and his family returned to their home in Rosslyn, Virginia, after attending an iftar gathering for Ramadan. Suri was taken into custody without being charged with or accused of any crime. He was told the federal government had revoked his visa. Over the next 72 hours, Suri was transferred to multiple immigration detention centers, and he is currently jailed at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana, separated from his wife, a U.S. citizen of Palestinian descent, and his three children. Unlike Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate facing deportation, Suri "is not a political activist," says Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown University. "He was just a very serious young academic focusing on his teaching and his research."
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Mar 24, 2025
The Trump administration has ramped up efforts to target free speech on college campuses and one doctoral student at Cornell University who was involved in pro-Palastinian protests on campus now finds himself targeted for deportation once again. Momodou Taal is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Africana Studies at Cornell University who is a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and the Gambia. He was suspended twice last year for joining a demonstration calling on Cornell to divest from Israel and faced deportation until massive protests pressured Cornell to allow him to reenroll, thereby extending his visa. Earlier this month, Taal, along with two U.S. citizens, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration's executive orders that target foreign nationals who it claims are national security threats. "I believed I was going to be a target eventually," says Taal.
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Mar 24, 2025
Israel Renews Attacks on Gaza's Hospitals as Its Full-Scale War Continues, Erdogan Intensifies Crackdown on Rival Imamoglu as Court Jails the Detained Istanbul Mayor, Columbia Caves to Trump Demands, Outlines Plans to Militarize Campus, Reinforce Censorship, Trump Orders DOJ and DHS to Punish Law Firms That Challenge His Agenda, Trump to Revoke Temporary Status of 530,000 People from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, WaPo: IRS Could Soon Release Personal Data of Immigrant Taxpayers to DHS, U.S. Judge Blocks ICE from Deporting Activist Jeanette Vizguerra, Social Security Head Briefly Threatens to Shut Down Agency, Pentagon Hosts Elon Musk But Skips Briefing on China After Media Reports, Musk's PAC Offers Wisconsin Voters $100 as He Pours Millions into Key Supreme Court Race, U.S. and Russia Hold Talks in Saudi Arabia as Negotiations Continue to End Ukraine War, Sudanese Army Sweeps Major Sites in Khartoum After Seizing Presidential Palace, South African Ambassador Returns Home to Warm Welcome After Expulsion from D.C., South Korean Court Reinstates Prime Minister Han Duck-soo as President Ahead of Yoon Suk Yeol Ruling, Canadian PM Calls for Snap Election to Take On Trump, "Most Significant Crisis of Our Lifetimes", Greenland Pushes Back on "Highly Aggressive" Planned Visit by Members of Trump White House, 34,000 Rallygoers Attend Bernie and AOC's Denver Stop on "Fighting Oligarchy" Tour
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Mar 21, 2025
The U.S. government this week released thousands more records on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, long a source of fascination and intrigue. This is the final batch of JFK files after the federal government began declassifying documents in the early 1990s. While these latest files contain no major revelations about the assassination, they do include many previously redacted details about "the CIA global effort to influence elections, sabotage economies, overthrow governments," says Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst with the National Security Archive, a government transparency organization and research institution. "Now at least we know what was being done in our name but without our knowledge."
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Mar 21, 2025
We speak with the Brennan Center's Faiza Patel, who warns the Trump administration is ramping up efforts to target international students and other visitors and immigrants to the United States over pro-Palestinian speech. The State Department has reportedly launched a new effort using artificial intelligence to help identify and revoke visas for people the government deems to be supporting U.S.-designated terrorist groups, based primarily on the individuals' social media accounts. "Foreign students are running scared," says Patel. She also notes that while "AI-driven sounds really fancy," the process is more likely to be a basic keyword search prone to "rudimentary mistakes."
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Mar 21, 2025
We get an update on legal efforts to stop the Trump administration from deporting Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who has been detained for two weeks despite being a legal resident with a green card. The Trump administration has explicitly said it is targeting Khalil because of his pro-Palestinian advocacy during protests at Columbia University last year, invoking a rarely used provision of immigration law to claim he could undermine U.S. foreign policy. Federal Judge Jesse Furman recently ordered the case to be moved to New Jersey, even though Khalil himself remains locked up in an ICE jail in Louisiana. "In doing so, Judge Furman acknowledged that the right court to hear this is here, in the area where all of these events played out, where Mahmoud's family is, his eight-month-pregnant wife is, his community is and his lawyers are," says Shezza Abboushi Dallal, a member of Khalil's legal team.
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Mar 21, 2025
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday instructing Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to start dismantling her agency, although it cannot be formally shut down without congressional approval. Since returning to office in January, Trump has already slashed the Education Department's workforce in half and cut $600 million in grants. Education journalist Jennifer Berkshire says despite Trump's claims that he is merely returning power and resources to the states, his moves were previewed in Project 2025. "The goal is not to continue to spend the same amount of money but just in a different way; it's ultimately to phase out spending … and make it more difficult and more expensive for kids to go to college," Berkshire says. She is co-author of the book The Education Wars: A Citizen's Guide and Defense Manual and host of the education podcast Have You Heard.
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Mar 21, 2025
Israel Pushes Further into Gaza; Genocide's Death Toll Rises, with 200 Children Killed Since Tuesday, Trump Signs Executive Order to Dismantle the Education Department, U.S. Judge Blocks DOGE from Accessing Personal Info at Social Security Administration, U.S. Judge Slams DOJ for Again Defying Orders as Immigrants Targeted for Deportation over Tattoos, ICE Issues New Contract for GEO Group as NLRB Drops Detainee Abuse Case Against the Prison Co., Trump Rescinds Order Targeting Law Firm After It Agrees to Provide $40M in Legal Services, Reports: Elon Musk Attending Pentagon Briefing on Possible China War Plans, M23 Fighters Capture Another Town in Eastern Congo After Rwanda and DRC Leaders Call for Ceasefire, Sudanese Army Recaptures Presidential Palace in Khartoum, "A Coup to the National Will": Arrests and Mass Protests in Turkey After Arrest of Ekrem Imamoglu, Mediterranean Shipwreck Claims at Least 6 Refugee Lives, with 40 Missing, Off Italian Island, UCLA Students Sue over Suppression of Gaza Protests, Violent Attack by Angry Mob Last Spring, International Student Activist Momodou Taal Sues to Block Trump Orders Targeting Protesters, 1,000 Jewish Activists and Allies Rally for Mahmoud Khalil, House Democrats Start to Openly Call for New Leadership After Schumer Budget Debacle, AOC Joins Bernie Sanders on His Hugely Popular "Fighting Oligarchy" Tour in Red and Swing Districts
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Mar 20, 2025
A legal battle is continuing between the Trump administration and a federal judge over the president's invocation of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to expel over 130 immigrants from the United States to a "mega-prison" in El Salvador over claims that they are members of a Venezuelan gang. Margaret Cargioli, an attorney who is representing one of the men, an LGBTQ asylum seeker who did not have a deportation order when he was effectively disappeared by ICE, says the unilateral expulsion of asylum seekers is "extremely unusual and concerning." Cargioli's client "was not deported. He was sent there unlawfully," and his disappearance not only puts his asylum case at risk, but also his life. CECOT, the prison in El Salvador that the Venezuelan nationals were sent to, is infamous for torture and other human rights abuses, while Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's authoritarian rule has been marked by a long-running suspension of due process rights. Juan Pappier, who has investigated the prison system in El Salvador for Human Rights Watch, says "people who are sent to CECOT will never be allowed out."
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Mar 20, 2025
The new book Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful by The New York Times business investigations editor David Enrich chronicles an ongoing campaign by the wealthy and powerful to overturn the landmark Supreme Court decision New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which in 1964 established bedrock protections against spurious defamation and libel cases in the U.S. legal system. By "subject[ing] people to this torturous, long-running and extremely expensive legal process," those who can afford to pay for expensive and threatening defamation lawsuits can silence any public criticism and suppress others' rights to free speech, says Enrich. "It has huge implications for our democracy and the ability of everyone to speak their mind."
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Mar 20, 2025
A jury in North Dakota has ordered Greenpeace to pay more than $660 million in damages for defaming Energy Transfer Partners, the corporation behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Texas-based pipeline company accused Greenpeace of orchestrating criminal behavior by training and providing funds to the Indigenous-led protests at Standing Rock. Greenpeace and its supporters, including other nonprofits and advocacy groups, argued that the lawsuit is part of a conspicuous attempt by corporations to destroy the right to free speech. Longtime human rights and environmental lawyer Steven Donziger, who was part of the independent trial monitoring team observing the trial, says it was purposely held in a region of the country with deep ties to the fossil fuel industry. Donziger said most of the jurors in the case were connected to the industry and were "predisposed" to rule in favor of Energy Transfer despite the "false narratives" presented at the trial. Greenpeace plans to appeal the ruling.
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Mar 20, 2025
Israel Kills Another 100 Palestinians; Death Toll Tops 700 in 3 Days Since Gaza Ceasefire Withdrawal, Israel Forces Gazans to Flee Once Again in Renewed Genocidal Campaign, "This Was Not an Accident": U.N. Condemns Deadly Israeli Attack on U.N. Facility, International Legal Coalition Will Pursue Israelis Involved in Gaza War Crimes, U.S. Continues Attacks on Yemen and Houthi Movement, Global Protests for Gaza Continue After Israel Resumes All-Out War, Zelensky Agrees to Pause Energy Attacks; Trump Says He Wants Ownership of Ukraine's Nuclear Plants, "An Attack on the 1st Amendment": Greenpeace Ordered to Pay $667M over Standing Rock Protests, Trump to Issue Executive Order to Dismantle Education Department, Education Department Sued for Freezing Student Loan Repayment Plans, Justice Department Removes Guidance to Businesses on Disability Rights, ICE Detains Georgetown Researcher Who Spoke Out For Palestinian Rights, Trump Administration Freezes $175 Million in Funds to UPenn over Trans Athletes, Judge Transfers Case of Jailed Palestinian Activist Mahmoud Khalil to New Jersey, CAIR Calls on Harvard and UNH to Cancel Professorships of Former Biden Advisers, Immigrant Rights Groups Sue ICE over "Enforced Disappearance" of 48 People, Pentagon Appeals Judge's Order Freezing Purge of Transgender Military Members, Pentagon Purges Thousands of Articles About Minority and LGBTQ Personnel
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Mar 19, 2025
The Social Security Administration is considering drastic new anti-fraud measures that could disrupt benefit payments to millions of Americans, according to an internal memo first obtained by the political newsletter Popular Information. The changes would force millions of customers to file claims in person at a field office rather than over the phone. An estimated 75,000 to 85,000 elderly and disabled adults per week would be diverted to field offices. This comes even as the Trump administration slashes jobs and closes offices at the agency. Officials in the Social Security Administration who spoke with reporter Judd Legum, founder of Popular Information, have told him that there is an "effort to break the organization."
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Mar 19, 2025
Immigrant rights activist Jeanette Vizguerra, who has lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years, was arrested by ICE agents in Colorado on Monday. She was ambushed during her work break by ICE officials and is now being held in a private prison in Aurora. Vizguerra rose to fame during Trump's first term when she evaded immigration officials by staying in a church basement with her four children and was named one of the 100 most influential people of the year by Time magazine in 2017. "The courts may not save us, but we save each other," says Jennifer Piper, program director at the American Friends Service Committee, Colorado. "Only the people can save each other and make justice and democracy real." We also speak with Vizguerra's 21-year-old daughter Luna Báez, who says her mother had felt under surveillance before her arrest, including by people in unmarked vehicles. "It's something that is very, very scary," she says.
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Mar 19, 2025
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare statement Tuesday criticizing attacks by President Trump and his allies on federal judges. "For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision," he said. Roberts's statement came after Trump called for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who ordered the Trump administration to stop using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants. On Saturday, the administration ignored Boasberg's order to turn around three deportation flights bound for El Salvador. We speak with The Nation's justice correspondent Elie Mystal on the Trump-led breakdown of constitutional order. "There's not a coming constitutional crisis," says Mystal. "We are in a constitutional crisis right now."
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Mar 19, 2025
The nearly two-month ceasefire in Gaza has been shattered as Israel carries out a second day of intense airstrikes. At least 27 Palestinians were killed in overnight strikes Tuesday night. This comes a day after Israel killed over 400 Palestinians, including at least 174 children. The bombing is "the most savage attack that Gaza has witnessed in over a year," says Muhammad Shehada, a writer and analyst from Gaza. He says the renewed assault in Gaza is linked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's legal and political challenges at home. "When you're in crisis, nothing would unite your government, nothing would suppress any sort of protest or opposition, more than killing Palestinians."
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Mar 19, 2025
At Least 27 Palestinians Are Killed as Netanyahu Says Renewed Gaza Strikes Are "Only the Beginning", Protests Demand End to U.S. Support for Israel's Genocide in Gaza, "I Am a Political Prisoner": Palestinian Activist Mahmoud Khalil Sends Letter from ICE Jail, Supreme Court Chief Justice Rejects Trump's Call to Impeach Federal Judges , ICE Agents Detain Colorado Immigrant Rights Activist Jeanette Vizguerra, Russia Bombs Ukraine Hours After Trump Discusses Ceasefire Plan with Putin, Federal Judge Rules DOGE's Dismantling of USAID Is Likely Unconstitutional, Trump Fires Democratic Commissioners at Federal Trade Commission, Delaware Lawmakers Advance "Billionaires' Bill" Shielding Corporate Executives from Accountability, Presidents of Rwanda and DR Congo Call for Ceasefire After Peace Talks in Qatar , Turkish Police Arrest Erdogan Rival and Restrict Free Expression Ahead of Elections, Hungarian Lawmakers Outlaw LGBTQ Pride Events
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Mar 18, 2025
One of President Donald Trump's most intense fixations since returning to the White House has been to take over and overhaul the Kennedy Center, the national arts and culture institution in Washington, D.C. Trump fired the president of the Kennedy Center, replaced the bipartisan board of trustees with loyalists and made himself chairman of the organization, vowing to shift programming away from "woke" art and toward more patriotic themes. On Monday, he visited the Kennedy Center to personally preside over a board meeting. Numerous artists have cut ties with the Kennedy Center since Trump's takeover, but folk musicians Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman performed a concert at the Kennedy Center last week and used the opportunity to protest Trump's policies from the stage. "We were considering what the most effective method of protest was" and decided "our voices would be loudest on the stage," says Brown. "The arts are a fundamental way for people to express ourselves and for us to recognize other people's stories and experiences and struggles," adds Coleman.
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Mar 18, 2025
The Trump administration has vowed to continue its military strikes against the Houthi movement that controls much of Yemen, and says it will hold Iran responsible for any retaliation from its ally. Since Saturday, U.S. warplanes have launched dozens of large-scale attacks on multiple towns across Yemen, killing dozens of people. The strikes came after the Houthis threatened to resume attacks on Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea in response to Israel's ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip. For more on Yemen and the regional dynamics, we speak with Saudi journalist and filmmaker Safa Al Ahmad, who has been reporting on Yemen since 2010. "Supporting the Palestinians … has incredibly increased Houthi popularity," says Al Ahmad.
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Mar 18, 2025
We speak with Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed in Deir al-Balah, who says the civilian population and the medical system cannot handle more war. Israel launched a massive wave of airstrikes overnight that killed hundreds of people across the territory, effectively shattering the fragile ceasefire signed in January. "People have not yet recovered from the endless trauma they have been through during the past 15 months. We haven't taken a breath from what we have been enduring," says Abed.
We also speak to Palestinian human rights attorney Diana Buttu, who says Israel is "bombing Palestinians because it can," knowing it will face almost no pressure from the United States or other countries. "Israel knows that it can get away with it."
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Mar 18, 2025
Israel has shattered the Gaza ceasefire agreement with Hamas, launching a massive wave of airstrikes overnight that killed hundreds of people across the Palestinian territory and wounded many others. The surprise attacks came amid stalled talks on how to extend the ceasefire signed in January, though Israel has signaled for weeks that it wanted to resume the war on Gaza. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, an American trauma surgeon volunteering at Nasser Hospital, describes some of the horrific injuries he has treated, and says it's "heartbreaking" for Palestinians to suffer more bloodshed. "It's all because we provide the funding, the diplomatic, the economic and the military support. And we don't have to," he tells Democracy Now! "We didn't have to under Biden. We certainly don't have to under Trump."
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Mar 18, 2025
Israel Unilaterally Ends Gaza Ceasefire with Airstrikes That Kill Hundreds of Palestinians, Prosecutors Cancel Netanyahu's Testimony in Corruption Trial Amid Renewed Gaza Assault, U.N. Calls Israel's West Bank Settlements a "War Crime" Amid Settler Attacks on Palestinians, UNICEF Says U.S. Attacks on Yemen Killed Civilians, Contradicting Pentagon's Claims, Lebanon and Syria Halt Cross-Border Fighting; Israel Strikes Syrian Military Sites, "I Don't Care What the Judges Think": Trump Administration Rejects Court Orders on Deportations, U.S. Deports Brown University Surgeon to Lebanon Despite Judge's Order, Trump Administration Begins Dismantling EPA's Scientific Research Office, Hundreds Rally in Houston Against Cuts at NASA's Johnson Space Center, DOGE Operatives Force Entry into U.S. Institute of Peace, Trump to Discuss Ukraine Ceasefire Plan in Phone Call with Russian President Putin, M23 Withdraws from DRC Peace Talks, Texas Health Workers Arrested for Providing Abortions Amid Near-Total Ban, Trump Tours Kennedy Center After Installing Himself as Chair, Documentary on U.S. Reporter Killed by Russian Forces in Ukraine Wins SXSW Award
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Mar 17, 2025
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is facing mounting calls to step down after he voted in favor of the Republicans' spending package Friday. The Republican bill has been described as a "blank check" for the White House to keep defunding and dismantling government services and agencies. Calls have been mounting for New York Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to primary Schumer, who was joined by eight other Democratic senators in voting for the bill. "This was one of the most utterly embarrassing strategic blunders on behalf of the Democrats that I've seen," says Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid. He criticizes Schumer for "his surrender" to Trump and Elon Musk's drastic defunding of the federal government after Schumer himself had warned against it. "You don't say there's a fire, and then you give the arsonist a match and gasoline. And that's effectively what Chuck Schumer did."
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Mar 17, 2025
President Trump has invoked a controversial 18th-century law last used to justify the arrest and internment of 30,000 Japanese, German and Italian nationals during World War II, as part of his ongoing crusade against immigrants. Citing the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, the Trump administration deported more than 130 immigrants who have been accused, often with little to no evidence, of gang affiliation. The ACLU won a judicial order against the deportations, which the Trump administration ignored, allowing the flights to continue to El Salvador, where authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele received the deportees at a notorious supermax prison. We speak to Lee Gelernt, who argued to stop the flights on behalf of the ACLU, about Trump's attacks on established U.S. immigration law. We cover the second Trump's administration's attempts to incarcerate immigrants at the Guantánamo military prison and end birthright citizenship, as well as the ongoing effects of his previous administration's policies of family separation and countrywide travel bans.
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Mar 17, 2025
President Donald Trump spoke at the Department of Justice Friday in an unprecedented speech in which he threatened to take revenge on his political enemies, from the press to the FBI itself. "It was a typical rambling and hate-filled diatribe," says Maryland Congressmember Jamie Raskin. "Nobody has ever taken a sledgehammer to the traditional boundary between independent criminal law enforcement, on the one side, and presidential political will and power, on the other." Raskin, who spoke at a press conference in response to Trump's address outside of the Department of Justice, is a former constitutional law professor and served as the Democrats' lead prosecutor for Trump's second impeachment over the January 6 Capitol insurrection. He also responds to Trump's "illegal" invocation of the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and his attempt to deport foreign-born university students and faculty. Trump's sweeping efforts to make the United States hostile to immigrants "creates danger for everybody," warns Raskin. Finally, Raskin responds to recent divisions within the Democratic Party over a GOP spending bill. He urges congressional Democrats to present a "unified plan" and "common strategy" for resisting a Republican supermajority loyal to Trump.
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Mar 17, 2025
U.S. Bombs Yemen, Killing Dozens of Civilians, Trump Administration Defies Court Order Halting Deportation Flights to El Salvador, Trump Mulls Travel Ban Targeting Citizens of Up to 43 Nations, ICE Arrests Second Columbia Student over Palestinian Solidarity Protests, Video Shows Immigration Agents Refused to ID Themselves During Mahmoud Khalil Arrest, "We Are Going to Fight Back": Expelled Columbia Labor Leader Vows to Combat Censorship, Retaliation, Far-Right Group Betar Says It Handed Trump Admin "Thousands of Names" of Deportation Targets, Storms Kills at Least 40 People as Trump White House Purges Agencies That Study Extreme Weather, Schumer Faces Calls to Step Down Amid Democratic and Public Anger on GOP Spending Bill Vote, New Trump EOs Gut Agencies Serving Unhoused People, Libraries and Media Organizations, Trump Assails Judges, News Outlets and Critics in Rambling Speech at Justice Department, Hundreds of Thousands Rally in Serbia Against Government Corruption, JD Vance Booed by Audience While Attending Concert at Kennedy Center
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Mar 14, 2025
A pair of federal judges have ordered the Trump administration to reinstate thousands of fired federal workers at the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior and Treasury. The White House vowed to fight what it called an "absurd and unconstitutional order." This comes as the White House and its allies have increasingly targeted judges who rule against the administration. Elon Musk has posted dozens of messages on his social platform X calling for the impeachment of judges who rule against the administration. We speak with retired federal Judge Nancy Gertner, who served as a federal district judge in Massachusetts for 17 years, from 1994 to 2011. "The distance between what they are trying to do and what is lawful is so enormous that anyone would rule as these judges are doing," says Gertner.
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Mar 14, 2025
We speak with the acclaimed Russian American writer M. Gessen, who says Donald Trump has entered his second term prepared to enact his radical Project 2025 agenda, including a crackdown on LGBTQ rights and dissent. Gessen, who has spent decades writing about authoritarianism at home and abroad, argues that while he was something of an "accidental president" in his first term, "Trump has been transformed by power" and is now increasingly "imperialist" and "totalitarian."
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Mar 14, 2025
Over 300 protesters with the group Jewish Voice for Peace flooded the lobby of Trump Tower in New York on Thursday wearing red shirts saying "Not in Our Name." They demanded the immediate release of Mahmoud Khalil and held banners reading "opposing facism is a Jewish tradition." About 100 protesters were arrested and face charges of trespassing, obstruction and resisting arrest. Democracy Now! was at the protest. "I refuse to allow this administration to speak in my name, to use our names as Jews, to carry out a fascist agenda," protester Josh Dubnau said. "The Trump administration is a government that has far-right white supremacists, people that do the Nazi salute, and [Trump's] fine with that."
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Mar 14, 2025
U.S. Judges Order Agencies to Reinstate Fired Workers, Trump and Musk to Halt Mass Layoffs, "A Slap in the Face": Democrats Accuse Schumer of "Betrayal" After He Backs GOP Funding Bill, Jewish Protesters Takes Over Trump Tower to Demand Release of Mahmoud Khalil, Columbia Punishes Students in Historic Hind's Hall Protest as Trump Issues Ultimatum to Admin, Harvard Law Students Vote to Divest from Israeli War Machine, Trump and Putin Set to Talk as Zelensky Accuses Moscow of "Manipulation" over Truce Conditions, NBC: Pentagon Preparing Plans to Illegally Seize Panama Canal, Syria Signs Transitional Constitution Against Backdrop of Israeli Airstrikes, Military Occupation, U.N. Warns "Entire Families" Killed in Syrian Sectarian Violence as Some Alawites Flee to Lebanon, Argentinian Riot Police Crack Down on Pensioner-Led Anti-Government Protests, Cuba Releases 553 Prisoners, Fulfilling Its End of Collapsed Deal with U.S., Trump Resumes Family Detentions, Including Children as Young as 1, DOJ Drops Sexual Abuse Lawsuit Against Immigraton Housing Contractor, Raúl Grijalva, Longtime AZ Congressman and Defender of Immigrant & Environmental Rights, Dies at 77
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Mar 13, 2025
We speak with Valerie Costa, an organizer behind the grassroots Tesla Takedown movement peacefully protesting outside Tesla showrooms to oppose billionaire owner Elon Musk's role in government. Since Donald Trump's return to the White House, Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency have led mass firings of federal workers and dismantled entire agencies. As protests against Tesla grow and sales plummet, the company's stock has lost about 40% of its value since the start of the year. This week, President Trump personally intervened on behalf of his adviser and held a promotional event with Musk at the White House, where he said he would buy an electric vehicle and declared attacks on Tesla dealerships to be "domestic terrorism." Meanwhile, Musk personally attacked Costa, falsely accusing her of "committing crimes" in a post on his X social network. "They're peaceful, nonviolent protests," says Costa, an activist and organizer in Seattle. "Protesting Tesla … is ultimately about hitting Elon Musk's bottom line."
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Mar 13, 2025
Education Secretary Linda McMahon has issued a warning to 60 universities that they're being investigated for antisemitism and could face penalties. Her warning came days after the Trump administration withdrew $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University and as the administration attempts to deport Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil over his involvement in campus antiwar protests at the school. At the same time, President Trump has pledged to abolish the Education Department entirely, with plans announced this week to fire an additional 1,300 employees, effectively cutting the agency's workforce in half. "It's pretty clear what this administration is trying to do, and it has nothing to do with antisemitism," says former Education Department official Tariq Habash, who resigned last year to protest the Biden administration's support of Israel's war on Gaza. "It has everything to do with Donald Trump's vision for America, which is consolidating his authoritarian power."
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Mar 13, 2025
We get an update on the Trump administration's attempt to deport Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, whose case has alarmed immigrant advocates and civil rights groups. Khalil, a legal permanent resident who is married to a U.S. citizen, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in New York on Saturday and told his green card was being revoked because of his role in Columbia University student protests last year opposed to Israel's war on Gaza. He has since been moved to an ICE jail in Louisiana with little access to legal counsel or to his family, including his pregnant wife. On Tuesday, a federal judge extended an order blocking Khalil's deportation while he considers whether the arrest was unconstitutional.
"It's been very clear from the beginning that the government's strategy is to cut Khalil off not just from access to the court here in New York, not just from access to his legal team, but from access to his support base," says Ramzi Kassem, part of Khalil's legal team.
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Mar 13, 2025
A new report by United Nations experts says Israel has carried out "genocidal acts" against Palestinians in Gaza, including the destruction of women's healthcare facilities, intended to prevent births, and the use of sexual violence as a strategy of war. This comes as talks on resuscitating the ceasefire deal continue in Qatar and as Israel continues its total blockade of food, fuel, medicine and other humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory. For more, we speak with two American doctors volunteering at Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza. "It's a very difficult situation, and the attacks on the healthcare system that were done in the past 16 months have really undermined its ability to help people," says trauma surgeon Dr. Feroze Sidhwa. We also speak with Dr. Mark Perlmutter, an orthopedic and hand surgeon, who says about 350 Palestinian medical workers who remain in Israeli prisons without charge must be freed. Many who have been released describe horrific abuse. "The physical and mental torture … presents a tremendous weight on the healthcare system here," says Dr. Perlmutter.
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Mar 13, 2025
A new report by United Nations experts says Israel has carried out "genocidal acts" against Palestinians in Gaza, including the destruction of women's healthcare facilities, intended to prevent births, and the use of sexual violence as a strategy of war. This comes as talks on resuscitating the ceasefire deal continue in Qatar and as Israel continues its total blockade of food, fuel, medicine and other humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory. For more, we speak with two American doctors volunteering at Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza. "It's a very difficult situation, and the attacks on the healthcare system that were done in the past 16 months have really undermined its ability to help people," says trauma surgeon Dr. Feroze Sidhwa. We also speak with Dr. Mark Perlmutter, an orthopedic and hand surgeon, who says about 350 Palestinian medical workers who remain in Israeli prisons without charge must be freed. Many who have been released describe horrific abuse. "The physical and mental torture … presents a tremendous weight on the healthcare system here," says Dr. Perlmutter.
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Mar 13, 2025
Mahmoud Khalil Speaks to Lawyers After NY Hearing, Judge Extends Block on Deportation, U.N. Experts: Israel Has Committed Genocide Through Attack on Women's Health, EPA Moves to Undo Decades of Regulations on Air, Water, Polluting Industries, NOAA Faces More Layoffs; DOJ Guts Oversight Unit for Corrupt Public Officials, Acting Social Security Commissioner Privately Admits DOGE Cuts Have Imperiled Benefits, USAID Destroys Classified Documents After Judge Orders Trump Admin to Pay Out Foreign Aid, Trump Administration Flies 40 Remaining Immigrants from Guantánamo to Louisiana, Russia Recaptures Ukraine-Occupied Territory as U.S. Envoy Arrives in Moscow for Ceasefire Talks, Canada Hits Back at Trump wIth 25% Reciprocal Tariffs on Steel, Aluminum and Other Goods, Greenland Center-Right Party Wins Surprise Election Victory Amid Trump's Threats to Take Over, Ugandan Forces Deploy to South Sudan as Power-Sharing Deal That Ended Civil War Unravels, Yale Suspends Legal Scholar and Palestinian Rights Supporter Helyeh Doutaghi
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Mar 12, 2025
Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is being flown to The Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court over his brutal "war on drugs," during which police extrajudicially killed thousands of people, including many children. The ICC has been investigating Duterte since 2018. Duterte, now 79, served as president of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022. He once compared himself to Hitler, saying he would be "happy to slaughter" 3 million drug addicts, and last year admitted under oath that he oversaw a "death squad" of gangsters while he served as mayor of the southern city of Davao. "It is really a monumental step in the dispensation of justice," says Filipino scholar and activist Walden Bello, who previously served in the House of Representatives of the Philippines. He notes that despite the Duterte family's protestations, the former president's arrest is the result of a meticulous legal process that offers him a fair trial. "Due process is something that he never gave his victims," says Bello.
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Mar 12, 2025
More than 250,000 have signed a petition to support an impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump, who was twice impeached during his first term. The Impeach Trump Again campaign is being led by the advocacy group Free Speech for People. "This president has already committed multiple abuses of power since assuming the presidency, and the framers designed the Constitution to ensure that we would not have a monarch or a tyrant govern this nation," says the group's president, John Bonifaz. "When we see these abuses of power, we have to invoke this impeachment clause."
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Mar 12, 2025
President Donald Trump's growing trade war against other countries is wreaking havoc on financial markets, upending the global trade system and angering long-standing U.S. allies. Trump has imposed sweeping tariffs on a range of imports, including aluminum and steel, since his inauguration. Many countries have responded with their own retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods, though countries have also delayed or withdrawn some of the levies as the Trump administration makes near-daily changes to its trade policies. We speak with investigative journalist and author Dave Lindorff, who says the Trump administration's drive to bring back manufacturing and other jobs that have been outsourced over the last several decades is ignoring the role of healthcare in raising costs. "The fact that we don't have national healthcare here like they have in Canada … is making American industry not competitive," says Lindorff.
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Mar 12, 2025
U.S. Resumes Military Aid and Intelligence Sharing as Ukraine Backs 30-Day Ceasefire Plan, MSF Condemns Israel's Gaza Blockade: "Aid Should Never Be Used as a Bargaining Chip in War", Israeli Forces Kill 4, Including Palestinian Grandmother, in West Bank Raids, "Absolutely Unacceptable and Illegal": Lawmakers Demand Release of Mahmoud Khalil from ICE Jail, House GOP Approves Short-Term Spending Bill with $13 Billion in Nonmilitary Cuts, Department of Education to Fire Additional 1,300 Workers, Cutting Workforce in Half, EU Retaliates as Trump's 25% Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum Imports Takes Effect, "Have You No Decency?": Republican Congressman Misgenders Rep. Sarah McBride in Transphobic Attack, New York Gov. Hochul Bans 2,000 Prison Guards from Civil Service Jobs After Wildcat Strike, Texas and Louisiana Death Row Prisoners Win Reprieves from Execution
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Mar 11, 2025
In Syria, over a thousand people have been killed, the vast majority of them civilians, in a spate of massacres largely targeting the country's Alawite religious minority. Syria's longtime ruling family, the Assads, are members of the Alawite sect. The recent clashes began Thursday after coordinated attacks by gunmen linked to the former regime killed over 200 members of the new government's security forces. In response, government forces along with armed groups and individuals poured into Alawite villages throughout the region, carrying out reprisal attacks. Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa has denounced the attacks and vowed to hold those responsible to account. Al-Sharaa is "trying to present a more acceptable image," after years of Syria's isolation from the global capitalist economy, says Syrian scholar Yasser Munif. "His priority is to end the sanctions against Syria and bring the funding for reconstruction. … He is managing all these tensions and contradictions, and it will be quite the challenge for him to succeed."
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Mar 11, 2025
Palestinian human rights attorney Noura Erakat responds to the arrest of Columbia University student protest leader Mahmoud Khalil and situates it in the long, bipartisan history of anti-Palestine suppression of free speech. "It was the Biden administration, it was the Democratic establishment, that has created the conditions that we are now seeing taken advantage of," she says of Khalil's targeting by the Trump administration for deportation. Erakat calls for continued resistance and study of U.S. imperialism and Zionism in the face of racist repression. "This is the precise moment we should be studying Palestine in order to understand ourselves and what's coming and our responsibility in the world as an imperial power."
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Mar 11, 2025
A federal judge has blocked the deportation of recent Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent legal resident of the U.S. who was arrested by immigration authorities for helping organize campus solidarity protests with Gaza. He had been receiving daily threats stemming from an online smear campaign launched by pro-Israel activists before his arrest and repeatedly appealed to university administrators for protection. Khalil, who is a Palestinian green card holder, is married to a U.S. citizen. Upon his arrest, he was separated from his pregnant wife and transported to a detention facility in Louisiana, where legal experts say he is more likely to appear before Trump-friendly judges if his case moves forward. "Her husband was abducted before her very eyes [and] disappeared," says Ramzi Kassem.
Kassem is the founder of the legal clinic CLEAR, which is contesting Khalil's "baseless" detention and Louisiana transfer in New York court. Khalil's unprecedented arrest makes good on President Trump's promise to punish antiwar student activists, bringing together his administration's attacks on free speech, education and immigrant rights. It is "part and parcel" of "Trump's racist and fascist agenda," says immigrant rights activist Murad Awawdeh, who adds that the Columbia University administration's lack of response to Khalil's high-profile case has been "incredibly shameful."
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Mar 11, 2025
Ukrainian Drones Kill 3 in Moscow; U.S. and Ukrainian Officials Meet in Jeddah for Ceasefire Talks, Israel Accused of Weaponizing Aid and "Imposing Starvation" Amid Gaza Blockade, Judge Blocks Deportation of Green Card Holder and Columbia Campus Protest Leader Mahmoud Khalil, Linda McMahon Warns Universities to Combat "Antisemitism" or Lose Funding, Syria's Kurdish Forces Sign Deal to Join Interim Syrian Government, Ex-Philippines Leader Rodrigo Duterte Arrested on ICC Warrant for Drug War Killings, U.S. Stocks Plummet as Trump's Trade War Takes Its Toll, Elon Musk Says DOGE Is Coming for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and More, "Shockingly Unlawful": Trump Executive Order Targets Public Service Student Loan Program, Climate Activists Arrested in Protest of Houston Energy Conference, Climate Groups Sue EPA over Freeze on $20B of Federal Funds, Trump Withdraws US from Climate Damage Compensation Fund, Longtime Washington Post Writer Resigns After Publisher Denies Piece Critical of Bezos, Crews Start to Dismantle D.C.'s Black Lives Matter Plaza
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Mar 10, 2025
Immigration agents with the Department of Homeland Security have detained a leader of the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University in New York. Mahmoud Khalil, who is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent, is a green card holder and is married to a U.S. citizen; his wife is eight months pregnant. Immigration officials told Khalil's lawyer his green card was being revoked. Khalil recently graduated from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and his whereabouts are unknown. "The [Trump] administration doesn't seem to know exactly how to justify this very haphazard, unilateral move," says Prem Thakker, political correspondent and columnist for Zeteo.
The arrest comes as Donald Trump's Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism announced last week that it would cancel $400 million in federal grants and contracts to the university, despite Columbia's suppression of pro-Palestine activism. The Trump administration doesn't "really care about antisemitism or keeping Jews safe. All they care about is crushing dissent," says Joseph Howley, associate professor of classics at Columbia University.
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Mar 10, 2025
Scientists rallied nationwide last Friday in opposition to the Trump administration's sweeping cuts for scientific research and mass layoffs impacting numerous agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service. Thousands gathered at Stand Up for Science protests in over two dozen other cities. We air remarks from speakers in Washington, D.C., including former USAID official Dr. Atul Gawande and Dr. Francis Collins, who led the Human Genome Project and the National Institutes of Health.
"I study women's health, and right now you're not able to really put into proposals that you are studying women," says Emma Courtney, Ph.D. candidate at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and co-organizer of Stand Up for Science. She tells Democracy Now! it's critical for federal policy to be "informed by science and rooted in evidence."
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Mar 10, 2025
Syrian Security Forces Accused of Massacring Hundreds of Christian and Alawite Civilians, Palestinians Queue in Long Bread Lines as Israel Cuts Electricity to Gaza, Trump Defends Putin's Attacks on Ukraine as Russian Air Raids Kill Dozens, Canada's Mark Carney Wins Liberal Party Election, Will Replace Trudeau as Prime Minister, DHS Strips Union Rights from 47,000 TSA Workers; HHS Offers Buyouts to 80,000 Workers, Trump Reportedly Reins In Musk's Power After "Explosive" Cabinet Meeting, Trump Expands Retribution Campaign, Targeting Law Firm Tied to Hillary Clinton's 2016 Campaign, ICE Detains Columbia Campus Protest Leader as Trump Cuts $400 Million to University, Trump-Appointed Federal Prosecutor Says He Won't Hire Georgetown Law Students over DEI Curriculum, Survivors of "Bloody Sunday" Lead 60th Anniversary March Across Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge, Trump Administration Transfers Transgender Women to Men's Prisons, Arts Groups Sue National Endowment for the Arts over Trump's Order on "Gender Ideology", "Reinstate Queer Programming": Drag Performers Lead Protest Outside Kennedy Center, "Our Rights Are Consistently Under Attack": Protesters Slam U.S. Gov't on International Women's Day
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Mar 07, 2025
Nicaragua announced last week it is withdrawing from the United Nations Human Rights Council, following a U.N. report that slammed the government's human rights violations and warned the country was becoming an authoritarian state. The report by a panel of independent human rights experts adds to international pressure on the Nicaraguan government led by President Daniel Ortega and first lady Rosario Murillo, who was recently named co-president. "Nicaragua has become a country of enforced silence and surveillance for those who stay in the country, while those who dare to speak out face a life of exile and denationalization," says Reed Brody, a member of the U.N. expert panel, who has spent decades investigating rights abuses in Nicaragua.
He speaks to Democracy Now! 40 years to the day since the release of his landmark 1985 fact-finding report Contra Terror in Nicaragua, which laid out how U.S. policy attempted to destabilize Nicaragua's Sandinista government by funding the Contras and their campaign of torture, rape, kidnapping and murder.
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Mar 07, 2025
Republicans in Congress are pushing forward budget plans that would cut trillions in federal spending and give trillions more in tax cuts that disproportionately benefit corporations and the ultra-rich. This week, hundreds of faith leaders gathered on the Christian holy day of Ash Wednesday on Capitol Hill to voice their opposition. "There's no way you can do the kinds of cuts they're talking about — it's mathematically impossible — without touching Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid," says Bishop William Barber, one of the participants. Barber also reflects on the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when civil rights marchers were brutalized in Selma, Alabama, and stresses that economic justice was always at the heart of the movement alongside ending segregation and winning voting rights.
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Mar 07, 2025
We speak with Democratic Congressmember Al Green of Texas a day after he was censured by the House of Representatives for disrupting President Donald Trump's joint address to Congress on Tuesday night. His dramatic protest came near the start of Trump's record-long speech. In instantly iconic images, Green rose and shook his walking cane at the president on the rostrum, telling him "You have no mandate" to cut vital government programs. Green was ejected from the chamber. This comes as Democrats continue to scramble for a unified response to the onslaught of radical actions by the Trump administration, with party leadership reportedly urging restraint and decorum while some members are taking a more confrontational approach. "We now live in a government that is of the plutocrats, by the plutocrats, for the plutocrats," Congressmember Green tells Democracy Now! "We have to fight to protect those who cannot protect themselves." Green has repeatedly called to impeach Trump and says he is currently preparing another such effort, calling impeachment "a remedy for a runaway president who believes that there are no guardrails."
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Mar 07, 2025
Trump Exempts Goods in U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Pact from 25% Tariff After Talks with Pres. Sheinbaum, State Dept. Implements Trump EO Halting Most U.S. Funding for South Africa, State Dept. to Close Overseas Missions, Dozens of Consulates, U.S. Judge Blocks DOGE from Firing Head of U.S. African Development Foundation, 8 Democratic States Sue Education Dept. over Frozen Training Funds, U.S. Judge Orders Reinstatement of Illegally Fired NLRB Member, Tells Trump He Is Not a King, USDA Told to Reinstate 6,000 Fired Workers Pending Review, Head of Gov't Watchdog Ends Challenge to Trump Admin After Court OKs His Firing, State Department Deploys AI to Deny Visas to Visitors with Pro-Palestinian Views, Pentagon Inspector General Halts Efforts to Root Out Extremism, CAIR Issues Travel Advisory as Trump Readies New Muslim Ban, Trump Considers Revoking Temporary Protected Status for 240,000 Ukrainian Refugees, European Leaders Agree to Boost Military Aid to Ukraine as Trump Suspends U.S. Support, Trump Says He'll Rein In Elon Musk's Role in Mass Firings, Senate Votes to Overturn CFPB Rule on Digital Payments App, Boosting Elon Musk's Plans for X, SpaceX Starship Explodes and Rains Rocket Debris Across Caribbean, Weeks After Similar Disaster, OSHA Fines Tesla Less Than $50,000 over Factory Worker's Electrocution Death, Supreme Court Lifts Restraints on Wastewater Discharges, Further Eroding Clean Water Act, State Department Halts Air Pollution Monitoring at U.S. Embassies and Consulates, Sudan's Military Rulers Accuse UAE of Abetting Genocide by Arming Rebel Forces, 70 Killed as Syrian Forces Clash with Assad Loyalists, UNRWA Says Israel Is Undertaking Largest Displacement of West Bank Palestinians Since 1967, Gaza Teen Who Narrated Acclaimed Documentary Condemns
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Mar 06, 2025
Amid ongoing chaos and outrage stemming from the Trump administration's gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development, we hear a critique of USAID and the "humanitarian-industrial complex" from South African anthropologist Kathryn Mathers. "USAID is very much a part of a system and industry that not only depends on global inequality … but in many ways produces it," she says. Funding for foreign assistance, much of which actually flows back to the United States, ultimately "does its job of supporting U.S. interests" and "renders the causes of global inequality invisible, hiding the ways that often U.S. policies, U.S. trade agreements and other forms of extractive capitalism are often the causes." Mathers emphasizes, however, that Trump's abrupt cuts to the agency, rather than resolving the "paradox" of humanitarian aid, are "doing only harm."
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Mar 06, 2025
"They cut everything at once." ProPublica reporter Brett Murphy is tracking the aftermath of the "haphazard" and "draconian" dismantling of USAID, which experts warn will lead to a dangerous rise in disease epidemics around the world, including risking the resurgence of Ebola and tuberculosis. Despite the administration's claims in court, says Murphy, "this is the opposite of a careful review," and has left in its wake wasted resources, unpaid workers and an end to "literally lifesaving work." Much of this demolition has been spearheaded by Trump ally Peter Marocco, whose alignment with Christian nationalist movements, says Murphy, appears to be influencing the current direction of U.S. foreign aid.
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Mar 06, 2025
The Supreme Court has rejected a request by the Trump administration to continue refusing to pay out nearly $2 billion for work completed by USAID, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the court's three liberal justices in the majority. However, the court's decision did not specify when the money must be released, allowing Trump's team to further dispute the issue in lower courts. We speak to two people involved in the lawsuit brought by the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, or AVAC. The Trump administration's decision to unilaterally slash foreign assistance, including funding critical to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, "for no good reason and with no clear strategy," was an unlawful "abuse of executive power," says attorney Nicolas Sansone, who serves as counsel for the plaintiff. "People will die," adds Mitchell Warren, the executive director of AVAC. Warren condemns the "willful ignorance" and "disregard of science" being promoted by Trump and his allies, many of whom are former supporters of bipartisan global health initiatives.
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Mar 06, 2025
SCOTUS Rejects Trump Attempt to Keep U.S. Foreign Aid Frozen, Trump EO Targeting Education Dept. Expected Imminently as NEA, ACLU Sue Dept. over DEI Ban, VA to Cut 80,000 Jobs; Judge Blocks Cap on NIH Spending; Small Development Agency Blocks DOGE, Trump Delays Auto Tariffs by One Month Amid Escalating Trade War, U.S. Suspends Intelligence Sharing with Ukraine as European Leaders Scramble to Support Kyiv, Russian Attacks Kill 4 in Kryvyi Rih, One in Odesa, Arab League Agrees to $53 Billion Gaza Reconstruction Plan, U.S. Holds First-Ever Direct Talks wIth Hamas as Trump Issues "Last Warning" Against Group, Police Arrest 9 Protesters as Barnard Students Occupy and Rename Bldg in Honor of Gaza Doctor, South Carolina Prepares to Execute Prisoner Brad Keith Sigmon by Firing Squad, Trump Administration Drops Effort to Force Idaho Hospitals to Provide Emergency Abortions, Called Before Congress, Democratic Mayors Blast GOP Crackdown on Sanctuary Cities, Texas Rep. Sylvester Turner Dies at 70, Hours After Attending Trump's Address to Congress, Virginia Gov. Youngkin Pardons White Cop Who Fatally Shot Black Man Accused of Shoplifting, Elon Musk Calls on Trump to Pardon Ex-Cop Derek Chauvin, Who Murdered George Floyd, Faith Leaders Mark Ash Wednesday with Calls to Reverse Trump and Musk's Attacks on the Poor, RTS Journalism Award Goes to "The Night Won't End: Biden's War on Gaza"
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Mar 05, 2025
Trump's speech to a joint session of Congress discussed the Middle East without any mention of Palestinians. This comes as Trump has called for ethnic cleansing of Gaza and posted an AI-generated video depicting Gaza as a resort town with a golden statue of Trump. Congressmember Bonnie Watson Coleman attended the speech with her guest Dr. Adam Hamawy, an Army veteran and reconstructive surgeon who recently volunteered at a Gaza hospital. "The whole issue of Gaza, with the exception of the president wanting to make it a spa for millionaires, was being overlooked at a time when the infrastructure is absolutely devastated, the people are devastated," says Watson Coleman.
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Mar 05, 2025
President Trump has signed a number of anti-trans executive orders in the first month of his second term. He has attempted to ban trans women from sports, declared that there are only two sexes, and placed restrictions on gender-affirming care for trans youth. Trump continues to target trans people with hateful rhetoric, leaving trans people uncertain of their futures. "The Trump administration has declared war on trans people," Imara Jones, founder and CEO of TransLash Media and host of its investigative podcast, The Anti-Trans Hate Machine, tells Democracy Now!
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Mar 05, 2025
As stiff new tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China took effect on Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned that Trump's moves are aimed at "a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that'll make it easier to annex us." Canada relies on the U.S. for 75% of exports and a third of its imports. For more, we speak with a senior researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood. "If there's one feeling in Canada right now, it's probably betrayal. We trusted this relationship with the U.S. for a century. We count on the U.S. as an economic partner. We're obviously very closely culturally tied. And this just kind of throws everything into question," says Mertins-Kirkwood.
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Mar 05, 2025
President Trump on Tuesday once again focused on the importance of securing the U.S. border and criticized former President Biden's so-called open border policies. He accused Biden of allowing migrants to "overwhelm" towns like Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio, and pushed for even more funding to implement his campaign promise of mass deportations. The Trump administration is "doubling down on creating this image that immigrants are to blame for every single one of their problems," says longtime immigrant rights activist Erika Andiola.
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Mar 05, 2025
In his first speech to a joint session of Congress in his second term, Trump once again threatened to annex the Panama Canal. Juan González, co-host of Democracy Now!, fact-checks some of the lies that Trump used to justify U.S. control of the Panama Canal. In his address, Trump claimed 38,000 Americans were killed during the creation of the Panama Canal. In reality, the vast majority of the labor force that built the canal was from the West Indies, largely Barbados. Over 5,600 laborers died, but only about 300 U.S.-born workers died. "No matter how many times you repeat a lie, it still doesn't make it true," says González.
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Mar 05, 2025
President Donald Trump delivered the longest presidential address to a joint session of Congress in modern history Tuesday night, laying out his vision for the next four years as he defended his many executive actions to dismantle large portions of the federal government. For an hour and 40 minutes, Trump repeatedly lied and exaggerated his accomplishments and his opponents' failures, deploying racist and dehumanizing language to describe immigrants, LGBTQ people and his critics. Trump heaped praise on billionaire Elon Musk and his efforts to slash entire government agencies. The speech was "a declaration of war against the American people, including Trump voters, in favor of the super-rich and the giant corporations," says Ralph Nader, longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic and former presidential candidate.
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Mar 05, 2025
Trump Delivers Partisan and Divisive 100-Minute Address to Joint Session of Congress, Rep. Al Green Disrupts Trump's Speech to Congress as Other Democrats Protest Silently, After Cutting Aid to Ukraine, Trump Reads Conciliatory Letter from President Zelensky, USAID Memo Warns Trump's Foreign Aid Freeze Could Lead to Millions of Preventable Deaths, As Measles Spreads, Health Secretary RFK Jr. Promotes Vitamins and Cod Oil Liver, Not Vaccines, Judge Extends Hold on Trump's Order Denying Gender-Affirming Care to Transgender Youth, Trump Administration Plans to Cut IRS Workforce in Half, Trump Says He'll Cut Funds to Universities That Allow Campus Protests, Mexican President Says She'll Announce Retaliatory Tariffs Against U.S. on Sunday, Supreme Court Justices Appear Skeptical of Mexican Government Lawsuit Against U.S. Gun Makers, UNICEF Says Over 200 Children and Infants Have Been Raped During Sudan's Civil War, Serbian Lawmakers Disrupt Parliament with Smoke Grenades as Anti-Corruption Protests Rage
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Mar 04, 2025
We remember Aaron Bushnell, the U.S. Air Force member who died last year in an act of protest outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. On a live-streamed video, Bushnell said he could not be "complicit in genocide" while the United States continued to support Israel's war on Gaza; he then set himself on fire, screaming "Free Palestine" until he collapsed. Now just a year after Bushnell's fatal self-immolation, we speak with an active-duty Air Force lieutenant who says she is inspired by Bushnell to seek a discharge from the military as a conscientious objector over the genocide in Gaza. "Any kind of contribution to the U.S. military inherently helps this machine of warfare and imperialism and oppression continue," says Joy Metzler, who says many people in uniform suffer "moral injury" from their service. We also speak with Levi Pierpont, a friend of Bushnell who says Bushnell's death was "life-changing" for him. Pierpont has since visited Palestine and become a peace activist. "I went from being someone who had grown up Christian Zionist and was very sympathetic to Zionism to realizing how it's interconnected with the American empire and realizing how we need to stand against it as Americans, because we're implicated in it," says Pierpont.
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Mar 04, 2025
We speak with Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, the co-directors of the Oscar-nominated documentary Sugarcane, which examines the legacy of Indian residential schools in Canada. For over 150 years, these government-funded and church-run boarding schools forcibly separated First Nations, Métis and Inuit children from their families in an effort to destroy Indigenous languages, cultures and communities. The schools were rife with physical, psychological and sexual abuse, and many children did not survive. In 2021, a First Nation in British Columbia found evidence of 215 child-sized graves on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, setting off a nationwide search for more possible gravesites. Kassie and Brave NoiseCat would document the painful search for answers at Saint Joseph's Mission, the residential school where Brave NoiseCat's own relatives had been sent and near where his father was born and abandoned in a dumpster. The film explores "the colonial silence that exists in our broader society about this history" and how it has "seeped into the lives of the people who had survived it," says Brave NoiseCat.
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Mar 04, 2025
As the oil company Energy Transfer sues Greenpeace over the 2016 Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, we speak with Indigenous activist Winona LaDuke, who took part in that historic uprising. LaDuke is an enrolled member of the Mississippi Band of Anishinaabe who lives and works on the White Earth Nation Reservation and was among the thousands of people who joined the protests in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to protect water and Indigenous lands in North Dakota. She highlights the close links between North Dakota's government and Energy Transfer and says that while the lawsuit targets Greenpeace, Indigenous water and land defenders are also on trial. "North Dakota has really been trying to squash any kind of resistance," says LaDuke. "If they can try to shut down Greenpeace, they're going to shut down everybody."
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Mar 04, 2025
A closely watched civil trial that began in North Dakota last week could bankrupt Greenpeace and chill environmental activism as the climate crisis continues to deepen. The multimillion-dollar lawsuit by Energy Transfer, the oil corporation behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, claims Greenpeace organized the mass protests and encampment at Standing Rock between 2016 and 2017 aimed at stopping construction of the project. Although the uprising at Standing Rock was led by Indigenous water defenders, Energy Transfer is instead going after Greenpeace for $300 million in damages — an amount that could effectively shutter the group's U.S. operations. "This case is not just an obvious and blatant erasure of Indigenous leadership, of Indigenous resistance," says Deepa Padmanabha, a senior legal adviser for Greenpeace USA. "It is an attack on the broader movement and all of our First Amendment rights to free speech and peaceful protest."
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Mar 04, 2025
Trump Halts Arms Shipments to Ukraine After "Manufactured Escalation" Against Zelensky, Trump Imposes Tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, Sending Markets Tumbling, Trump Announces Plans for Strategic Cryptocurrency Reserve, Israel Continues Deadly Attacks in Gaza Despite Ceasefire Agreement, Palestinian Prisoner Khaled Abdullah Dies in Israeli Prison Amid Reports of Torture and Neglect, M23 Rebels Abduct Scores of Patients from Hospitals in DRC's Goma, Former Social Security Chief Warns DOGE Cuts Could "Collapse" Benefits Within Weeks, "We Need to Keep This Agency Strong": Protests Erupt over NOAA Firings, Senate GOP Confirms Linda McMahon as Education Sec. Amid Threats to Public Education, Acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin Demotes Jan. 6 Prosecutors, Claims He Is "Trump's Lawyer", ACLU Sues Trump Administration over Transfer of Immigrants to Guantánamo, Pentagon Orders Another 5,000 Troops to Southern Border, Protesters Decry Trump Plan to Use Dublin Federal Facility, Dubbed "Rape Club," as ICE Prison
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Mar 03, 2025
We continue our conversation with Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch and the author of the new book, Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments. Roth discusses the fragile ceasefire in Gaza amid news that Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu is refusing to withdraw Israeli troops as per his government's agreement with Hamas, as well as withholding food and humanitarian aid from Gaza. "This is a continuation of the starvation strategy that Israel has been pursuing against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, which is a war crime," says Roth. He adds that the United States is also implicated in Israel's war crimes, and shares how the human rights framework can be applied to achieving peace in the region.
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Mar 03, 2025
Kenneth Roth, visiting professor at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and former executive director of Human Rights Watch, responds to the shocking Oval Office meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Vice President JD Vance, in which Vance and Trump publicly admonished Zelensky over the Russia-Ukraine war and accused him of not being grateful for the U.S.'s military support. "It's embarrassing, frankly," says Roth, "to see the two leading American officials behaving in such a juvenile fashion when these are life and death matters, not only for Ukrainian people, but also for Ukrainian democracy and European democracy." Roth, whose new memoir Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments is now available, joins us for the hour to discuss human rights issues around the globe.
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Mar 03, 2025
A public clash at the White House between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Vice President JD Vance has left the future of U.S. foreign policy uncertain. Zelensky had traveled to the White House last week to sign a deal giving the United States partial control over Ukraine's raw earth minerals in exchange for continued military aid for its war against Russia. But the deal imploded over the course of a dramatic televised press conference, with Trump and Vance deriding Zelensky and suggesting that Ukraine should concede to Russia. We play an extended excerpt of the heated exchange.
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Mar 03, 2025
The Palestinian-Israeli film No Other Land won for best documentary feature at Sunday's Academy Awards. The film follows the struggles of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank community of Masafer Yatta to stay on their land amid home demolitions by the Israeli military and violent attacks by Jewish settlers aimed at expelling them. The film was made by a team of Palestinian-Israeli filmmakers, including the Palestinian journalist Basel Adra, who lives in Masafer Yatta, and the Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, both of whom are prominently featured in the film.
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Mar 03, 2025
Trump and Vance Attack Ukrainian President Zelensky in Chaotic, Unprecedented Oval Office Clash, Zelensky Receives Warm Welcome from European Leaders After White House Debacle, Pentagon Suspends U.S. Cyber Operations Targeting Russia, Israel Blocks Gaza Aid as It Continues to Derail Ceasefire; U.S. Expedites $4B Israeli Arms Transfer, Trump's Foreign Aid Cuts Could Lead to Half a Million AIDS Deaths in South Africa, U.S. Judge Says Gov't Watchdog Illegally Fired; DNC Sues Trump over Attack on Election Commission, WaPo: DHS Seeking Personal IRS Data of 700,000 Suspected Undocumented People, Landlord Who Killed 6-Year-Old Wadea al-Fayoume Found Guilty of Murder and Hate Crime, Disgraced Gov. Andrew Cuomo Enters New York City Mayoral Race, At Least the 5th New York Prisoner Has Died in Weeks Since Wildcat Strike Started, Iowa Enacts Bill Ending Civil Rights Protections for Transgender People, Vermont Protesters Greet JD Vance with Pro-Trans, Pro-Ukraine, Pro-Palestinian Messages, Protesters Across U.S. Target Elon Musk's Businesses, Trump's Crackdown on National Parks, "End Ceaseless War Provocations": Activists Denounce U.S.-Led Drills in Korea, Palestinian-Israeli Film "No Other Land" Makes History as It Takes Home Best Documentary Oscar
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Feb 28, 2025
Thousands of informational government webpages have been taken down so far in the second Trump administration, including on public health, scientific research and LGBTQ rights. Amid this mass erasure of public information, the Internet Archive is racing to save copies of those deleted resources. The San Francisco-based nonprofit operates the Wayback Machine, a popular tool that saves snapshots of websites that may otherwise be lost forever, and it has archived federal government websites at each presidential transition since 2004. While it's normal for a new administration to overhaul some of its online resources, the Trump administration's pace of destruction has shocked many archivists. "There have been thousands and thousands of pages removed," says Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine, who notes that even a page about the U.S. Constitution was scrubbed from the White House website.
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Feb 28, 2025
We continue to look at Israeli torture of Palestinian detainees with Naji Abbas from Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, which has just released a new report detailing the mistreatment of medical workers from Gaza. Hundreds of doctors, nurses, paramedics and other essential medical staff were arrested by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023 and held under brutal conditions, with many describing physical, psychological and sexual abuse, starvation, medical neglect and more. "It's a whole journey of torture and abuse," says Abbas, director of PHRI's Prisoners and Detainees Department.
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Feb 28, 2025
Dr. Khaled Alser, a renowned Palestinian surgeon at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, describes how Israeli forces abducted him from Gaza last year before transferring him to Israeli prisons rife with abuse. He was held by Israel for seven months last year, during which time he says he was beaten, humiliated, denied medical treatment and tortured. He also describes routine sexual assault and sexual humiliation of prisoners by Israeli soldiers, as well as the use of military attack dogs on the detainees. No charges were filed against Alser before he was released back to Gaza. "Most of the prisoners I met inside the prison are civilians or civil workers here, working inside hospitals, schools, universities," Alser tells Democracy Now! from Gaza. "We as healthcare workers, we don't have any agenda against anyone. We just provide medical care."
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Feb 28, 2025
We speak with foreign policy analyst Matt Duss about increasingly fraught relations between the United States and Ukraine, which have undergone a seismic shift under the second Trump administration. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is meeting with President Trump at the White House on Friday and is expected to sign an agreement giving the U.S. access to his country's rare earth minerals, which are key components in mobile phones and other advanced technology. It's unclear what, if anything, Ukraine will get in return, even as Trump pushes Kyiv to reach a deal with Moscow to end the war that began in February 2022 when Russian forces invaded Ukraine. Trump is simultaneously moving to restore relations with Russia and lift its international isolation. Duss says the throughline in Trump's thinking, from Ukraine to Gaza and elsewhere, is that "great powers" like the United States "make the decisions, and less powerful countries, less powerful communities and peoples simply have to live with the consequences."
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Feb 28, 2025
U.S. Judge Says Trump & Musk's Mass Firings Are Illegal as New Wave of Layoffs Hits NOAA, Trump Cuts USAID's Contracts by 90%, Gives Staffers 15 Minutes to Clear Desks, FDA Vaccine Panel Meeting to Discuss Flu Shot Is Canceled, Trump Vows to Go Ahead with Tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China Next Week, Trump Softens Rhetoric on Ukrainian President Zelensky Ahead of White House Meeting, Talks Underway for Next Phase of Tenuous Ceasefire as Israel Releases Remaining Palestinian Captives, Israeli Forces Fatally Shoot Another Palestinian Child in Occupied West Bank, Jailed Kurdish Leader Calls on Followers to Lay Down Arms, 11 Killed, Dozens Wounded by Explosions at Rally of M23 Rebels in Eastern DRC, Thailand Deports Uyghurs to China Despite Warnings over Imprisonment and Torture, Centrists in Austria and Germany Exclude Far-Right Parties from Ruling Coalitions, U.N. Negotiators Agree to Plan to Reverse Biodiversity Loss by 2030, Congress Overturns Biden-Era Rule to Tax Methane Pollution, Elon Musk Seeks to Have His Company Take Over Verizon's $2.4 Billion FAA Contract, Protests Erupt as Iowa Republicans Eliminate Civil Rights Protections for Transgender People, Accused Human Traffickers Andrew and Tristan Tate Return to Florida as U.S. Lifts Travel Ban, Two Prisoners Found Dead at New York's Sing Sing as Prison Guards Continue Wildcat Strike, Activists Launch 24-Hour "Economic Blackout" to Protest Corporate Greed
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Feb 27, 2025
Elon Musk, the world's richest man, has been the public face of the Trump administration's effort to dismantle many government agencies and slash the size of the federal workforce. On Wednesday, he attended Trump's first Cabinet meeting, although he is not a Cabinet member. Meanwhile, Russell Vought, the Project 2025 mastermind and director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, has been working behind the scenes to enact far-right policies aimed at privatizing public resources like Medicaid and Social Security. We speak with Jacobin staff writer Branko Marcetic to discuss the radical DOGE agenda. "As they make these ruthless, ruthless cuts to the programs that people rely on, … they also want to keep in place massive tax cuts for the rich," he says.
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Feb 27, 2025
Thousands gathered in Beirut Sunday to mourn the death of Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's longtime leader who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in September. Under a ceasefire agreement, Israel withdrew its troops from southern Lebanon last week, but it continues to illegally occupy five locations in the country. Correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous traveled to Lebanon last week to report from the ground in southern Lebanon and to cover Nasrallah's funeral, one of the biggest in the region in decades. The large turnout of thousands of Lebanese mourners was a "show of presence and of support for Hezbollah, which suffered heavy losses in Israel's war on Lebanon," Abdel Kouddous says.
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Feb 27, 2025
An unvaccinated child has died of measles, Texas officials announced Wednesday, the first death from measles in the United States in a decade. The child's death in a hospital in Lubbock, in West Texas, comes as the largest measles outbreak in the state in over 30 years is now spreading to New Mexico. Since last month, 124 people have contracted the disease, most of them unvaccinated children. "The minute you stop vaccinating and maintaining that vigilance of 90-95% vaccine coverage, measles comes roaring back, and that's what's happened here in West Texas," world-renowned pediatrician, virologist and vaccine expert, Dr. Peter Hotez, tells Democracy Now!
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Feb 27, 2025
White Houses Announces Large-Scale Government Layoffs, Trump and Musk Lead First Cabinet Meeting, Touting Gov't Cuts, Dismantling of Federal Agencies, Protests in D.C. Take Aim at Health Insurance, Financial Institutions, Oil & Gas Interests, U.S. Aid Slashed by 90%, Condemning Lifesaving Projects Around the Globe, "Screaming from Hunger in the Streets": U.S. Aid Cuts Compound Sudan's Hunger Crisis, Unknown Illness Kills 53 in Western Democratic Republic of Congo, Hundreds of Palestinian Prisoners Freed by Israel Show Signs of Torture and Starvation, Trump Posts AI Video Depicting "Riviera of the Middle East" , British PM Keir Starmer Warns Russia Could Reinvade Ukraine Without U.S. Security Guarantees, BP to Boost Oil and Gas Investments by $10 Billion, Reversing Pledge to Invest in Clean Energy, Earth's Glaciers Are Melting at Accelerated Rate, U.S. Records First Measles Death in a Decade as West Texas Outbreak Spreads, Pentagon Memo Calls for Removal of Trans Military Personnel, Trump Announces $5 Million "Gold Card" Visa for Wealthy Immigrants, Entertainers, Media Figures Condemn BBC's Pulling of Gaza Documentary About Palestinian Children, "Sick-Out" Held at Barnard College to Protest Expulsion of Pro-Palestinian Students, NY Gov. Kathy Hochul Orders CUNY to Remove Palestinian Studies Job Posting, Washington Post Opinion Editor Resigns as Jeff Bezos Orders Changes to Opinion Section
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Feb 26, 2025
We speak with Jose Saldaña, director of Release Aging People in Prison, about a wildcat strike by New York prison guards who claim limits on solitary confinement have made their work more dangerous. "The people who are living in a dangerous environment are the incarcerated men and women," says Saldaña, who notes the strike began the same week murder charges were announced against six of the guards who brutally beat to death handcuffed prisoner Robert Brooks in an attack captured on body-camera video. "The whole world saw it, and they're questioning: How long has this been going on in the prison system? This illegal strike is to erase that consciousness that's building," says Saldaña. We are also joined by anthropologist Orisanmi Burton, who studies prisons and says the proliferation of solitary confinement and other harsh measures is directly linked to political organizing behind bars starting in the late 1960s. "Prisons in the United States are best understood as institutions of low-intensity warfare that masquerade as apolitical instruments of crime control," says Burton, author of Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt.
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Feb 26, 2025
We look at a rare victory for a death row prisoner before the U.S. Supreme Court. On Tuesday, three conservative justices joined with the three liberals to overturn the murder conviction and death sentence of Richard Glossip, who has spent nearly 30 years on Oklahoma death row and had exhausted all other appeals to stay his execution. The justices said Glossip was entitled to a new trial after errors in his original prosecution. Glossip's conviction stems from the 1997 murder of his former boss, who was killed by another man who accused Glossip of masterminding the killing. Glossip has always maintained his innocence, and even Oklahoma Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond has said Glossip did not get a fair trial. We speak with Glossip's spiritual adviser, Sister Helen Prejean, renowned anti-death penalty activist, who says the case has brought together a remarkable coalition to fight for justice and helped to highlight the problems with capital punishment. "We don't need this thing," says Prejean. "It's time to shut it down."
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