As the DOJ releases the largest batch of files yet on the federal investigation into Epstein, we look at some of the most significant revelations with investigative journalist Vicky Ward, who has spent decades reporting on the deceased sexual predator, his powerful associates and the impact of his crimes. Survivors have condemned the Department of Justice for not complying with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required all files to be released last Friday. “I mean, that was the first indication of the contemptuous, cavalier attitude that has gone on inside this Justice Department,” says Ward. “It’s heartbreaking, frankly, to see these files being dribbled out.”

AMY GOODMAN: Days after the December 19th deadline for the release of all files related to the late serial sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and under enormous pressure, the Justice Department has just released more than 11,000 files Tuesday, totaling nearly 30,000 pages of documents. This includes internal FBI emails from 2019 that mention 10 possible “co-conspirators” of Epstein, including one who’s described as a, quote, “wealthy business man in Ohio,” unquote. The emails also note that, quote, “three have been located in Florida and served [grand jury] subpoenas; 1 in Boston, 1 in New York City, and 1 in Connecticut were located and served,” unquote. Ghislaine Maxwell is the only Epstein accomplice to be charged criminally. She’s currently serving a 20-year sentence on federal sex trafficking charges.

This comes after the DOJ Monday briefly published thousands of additional documents related to Epstein. The second tranche of documents were available online for several hours, but then disappeared from the Justice Department’s website without explanation. The documents contain wide-ranging references to Donald Trump.

One email, written by an assistant U.S. attorney during Trump’s first term in early 2020, found Trump was a passenger aboard Epstein’s private jet on at least eight flights between 1993 and 1996. On at least four of those flights, Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell was also present. Trump has not been directly accused of criminal conduct and claims to have cut ties with Epstein decades ago.

In a joint statement, multiple survivors slammed the government’s recent document dump for failing to redact numerous victim identities, while also making, quote, “abnormal and extreme redactions with no explanation,” like page upon page completely blacked out. This is Epstein survivor Sharlene Rochard speaking on NBC.

SHARLENE ROCHARD: I am very upset with the justice system, because there’s full pages that are totally blacked out. And I know — I don’t know about you, but my name is not a full page. We only asked that our names be redacted. That’s all we asked for. So, pages and pages and pages of black on black on black is just unacceptable.

AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, 18 survivors of Epstein wrote a joint letter condemning the Justice Department’s release of just a fraction of the files demanded by law, and called on Congress to hold hearings to ensure the Trump administration is fully complying with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

This is Epstein survivor Haley Robson, who voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election, responding to the new files. She was speaking on CNN.

HALEY ROBSON: At the end of the day, I am no longer supporting this administration. I redact any support I’ve ever given to him, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel. I am so disgusted with this administration. I think that Pam Bondi and Kash Patel both need to resign, and I would love to see number 47 get impeached over this.

AMY GOODMAN: This comes as Democratic Congressmember Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, is asking the DOJ’s inspector general to investigate why the FBI failed to act on a 1996 complaint by survivor Maria Farmer against Jeffrey Epstein that he and his associates were producing child sexual abuse material. Garcia wrote, quote, “For survivors like Maria Farmer, her family, and all the people Jeffrey Epstein abused in the decades that followed this unanswered complaint, this was not merely a missed investigative opportunity — it was a profound betrayal by their own government,” unquote.

Meanwhile, Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna and Republican Congressmember Thomas Massie, who sponsored the Epstein Files Transparency Act, say Attorney General Pam Bondi should be held in contempt, could be fined for every day she fails to release the full Epstein files.

For more on all of this, we’re joined in our New York studio by Vicky Ward, longtime investigative journalist, host and co-producer of the podcast series Chasing Ghislaine: The Untold Story of the Woman in Epstein’s Shadow, which also became a TV series by the same name.

Vicky, welcome back to Democracy Now! First of all, if you can respond to what has happened so far? December 19th was the deadline. That was Friday. Now the Justice Department, days later, after releasing thousands of documents, then erasing them from the website, now calling for U.S. — for attorneys in the United States to come to the Justice Department and help them redact. What has been redacted? What has not been redacted? Can you respond to all of this?

VICKY WARD: Yeah. I mean, I think right from the get-go — right? — right from when, months ago, Pam Bondi said in an interview, “Oh, I’ve got the Epstein files sitting on my desk,” I mean, that was the first indication, I think, of the contemptuous, cavalier attitude that has gone on inside this Justice Department.

AMY GOODMAN: Right. She said she was going to release the so-called client list.

VICKY WARD: She was — files, they were there on her desk. I don’t think that these thousands and thousands of pages were sitting on her desk. I mean, so, you know, and it’s heartbreaking, frankly, to see these files being dribbled out. It’s so against the spirit in which the victims went to Capitol Hill, asked for transparency, which a bipartisan Congress agreed with them that they are owed this transparency, so that crimes like this may never happen again.

And now to have this mishmash, which even I, who am not a victim of sexual abuse from Jeffrey Epstein, but I sat through Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial, and I found it very, very upsetting — I think most of us journalists, you know, were hard-bitten. You know, we’ve seen some things. It was really difficult to hear the stories of abuse in that courtroom and really difficult to learn the scale of it. And these pages have that story writ large again and again and again. And given the chaos of this rollout, there’s no easy way for these survivors to quickly search what they’re looking for. I want to see —

AMY GOODMAN: That was part of the law, by the way.

VICKY WARD: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: That there had to be a working search function on these documents.

VICKY WARD: And there isn’t. And they have to wade through page after page after page of very, very difficult stuff. I think, just on a moral basis, it’s disgusting.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s really important to be talking to you today because, years ago, you wrote this piece in Vanity Fair. You’re the person who spoke to Maria Farmer. Now, that conversation did not appear in Vanity Fair. And if you can remind our viewers and listeners what happened? Because this has to do with the collusion of the press with Jeffrey Epstein. But you know her story very well.

VICKY WARD: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: This woman who, for decades, has tried to stop the abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

VICKY WARD: Yes. Well, I didn’t speak to Maria Farmer just once. You know, in the fall of 2002, when I was assigned to write this profile of Jeffrey Epstein, I met with Maria. I spoke to her many, many times. And she said exactly what has now appeared in the FBI’s files.

She said that in 1996 she had had a horrific night while up in a guest house of Jeffrey Epstein’s home on Les Wexner’s estate in Ohio. She’d been up there painting. She was an artist. Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell had come to visit her. There had followed some horrible sexual abuse, after which she had run out of the house, taken her dog, run —

AMY GOODMAN: The sexual abuse perpetrated by both Ghislaine —

VICKY WARD: By both.

AMY GOODMAN: — and Jeffrey Epstein.

VICKY WARD: By both. But in all of this, she had left behind a lock box of nude photographs of her sisters — not just Annie, there was another sister. And, you know, she was a figurative artist. You know, that’s the kind of work that she did. And she was terrified that Epstein was going to do — excuse me — you know, something terrible with these. And she got phone calls from both Epstein and Maxwell saying — threatening her.

So she phoned — in fact, she told me she phoned the police in New York first, and they said, “We can’t — this is not for us. This is, you know, going across state lines. You have to phone the FBI.” She did phone the FBI. Now, the FBI, back in the day — I phoned the FBI. They —

AMY GOODMAN: They threatened to burn her.

VICKY WARD: But she phoned the FBI about the lock box, and was worried, desperately worried, you know, what could they do with nude photographs of her sisters, who were babies, teenagers.

AMY GOODMAN: They were her younger sisters.

VICKY WARD: And, you know, when I was reporting this piece, you know, the FBI tend not to answer journalists like me, so I wasn’t able to get that record back then. I also phoned the police, and they didn’t — they didn’t produce their records, which I wish they had, because they had a record, too.

But, you know, as I think you know and a lot of journalists know how this tragic story ends, which was that when, towards the closing of the piece, I had to go to Jeffrey Epstein and to Ghislaine Maxwell with the allegations of both Maria Farmer as to what had happened, and her younger sister Annie, who had said very clearly on the record that she had been taken to New Mexico for a weekend and had —

AMY GOODMAN: To his estate there.

VICKY WARD: Yes, and, you know, at the age of 16, and had to have a topless massage from Ghislaine Maxwell. And then, Jeffrey Epstein, one morning, jumped into bed for, quote-unquote, a “cuddle” with her. Epstein went berserk when I put those allegations, as did Ghislaine Maxwell, absolutely berserk. He, you know, suddenly sent over a whole bunch of paperwork that he claimed were letters from their mother, letters from them, that showed that, no, you know, this could not be true.

And, you know, the next thing I knew was that as we were closing the piece, a fact-checker sent me a note saying, “You’re not going to believe who’s now in the office at Vanity Fair.” It was Jeffrey Epstein. You know, who knows what happened?

AMY GOODMAN: Meeting with?

VICKY WARD: Graydon Carter, the editor of the magazine. I do not know what was said in that meeting. I will say, Amy, that I did —

AMY GOODMAN: You were about to give birth to twins?

VICKY WARD: I was at home on bed rest. I thought we were done with this piece. I did find in these files that — in the first batch that was released, that there was a section in a binder containing photographs, that was called Vanity Fair. I did notice that the photographs in that binder, in that section, were the ones that were used accompanying my piece in the magazine, which is very unusual, because Vanity Fair normally prides itself on its photography as much as it does on its word. So, one has to assume they provided the photographs. One has to ask: What was the quid pro quo?

My piece finally ran. The Farmer sisters and their allegations were not in it. And the reason that is so, so, so terrible and devastating is that we had exposed them — I had exposed them — to Ghislaine Maxwell and to Graydon Carter.

And the story doesn’t end there. The FBI then phoned me about, I want to say, a year later, 2004, about the Farmer sisters. And I did tell them what had happened. So, I would like to see my interview notes somewhere in these files.

AMY GOODMAN: And you haven’t seen them yet.

VICKY WARD: No, I have not.

AMY GOODMAN: But that certainly is not classified information.

VICKY WARD: No.

AMY GOODMAN: That is proof, once again —

VICKY WARD: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: — of all of the information that has not been released.

VICKY WARD: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. The other thing I think you see, it’s not just the rollout itself that’s shambles. The content in it kind of paints a picture of a shambolic FBI. You know, this is an FBI that seems to take its lead quite often from the press. I will say it’s interesting. You know, I learned that something I’d reported is kind of laid out on the page clearly, which is that were it not for David Boies, the lawyer who represented Virginia Giuffre in her civil litigation against Ghislaine Maxwell — Virginia sued for defamation.

AMY GOODMAN: Who brought down —

VICKY WARD: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — Andrew, the prince.

VICKY WARD: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: No longer.

VICKY WARD: Right. Virginia, as we know, tragically, died of suicide earlier this year. But you can see in these files, in that litigation, which was in 2016, you can see notes of conversations. David Boies went to the feds. He went to the Southern District, said, “You need to look at what is in these — this discovery, need to look at these depositions, because this shows the bigger crime.” You see the feds tracking this, but you don’t see them doing anything, until, again, you see them pass around links to the Miami Herald, links to Julie Brown’s story in — end of 2018. And it’s almost like they are having to follow, you know, almost like Inspector Clouseau, these breadcrumbs that are left for them by everybody else. And I’m sure the survivors find this really disheartening, in a way, to watch.

AMY GOODMAN: Why do you think President Trump has approached this the way he has? And what about the information and all that has come out around him — not necessarily criminal —

VICKY WARD: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — but the removal of his name from so many different documents? And then you see his name once in a document that was redacted, and so you know that it’s actually him. He’s the one who campaigned on the release of the —

VICKY WARD: I know.

AMY GOODMAN: — Jeffrey Epstein documents. Now he had to sign this release into law, but the way they are dragging their feet. Talk, as we wrap up, about what you expect to see, the incredible power of the survivors banding together.

VICKY WARD: Well, you know, my — this is speculation, but my gut — and I do know President Trump — tells me that he doesn’t like a story in which there’s any sort of gray or nuance that he isn’t somehow the best, the absolute best. And, you know, this is a story which again and again and again brings up his past, and a past that presented a very different portrait of Donald Trump than the one he would like to portray now.

I will say that, you know, having sat in the Maxwell trial, we did see his name come up on the screen on the flight logs in that key period, when Maxwell and Epstein were grooming and recruiting one of their major victims up, who was attending Interlochen, a school for artistic gifted children. You did see flight’s name again and — Trump’s name again and again and again on the manifest. And it was a head scratcher, because it was really impossible at that time to put the pieces of this jigsaw puzzle together.

AMY GOODMAN: Because he denied being on any flights —

VICKY WARD: No.

AMY GOODMAN: — and he denied being on the island.

VICKY WARD: Well, and I never saw any records of him being on the island. I don’t know if he denied being on any flights. But I think that, you know, you can see, if you’re Trump, this is all too close for comfort, and it’s not very comfortable to have these things out. And Trump being Trump, he’d rather not address it.

AMY GOODMAN: And where do you see this going for the survivors and for Pam Bondi? Could she be held in contempt?

VICKY WARD: Well, I really hope Congress does their job. I mean, you know, one of the things we need to see in the Trump administration is the different branches of government actually doing what they’re supposed to do and holding each other to account.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, you are the expert on Ghislaine Maxwell. She is now in a minimum-security prison. No sex abuse — no sex perpetrator has been put in a prison camp like she has, after she had interviews with, what, the deputy attorney general, who was Trump’s former attorney. Could you see Trump pardoning her? And she has appealed for the reopening of the case.

VICKY WARD: Well, I think two of the people who come out absolutely appallingly from this latest document dump is Ghislaine Maxwell in her correspondence with the former Prince Andrew, arranging, quote-unquote, “inappropriate” girls for him. I think people will be sickened by that.

As regarding a pardon, never, never say “never.” But I think President Trump is a man who’s concerned at this point with legacy and with history. And I think if he were to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, that blot would stain all the other things he — accomplishments he likes to talk about that he’s done. So I personally would be shocked.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you, Vicky Ward. We’ll continue to follow this story. Longtime investigative journalist, host and co-producer of the podcast series Chasing Ghislaine: The Untold Story of the Woman in Epstein’s Shadow, which also became a TV series by the same name.

President Trump praised the state of the U.S. economy in a primetime address Wednesday evening, even though new government statistics show the nation’s unemployment rate is at a new four-year high of 4.6%. Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, says Trump’s aides should be “wondering about the man’s sanity” after Wednesday’s speech. “This is utterly divorced from reality.” Though Trump blames former President Biden for the poor economy, Baker notes that Trump had inherited an “incredibly strong economy by almost every measure imaginable.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show looking at President Trump’s primetime address on Wednesday night. There was widespread speculation that Trump would use the speech to announce military action against Venezuela, but instead, the 18-minute speech focused largely on domestic issues, including the economy and healthcare.

Trump’s address comes as his poll numbers continue to fall. A new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll finds just 36% of Americans approve of the president’s handling of the economy.

This is how Trump began his speech from the White House.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess, and I’m fixing it. When I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years, and some would say in the history of our country, which caused prices to be higher than ever before, making life unaffordable for millions and millions of Americans. This happened during a Democrat administration, and it’s when we first began hearing the word “affordability.”

Our border was open, and because of this, our country was being invaded by an army of 25 million people, many who came from prisons and jails, mental institutions and insane asylums. They were drug dealers, gang members, and even 11,888 murderers, more than 50% of whom killed more than one person. This is what the Biden administration allowed to happen to our country, and it can never be allowed to happen again.

AMY GOODMAN: Standing between two Christmas trees, President Trump went on to praise the state of the U.S. economy, even though new government statistics show the nation’s unemployment rate is at a new four-year high of 4.6%.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We’re doing what nobody thought was even possible, not even remotely possible. There has never, frankly, been anything like it. One year ago, our country was dead. We were absolutely dead. Our country was ready to fail, totally fail. Now we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world. And that’s said by every single leader that I’ve spoken to over the last five months.

Next year, you will also see the results of the largest tax cuts in American history, that were really accomplished through our great Big Beautiful Bill, perhaps the most sweeping legislation ever passed in Congress.

AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about Trump’s speech, what some called an “18-minute shout,” and also talk about the state of the economy, we’re joined by Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, author of Rigged: How Globalization and Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer.

So, as you watched this speech from your vantage point in Oregon, Dean, what stood out for you most?

DEAN BAKER: Well, this is kind of a greatest hit of crazy. I mean, you know, if I were one of his staffers, in all seriousness, I’d be wondering about the man’s sanity. I mean, this is utterly divorced from reality.

I mean, just starting from the word go, that he inherited a mess, no, he inherited a very strong economy. That’s not my assessment. That’s just universal assessment. I remember The Economist magazine, which is not a left-wing outlet, had a cover story, “The U.S. Economy: The Envy of the World.” This was just before the election last fall. The unemployment rate was at 4%. The economy was growing about two-and-a-half percent annual rate. Inflation was coming down to its 2% target. We had a boom in factory construction. This was an incredibly strong economy by almost every measure imaginable. So, Trump gets in there and says it was dead. This is crazy.

You know, I could go on on his immigration stories. Twenty-five million? The numbers that most — you know, it’s roughly estimated it’s somewhere around 6 million. Asylum? Again, this is another one that you go, “Oh my god, no one can tell this guy.” He thinks that when people come here for asylum, you know, for political reasons — they face persecution in their home country, which is in the law — that they’re released from insane asylums.

There’s just — it just goes on from here. This is utterly removed from reality, and it’s a little scary. I mean, this is the man who decides whether we go to war, controls the nuclear weapons. I mean, he is not in touch with reality.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to the issue of healthcare, which you have written a lot about. Yesterday, the House did pass a bill on healthcare, but it was to criminalize transgender care for minors. But when it came to the Affordable Care Act, what Republicans increasingly are concerned about, along with Democrats in the House, that did not pass, the bill that would allow the subsidies for affordable healthcare to continue for three years. So, I want to go to two clips of President Trump, on drugs and on healthcare.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The current “unaffordable care act” was created to make insurance companies rich. It was bad healthcare at much too high a cost, and you see that now in the steep increase in premiums being demanded by the Democrats. And they are demanding those increases, and it’s their fault. It is not the Republicans’ fault; it’s the Democrats’ fault. It’s the “unaffordable care act,” and everybody knew it. Again. I want the money to go directly to the people so you can buy your own healthcare. You’ll get much better healthcare at a much lower price.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Dean Baker, what exactly is he talking about? What is President Trump proposing? How is it, with the Republicans in control, they have not passed one replacement for the Affordable Care Act in years?

DEAN BAKER: Yeah, well, to start with, first of all, you know, again, the claims on the Affordable Care Act, I want to kick the Democrats, because they won’t defend it, but the data is as clear as it could possibly be. Healthcare cost growth slowed sharply after the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010. We would be spending thousands of dollars more per year per person if healthcare had followed the course projected by the Congressional Budget Office, every healthcare expert. So, there’s a very sharp slowdown in healthcare cost growth after the Affordable Care Act passed. I don’t understand why the Democrats are scared to say that, but that happens to be the reality. So, sorry, it is the Affordable Care Act, not the “unaffordable care act,” as he says.

Now, when you hear Trump and Republicans talk, it’s like they have not been involved in the debate on healthcare for the last 15 years. “We’re going to give people money to buy their own healthcare.” That’s actually what the Affordable Care Act does. Now, if you want to say you want to take away regulations on the insurance industry, OK, well, they aren’t going to insure people with cancer. They aren’t going to insure people with heart conditions. Insurers are there to make money. That’s not an indictment of them. That’s the reality. They aren’t — they aren’t a charity. So, if you you say, “OK, there’s no regulations. Insure who you want,” well, they’ll — “We’ll insure healthy people. That’s cheap. We won’t insure people with cancer.” That was the whole point. It was: How do you create an insurance market where people who actually need the care, the people who really have health issues, they can get insurance at an affordable price?

To be clear, I’m not happy with it. I would have loved to see Medicare for All. I would still love to see it. It would be a much more efficient system. But the Affordable Care Act, for what the Republicans are talking about, that’s a story where people who actually have health issues, they’re not going to be able to afford insurance. And this has been around the block for the last 15 years, or really much longer, because the debate precedes the Affordable Care Act, and they’re talking like they never saw it, which is kind of incredible.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, as we come closer to the midterm elections, Republican congressmembers are concerned about winning, given that people could have their healthcare costs doubled and tripled. So, yesterday, you had four House Republicans voting for a dispatch petition for this clean three-year continuation of healthcare subsidies: Congressmembers Brian Fitzpatrick, Robert Bresnahan, Ryan Mackenzie and, here in New York, Mike Lawler. They’re in very close races. What does this mean for what could possibly happen?

DEAN BAKER: Well, people care about this. I mean, it’s 24 million people. That’s a lot of people. They have family members. They have relatives, friends. This is a lot of people that will not be able to afford healthcare if these subsidies aren’t extended, which looks to be the case. And that is going to be a political issue. People care about healthcare, and that’s just the reality. I mean, people who have health issues, and even if you don’t, you want to know that if you develop something — because, again, that’s the concern. Most people are relatively healthy. They have relatively low cost. But we all know that we could have an accident tomorrow. We could develop cancer. That happens. And this is about extending healthcare.

And you have an option: You could go with Donald Trump’s dementia dreams and tell the voters, “Oh, Donald Trump says whatever,” and maybe some people will believe you, or you deal with the reality. And here you have four Republican congresspeople who say, “Well, I got to live in the real world. I can’t live in whatever craziness Donald Trump is selling.”

AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s go back to Donald Trump talking about drug costs.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I’m doing what no politician of either party has ever done: standing up to the special interests to dramatically reduce the price of prescription drugs. I negotiated directly with the drug companies and foreign nations, which were taking advantage of our country for many decades, to slash prices on drugs and pharmaceuticals by as much as 400, 500 and even 600%. … The first of these unprecedented price reductions will be available starting in January through a new website, TrumpRx.gov.

AMY GOODMAN: TrumpRx.gov. Dean Baker, explain.

DEAN BAKER: Yeah, well, he likes to get his name on things. This is going to be a website that will matter very little to most people, because most people get drugs through insurance companies, government programs. They won’t be affected by this. And already there are discount websites, so it’s not clear it’s even going to help anyone. But let’s put that aside. He gets his name on something. That’s what he cares about.

But what’s really scary is — we do pay way too much for drugs. I’ve harped on this endlessly. Drugs are cheap. We make them expensive with patent monopolies. He doesn’t want to talk about that. RFK Jr. yells about the drug industry. He doesn’t want to talk about that. This is a clown show.

But what’s really scary is, he talks about bringing drug prices down 400, 500, 600%. You just heard that. Well, that’s not possible. And if he had just said that once, you’d go, “OK, we all could be confused. He’s not an economist. You know, people make mistakes.” He’s said it repeatedly. And what’s striking is, it’s obviously absurd. His aides are not all morons. They know you cannot reduce prices by more than 100%. They’re scared to explain that to him. So, here you have a person who’s utterly ignorant about the world, believes all sorts of absolutely crazy things, and the people around him cannot explain that to him.

AMY GOODMAN: Wait, Dean Baker, you have to —

DEAN BAKER: That is very, very scary.

AMY GOODMAN: You have to explain what you mean, because it might not be obvious to everyone, that you can’t bring down a price more than 100%.

DEAN BAKER: OK, so, let’s say a drug costs $300. So, I want to reduce the price by 50%, that’s a $150 price reduction. I want to reduce it 80%, that’s a $240 price reduction. If I reduce it 100%, it’s now free, zero. If I reduce it 150%, are you going to be paying me money to buy the drugs? Will you pay me $150 to buy the drugs? If you reduced it 600%, I guess you’d be paying me $1,800 to buy the drugs. No one is talking about that. Drug companies are not going to pay you to buy their drugs. Even Donald Trump, I don’t think he thinks that. Who knows? But it’s utterly crazy, and apparently his aides cannot explain that to him.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to President Trump on inflation.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Here at home, we’re bringing our economy back from the brink of ruin. The last administration and their allies in Congress looted our Treasury for trillions of dollars, driving up prices and everything at levels never seen before. I am bringing those high prices down, and bringing them down very fast.

Let’s look at the facts. Under the Biden administration, car prices rose 22%, and in many states, 30% or more. Gasoline rose 30 to 50%. Hotel rates rose 37%. Airfares rose 31%. Now under our leadership, they are all coming down, and coming down fast. Democrat politicians also sent the cost of groceries soaring, but we are solving that, too. The price of a Thanksgiving turkey was down 33% compared to the Biden last year. The price of eggs is down 82% since March, and everything else is falling rapidly. And it’s not done yet, but, boy, are we making progress.

AMY GOODMAN: Fact-check, Dean Baker.

DEAN BAKER: Yeah, this is a lot of craziness. There was a lot of inflation in the Biden administration. This was because of the pandemic, which I guess Trump didn’t hear about. This was 2021, 2022. It was worldwide. So, it was in France. It was in Germany, even in Japan. They saw a big jump in prices. We saw some of that here also. That was restarting the economy after the shutdowns, which were done under Trump. Again, maybe his dementia prevents him from remembering that. That was a worldwide story. Inflation had come down to just under 3% by the time Trump took office.

His imagination about how he’s brought down prices down since — gasoline prices fell 3%. They were just over $3 a gallon, time he took office. They’re about $2.90 a gallon. It’s good, I guess. Diesel prices are actually up 5%. He doesn’t know about that. Egg prices fell a lot. Well, they rose under Trump because of avian flu. I don’t necessarily blame him for it, but I don’t give him that much credit for ending avian flu — I don’t give any credit for that. This story is utterly imaginary. I should also point out grocery prices: They’re up 2.7% over the year. He left out electricity. Electricity prices have been rising about 8% at annual rate. I do blame him for that, because that’s his AI policy. He wants data centers everywhere. It’s very, very — they use a huge amount of energy. It’s very expensive.

So, he’s living in an imaginary world. He’s created a disaster which didn’t exist before he took office. And the idea that everything’s better now, not according to anything you could see in the world.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Dean Baker, final comments? We have 30 seconds.

DEAN BAKER: Yeah, I mean, this is — it’s kind of scary. I mean, the economy was actually doing very good under Biden. We’re seeing problems now, and we’re going to see much worse, because the tariffs — it’s not so much that a tariff is per se bad. You can put them in place. But when you use them for political purposes, you change them by the day depending what you had for breakfast or who nominated you for a Nobel Peace Prize, that creates a very, very bad economy. We’ve seen that story in other countries. It’s unfortunate we’re going to see that here.

AMY GOODMAN: Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, author of Rigged: How Globalization and Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer, speaking to us from Astoria, Oregon, with a little cameo from his dog. Say hi to your dog, Dean.

DEAN BAKER: I’ll do that. She’ll say hi, too. I’ll bring her out.

A leaked memo by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi directs the Justice Department and FBI to compile a list of groups that may be labeled “domestic terrorism” organizations based on political views related to immigration, gender and U.S. policy. The memo was obtained by independent investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein, who joins us to discuss how it expands on President Donald Trump’s NSPM-7 directive following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which ordered a national strategy to investigate and disrupt groups the administration claims could incite political violence. Bondi’s effort targets “not just the left,” but “anyone who isn’t a Trump supporter,” says Klippenstein of the sweeping order, which identifies targets as entities expressing “opposition to law and immigration enforcement,” support for “mass migration and open borders,” “radical gender ideology,” or views described as anti-American, anti-capitalist or anti-Christian, as well as “hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality.” People who report extremists may be financially rewarded, and the FBI is reviewing records from the past five years, as well as the present.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered the FBI to compile a list of what the Justice Department is calling “domestic terrorist” organizations. Last week, Bondi sent a memo to all federal prosecutors and law enforcement agencies targeting a wide range of people, including those who hold what she calls, quote, “extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology,” “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism” or “anti-Christianity,” unquote. The memo also targets people who show, quote, “hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality,” unquote.

The investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein published a copy of Bondi’s memo on his Substack page on Saturday. Klippenstein notes Bondi’s language echoes a National Security Presidential Memorandum issued by President Trump, known as NSPM-7, to target nonprofits and activists. Trump signed the directive in September in the wake of the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

Ken Klippenstein, thanks so much for being with us from Madison, Wisconsin. Why don’t you tell us how you got a hold of this memo?

KEN KLIPPENSTEIN: Well, it was provided to me by somebody who — I can’t really say much more than — had access to it. And what it was was an implementation order for that NSPM-7 directive from President Trump, which essentially targets anyone who isn’t MAGA. At first, I looked at it and thought, “Oh, this is targeting the left.” But then you see these so-called indicators of terrorism, things like anti-Christian sentiment, anti-American sentiment, and I realized that’s not just the left. That’s anyone who isn’t a Trump supporter.

AMY GOODMAN: So, explain the significance of this, Ken Klippenstein.

KEN KLIPPENSTEIN: It essentially takes NSPM-7, which advances the view that the major threat of terrorism is coming from these anti-Trump sentiments, and it puts it into effect. It uses tools available to the federal government, and federal law enforcement in particular. For example, it directs the FBI to go through its past half-decade or so of intelligence on antifa and on some of these other groups that I’ve been talking about, and tells them to make criminal cases around those and to circulate intelligence about it.

And part of that intelligence production effort involves soliciting tips from the public, getting people to narc on their fellow citizens who are evincing this anti-Trump sentiment. So, in one case, it tells the FBI to upgrade and kind of supercharge its tip system so that they can get this flow of information coming in from informants all over the country reporting on threats like these.

AMY GOODMAN: [inaudible] do you believe?

KEN KLIPPENSTEIN: I’m sorry. Could you repeat that again? It cut out for just a second.

AMY GOODMAN: Who is the architect of this memo, do you believe, of the NSPM-7?

KEN KLIPPENSTEIN: I would say it’s not a person so much as an incident, which was the murder of Charlie Kirk. As national security officials described to me shortly after the murder, the very next day there was a war room convened by the White House. And I think kind of unofficially taking point on this was President Trump’s homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller, and he kind of orchestrated, along with all these other national security appointees: How are we going to respond to this? And the decision was made that we would make anti-Trump tantamount to this terrorist threat, and we were going to prosecute it as such. So, I guess I would say, if I was to point to one single person, I would say Stephen Miller.

But this is really an attitude held by a lot of people in the administration, which I think is genuine fear in the wake of that shooting that something like that might happen to them, and so we have to create a response. And what that is is, essentially, the same sort of response to 9/11, but in this case it’s in — it’s directed at Americans, who the —

AMY GOODMAN: Ken, is money involved with this?

KEN KLIPPENSTEIN: Yeah, absolutely. So, it directs the Treasury Department to audit taxes and try to find — the administration seems convinced that there’s some shadowy foreign group or financiers for a lot of the sentiments I was describing before, and antifa in particular. And so, it authorizes them to go through nonprofits’ taxes and to try to find evidence of something which there’s no public evidence exists in any sort of significant way.

AMY GOODMAN: But is there a reward being offered, like if someone calls an FBI tip line?

KEN KLIPPENSTEIN: Yeah, absolutely. So, that’s another thing that this implementation order directs. It provides for a funding system to reward people that provide these tips that I was describing before. It’s basically a bounty system for anti-Trump thought and reporting on it.

AMY GOODMAN: And it goes back retroactively five years?

KEN KLIPPENSTEIN: Yeah, the FBI right now, pursuant to this order, is digging through all of its intelligence to find whatever they can, going back to the Biden administration, that can be used to help make these cases.

AMY GOODMAN: So, the memo targets organizations, not only, what, formal NGOs, but also book clubs, community mutual networks, mutual aid networks, online forums?

KEN KLIPPENSTEIN: Yeah, that’s exactly right. And it uses the phrase “organizations and entities,” which can mean individuals. So, again, it can’t be overstated how sweeping a directive like this is. This isn’t targeted. And to the extent that it’s being reported as directed at antifa, I think it’s important to remember, you know, antifa may not exist as such, but it includes a lot more than that. It also describes people opposed to immigration enforcement, which, if you look at polling, is like — you know, the way in which immigration enforcement has been rolled out under this administration, that could describe half the country or more of it. So, this is really much bigger than just antifa. And to the extent that antifa means anything, the administration defines it in its own way, which is different than how a lot of people would define antifa. So, it’s really important to understand that.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, we just did a segment on the Pentagon bombing boats without evidence of them being, as the Trump administration calls them, narcoterrorists. They’re talking about foreign terrorists, so-called. So, here you’re talking about a domestic terrorist network. Are we talking about no trial, no — paid-for accusations? How does this work?

KEN KLIPPENSTEIN: Yeah, I mean, the business of counterterrorism is a very ugly business. It is essentially pre-crime, in the sense that you are authorized to go and make investigations without the usual predicate that you would need of someone having committed a crime or finding evidence that suggests someone committed a crime. In counterterrorism, the theory behind it is that the threat is so great that we need to suspend those ordinary evidentiary standards for premising an investigation, and instead, all you need are these so-called indicators. And the Trump administration is defining those indicators as a lot of these groups we’ve just been describing, which can apply to millions and millions of Americans. These are very mainstream views, opposition to immigration enforcement and the way in which it’s been carried out this year.

So, the dragnet has gotten far wider. I mean, after 9/11, these tools were pointed at groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, and, unfortunately, to some extent, just American Muslims caught up in this dragnet. But they’ve widened this to include far larger sets of people. And so, what we’re really seeing is the global war on terror coming home and becoming a domestic war on terror.

AMY GOODMAN: Ken Klippenstein, I want to thank you for being with us, investigative reporter. We’ll link to your latest piece, ”FBI Making List of American 'Extremists,' Leaked Memo Reveals.”

While much of the recent interest in Jeffrey Epstein has focused on the late sexual predator’s relationship with President Donald Trump, his emails also reveal his close relationships with other powerful figures from the worlds of politics, finance, academia and beyond. The thousands of files released by the House Oversight Committee earlier this month include his correspondence from April 2011 through January 2019, after he was already a registered sex offender for abusing underage girls in Florida. The fact that so many prominent and influential people could ignore those crimes is indicative of their membership in a “borderless network of people who are more loyal to each other” than anything else, says journalist Anand Giridharadas. “He had chosen this particular kind of social network, this American power elite, because he could be sure that it would be able to look away.”

Giridharadas is author of Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World and recently wrote about the Epstein emails for The New York Times opinion section.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We begin today’s show looking at the growing scandal around the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, both his ties to President Trump and a network of prominent politicians, academics, philanthropists, diplomats and other public figures.

Last week, Congress overwhelmingly voted — almost unanimously, save one congressman, both in the Senate and the House — to compel the Justice Department to release all files related to Epstein, who died in 2019 in prison after he was arrested on federal charges for the sex trafficking of minors. President Trump signed the legislation but has repeatedly described the call to release the Epstein files to be a “hoax.”

Earlier this month, he snapped at a female reporter aboard Air Force One about the Epstein files.

CATHERINE LUCEY: If there’s nothing incriminating in the files, sir, why not act — why not —

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Quiet! Quiet, piggy.

AMY GOODMAN: Yep, you heard it right. “Quiet, piggy,” he said to the female reporter. Trump made the comment shortly after House Republicans released 20,000 files from Epstein’s estate, putting a new spotlight on the late convicted sex offender’s connections with a network of wealthy and powerful figures.

For years, survivors of Epstein’s abuse have talked about how the scandal is about far more than just Epstein. This is the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre speaking to 60 Minutes in 2019.

VIRGINIA ROBERTS GIUFFRE: I was trafficked to a lot of types of different men. I was trafficked to other billionaires. I was trafficked to politicians, professors, even royalty. So, the circles that Jeffrey Epstein ran in weren’t your typical setting of human trafficking, you know, and it was — it was the elite of the world. It was the people who run the world. It was the most powerful people in the world. And those are our leaders. Those are the people that we are supposed to look up to. It’s corrupt. It’s corrupt to the core.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Virginia Roberts Giuffre in 2019. She died earlier this year by suicide in Australia.

We’re joined now by Anand Giridharadas, author of several books, including Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, also the publisher of the Substack newsletter The.Ink. His recent piece for The New York Times is titled “How the Elite Behave When No One Is Watching: Inside the Epstein [Emails].”

Anand writes, quote, “When Jeffrey Epstein, a financier turned convicted sex offender, needed friends to rehabilitate him, he knew where to turn: a power elite practiced at disregarding pain.”

Anand, thanks so much for being with us.

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: It’s great to be back with you.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about looking at the emails, what you looked at. And as you congratulate the women and talk about their bravery for coming forward, you take a very interesting look at who these people are that Epstein surrounded himself with, this elite network, as you talk about “the Epstein class.”

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: Look, there is no doubt that at the beating, dark heart of this story is one monstrous man in Jeffrey Epstein, who did monstrous things, as Virginia was very bravely talking about there. But I think there’s a lot of powerful people in this country who would like the story to begin and end with one monstrous man.

And when these emails were released, I decided, maybe against my better judgment, that I was going to read all of them. And it took me four or five days just going through one after another, making notes. And I was really curious about all these other people, right? And some of them are celebrities and bold-faced names like she was talking about. Some of them are utterly ordinary people no one’s ever heard of. Some of them are professors, others. But I was interested in this larger network, because these were the people that Jeffrey Epstein had, in effect, chosen to rehabilitate him socially and redeem him after he was a convicted sex offender trying to reestablish himself in society. And I was trying to understand how these relationships worked.

And what I found was that it’s very convenient for the American power elite to think about this as a story of one depraved man. But, in fact, what the emails show, if you actually read them, is that he had chosen this particular kind of social network, this American power elite, because he could be sure that it would be able to look away at what he did, because it was very gifted at looking away over a generation at so much else, so much else, so much other abuse and suffering, whether the economic crises members of that network often helped cause, the wars members of that network helped push fraudulently, the pain of technological obsolescence that members of that network pushed on the American public. So, this was a group of people well chosen by Jeffrey Epstein, because this American power elite, these circles that he moved in, if they have any superpower, it is the ability to hear the cries of people without power and close their ears.

AMY GOODMAN: You write, powerfully, in this piece it’s “a tale [about a] powerful social network in which some, depending on what they knew, were perhaps able to look away because they had learned to look away from so much … abuse and suffering.” And you often talk about them being on both sides of the political spectrum. You talk — and, of course, it’s not just American. You’re talking about a British prince, though he’s been stripped of that title, Andrew. You’re talking about the Israeli former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and others. How did he manage to do this?

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: So, you know, a network, as you rightly kind of imply with the question, it needs connectivity. It needs something to hold people together. So, that’s what I was after as I read the emails. What was holding this together? Right? Why would these people be in cahoots with such a depraved person? There’s a lot of choices of people out there in the world.

Well, as I read the emails, it seemed to me there were a few different things going on. One, this is a group of people who are not really loyal to the communities they come from. They’re not — their loyalty is not downward to places and communities and even countries. This is a kind of borderless network of people who are more loyal to each other than to places. And that kind of network actually needs someone who is a connector. So, a lot of the emails are, “Hey, I’m landing in New York,” “Hey, I’m going to San Francisco.” And then Epstein would say, “Hey, you should meet this guy in San Francisco,” “Oh, you need an investor for your startup? Let me connect you with that.” It’s all about this kind of connectivity. And he was a very good connector.

Second, this is a network that thrives on information barter, and specifically nonpublic information. Again, why would they consort with this guy? Well, this guy ended up being — and not just his own information. He ended up being a kind of convener of these trades of nonpublic information. Investors want information that will help them, you know, make trades that other people don’t know about. You know, professors want insight about things. People in the business world want tips about things that will be the next big thing. So there was this kind of information network. Larry Summers, the former treasury secretary, wanted dating advice. There was this —

AMY GOODMAN: He was the Harvard president, and the dating advice, he wanted extramarital advice on how to get his mentee into bed.

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: Yes, while his wife was emailing with Epstein about how to contact Woody Allen. This is the kind of family.

And I just want to say that I think this is really important for folks to understand. Larry Summers, former treasury secretary — these sound like fancy titles. Let me break it down for folks. When someone is a treasury secretary or someone is an economic adviser, as he was to Barack Obama when he was president, someone like Larry Summers is not simply crunching numbers. Someone like that is making decisions about how your family functions. Someone like that in that kind of position of power is making decisions about how your workplace operates. Someone in that kind of position of power is deciding so many things about your life.

So, when you see that that person has no problem with the sex abuse of children, when you see that someone like that is turning to a convicted sex offender for 9-year-old-boy-level dating advice, and has actually such a — such a feeble understanding of other human beings, these are the people making decisions about your family’s economic future. These are the people deciding whether to bail out corporations or homeowners after a financial crisis. These are the people governing your life, people who maybe have all the credentials but have so little human judgment.

So, if you have lived in this economy over the last generation and have felt, “Who are these people governing me, such that I have so much pain, such that all my needs go unmet?” well, it’s because it’s a bunch of people who wouldn’t recognize a human being if it was sitting right across from them.

AMY GOODMAN: You write, “If you were an alien landing on Earth and the first thing you saw was the Epstein emails, you could gauge status by spelling, grammar, punctuation. Usage is inversely related to power in this network. The earnest scientists and scholars type neatly. The wealthy and powerful reply tersely, with misspellings, erratic spacing, stray commas. The status games belie a truth, though: These people are on the same team.”

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: Yeah. You know, it’s so interesting that there are these little — these little status games and power games, and the truly wealthy and kind of well-connected to this network will dash off these kind of mistake-strewn replies. But, yes, the ultimate point is that for all the differences — professors, wealthy people, scientists, you know, cabinet secretaries — for all the different professions in the network, different attitudes, different statuses, they were all on the same team. And it’s important to understand that.

In one of the emails, Jeffrey Epstein is inviting Steve Bannon, the Trump strategist and whisperer, over for dinner, right? As extreme a figure on the right as you’ll find. And he says, “Who would you like as dinner company? I can invite whoever you’d like? Would you like Kathryn Ruemmler?” who was Barack Obama’s, obviously, Democrat, White House counsel.

AMY GOODMAN: Went on to Goldman Sachs.

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: And went on to Goldman Sachs. And so, you think about — just think about as you think about the dinners you have at your houses, for everybody watching this. Steve Bannon — by the way, in some of the emails, Jeffrey Epstein is very angry at everything that Trump is doing, but, “Steve Bannon, come for dinner,” right? And then, “Would you like Kathryn Ruemmler?”

And then Kathryn Ruemmler becomes this fascinating figure in these emails, because she was Obama’s White House counsel, at some point, reportedly, was considered for attorney general. Who does she go to for advice? “Should I take this attorney general job?” Jeffrey Epstein, convicted sex offender. That’s who she goes to for advice. It’s worth getting more friends sometimes.

And then she goes on to Goldman Sachs. And again, your viewers are not — this will not surprise them. But this idea that someone who was once the lawyer for the American presidency goes on to be the lawyer for Goldman Sachs, just because it is normal doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think it’s not strange. It means that people in those government jobs do them kind of gently, because they got to keep that door open.

And she, at some point, quite famously now, describes in an email to Epstein — she’s driving to New York. She’s going to go see him. She’s going to go have lunch with him or something. And she says, “You know, I’m going to stop at a New Jersey rest stop, and I’m going to see all these people who are a hundred pounds overweight, and I’m going to freak out, have a panic attack about it, and then I’m never going to eat a bite of food again, in the hope that I never become like these people.” And that phrase has not left me, Amy, “these people.”

“These people.” Everybody in that network — well, not everybody, but certainly a lot of people I saw in that network — that is how they viewed you. That is how they viewed the public: “these people,” these fat people, these dumb people, these people who don’t know better, these people who don’t know that we’re all consorting and in cahoots, these people to whom we feel no loyalty.

Of course, Goldman Sachs then declared, a few years after she joined, that anti-obesity drugs are a $100 billion opportunity. So, there’s a contempt, a sneering contempt, for “these people” who are not in this powerful Epstein class. But there’s always an endless opportunity to make money off of “these people.”

AMY GOODMAN: I’m going to end where you end your New York Times piece, with the courage of the Epstein survivors, writing, quote, “the unfathomably brave survivors who have come forward to testify to their abuse have landed the first real punch against Mr. Trump. In their solidarity, their devotion to the truth and their insistence on a country that listens when people on the wrong end of power cry for help, they shame the great indifference from above. They point us to other ways of relating.” So, let’s turn to Epstein survivor Teresa Helm on Democracy Now! in July.

TERESA HELM: We cannot continue to have these people or systems continue to get away with anything that they can get away with, because they’re not — they’re skating through. They’re dodging accountability. There’s too much money involved, so, you know, people silenced through money. We have got to change the — it’s degrading our society to continue to allow these predators and perpetrators to get away with harming so many people.

AMY GOODMAN: Anand, your final comment?

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: I would respectfully correct something that Virginia Giuffre said. She said she was trafficked to a bunch of leaders.

AMY GOODMAN: At the beginning, yes.

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: I would say she is a leader who was trafficked to a bunch of cowards. They’re — and all these women have proven themselves to be the actual leaders, because leaders are brave, they take risks, they do what’s right even when it’s not convenient. And what has been revealed, ultimately, by this Epstein story is that we are led by a group of people who do not deserve to be called leaders. And these women point to what leadership looks like.

AMY GOODMAN: Anand Giridharadas is the author of several books, including Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. He’s the publisher of The.Ink newsletter on Substack. And we’ll link to his piece in The New York Times, headlined “How the Elite Behave When No One Is Watching: Inside the Epstein Emails.”

After months of delays, House Republicans have released tens of thousands of pages of documents from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, after Democrats earlier publicized emails suggesting that President Trump was aware that Epstein was abusing and trafficking young girls and women. In one of those emails, Epstein wrote that Trump “knew about the girls.” Trump’s allies say the larger set of documents released Wednesday afternoon provide evidence of Epstein’s later animosity towards Trump and support Trump’s claims that he was not previously aware of Epstein’s crimes. Still more evidence — namely, photographs and videos — may soon be publicized, as a petition for the House to vote on the full release of the “Epstein files” received its final signature from newly-sworn in Congressmember Adelita Grijalva. “There is a lot more to come,” says Spencer Kuvin, a lawyer who represents several survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse and who has reviewed much of the still-unreleased evidence, which is currently under a court protection order. “The FBI does have more information that needs to be released.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And I’m Nermeen Shaikh. Welcome to our viewers across the country and around the world.

“I am the one able to take him down.” Those are the words of Jeffrey Epstein talking about Donald Trump in a private email written in 2018. The email is part of a trove of over 20,000 pages of documents released Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee, raising new questions about President Trump’s ties to the deceased convicted sex offender. Earlier on Wednesday morning, Democrats on the committee preemptively released three emails from the files.

In one email from 2019, Epstein wrote that Trump, quote, “Knew about the girls.” In another email from 2011, Epstein described Trump as the, quote, “Dog that hasn’t barked,” noting that Trump had, quote, “Spent hours at my house with Virginia,” a reference to the late Virginia Giuffre, who accused Epstein of grooming and sexually trafficking her, beginning when she was 16 years old. The Democrats released a version of the email with Virginia’s name redacted, but an unredacted version of the email was later released.

AMY GOODMAN: In a recently published memoir, Virginia Giuffre writes she feared she would, quote, “Die a sex slave,” at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein. But in the book, Giuffre does not allege wrongdoing by Trump. She worked at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago before being recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell.

In another email from 2015, Epstein asked a reporter at the New York Times, quote, “Would you like photos of Donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen?” We’re joined now by Spencer Kuvin, who represents several survivors of abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. We have a lot to ask you about in a very small amount of time. Start off by responding to these emails that have been released.

Now, the latest news that the House is going to vote on releasing the whole trove of Epstein-Maxwell documents by next week, not in December, as was previously thought. Do you think Johnson get one of the Republican congressmembers who are calling for the release to flip?

SPENCER KUVIN: Well, first of all, thank you for having me on. And I’m not sure exactly what they’re going to actually do, but remember, this is just one procedural hurdle, right? The House has to pass this discharge petition, and then once the discharge petition has now gone through, they’ve got to vote on the floor.

Then, once that vote occurs, it’s got to flip over to the Senate, then the president will have to sign off on releasing this information. So, there are times where – periods in this process where it can get hung up, and we never end up seeing this information.

Also, remember that the most important thing that we want to see and that the general public should be shown isn’t necessarily the documents, it’s the videotapes and photographs that were taken into custody by the FBI at the various different homes of Jeffrey Epstein. We’re talking about his homes down in the Virgin Islands, here in Palm Beach, where I’m at, as well as his home in Manhattan. That’s the information that’s going to speak a thousand words. That’s what the general public needs to see.

AMY GOODMAN: Where are those videotapes? And does the Epstein estate have what many feel the government should’ve taken?

SPENCER KUVIN: Well, I believe the videotapes are in the custody of the FBI because remember, he was arrested at Teterboro Airport, and he never had an opportunity to get back to his mansion post-arrest. And the FBI then executed a search warrant on his home in Manhattan. That is where we believe that a wealth of video evidence was maintained.

In addition to that, they then executed a warrant in the Virgin Islands. We know that after his arrest here in Palm Beach, or actually, I should say, just before his arrest, he had a team of people that took hard drives away from the home here in Palm Beach and secreted them away.

We always understood as attorneys back then in 2007, 2008 when I was representing these young victims that they had likely taken that evidence off to the Virgin Islands to secure it. So, they’ve got 500 gigabytes of information that needs to be released.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Spencer, you had already seen the emails that were released yesterday, including the one that disclosed that Trump spent hours with Virginia. They were under a protective order by a federal judge, which is why you couldn’t disclose them. Now, if you could talk about when you first saw them, what most surprised you and whether other lawyers or yourself have seen any of the photographic or video evidence that you say is so crucial.

SPENCER KUVIN: Well, I can’t talk about things that might be still protected by protective order. What I can tell you generally is that the emails were part of a litigation that occurred down in the southern district of Florida, and when that disclosure occurred, remember that our advocacy as attorneys was on behalf of victims to try to upend or turn over the sweetheart deal that the U.S. government had executed with Jeffrey Epstein because they failed to keep the victims informed of that deal.

I only learned of it on behalf of my clients because an informant told me that I needed to rush to court because this secret deal was about to be entered. So, a lot of that information was turned over in that litigation. We weren’t really focused on Trump at the time, so it wasn’t the focus of our investigation or our litigation back then. We were just tangentially aware that they existed. Now that the focus is on this material, I can say that there is a lot more to come, and I can say that the FBI does have more information that needs to be released.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, the FBI has also interviewed, as you’ve said, over 40 girls, some just 14 years old. So, where are those interviews, and is there any likelihood that the content of those interviews would be released?

SPENCER KUVIN: Well, first and foremost, I would wish that the identities of those individual victims continue to be protected. Some of them, like a lot of my clients, nearly all of my clients, have remained anonymous even to this day. Almost 20 years later, no one has the identities or the names of my clients that I have kept confidential. So, I would hope that that remains to be the case.

But the contents of those interviews, in other words, what they said, and who they were with and who they told police they had been with and been traded to at Epstein’s mansion, we believe that that information should be made public along with the videotapes and photographs that we believe the FBI has in their custody.

AMY GOODMAN: And Spencer, your response to the latest revelation, that Ghislaine Maxwell, aside from getting very special treatment at the minimum-security jail that she was sent to in Texas that has shocked many because sex abusers are not supposed to be in these minimum–security facilities, is applying for a commutation of her 20-year sentence?

SPENCER KUVIN: Well, of course she is. I’m not shocked or surprised at any action that Ghislaine Maxwell takes. She’s a convicted liar and sex predator, so I don’t believe anything she does, and nothing she does shocks me after 20 years. She will do anything she can to trade on information that she believes she has.

We’ve seen that now in some of the emails that this duo of Epstein and Maxwell were all about leverage. They were trying to use leverage when discussing President Trump, they continued to use leverage when they were discussing Andrew in England and other notorious individuals. And I believe that that deal was struck to transfer her to this prison before she ever spoke to the Department of Justice.

Because why would a criminal – and why would an attorney advising a criminal, tell them, “Speak to the Department of Justice when you have a pending appeal”? It’s asinine. It makes no sense whatsoever, unless there was a deal that was struck beforehand that said, “Listen, if you talk and keep Trump’s name out of this, we’ll transfer you to a nicer prison.”

AMY GOODMAN: Spencer Kuvin, I want to thank you so much for being with us, lawyer for a number of survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s abuse.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in a case challenging President Donald Trump’s tariffs, with plaintiffs arguing that his unilateral levies on imported goods violate the Constitution, which grants Congress the power to impose taxes and regulate foreign commerce. The Trump administration has justified his unprecedented use of tariffs under a 1977 law known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, but several justices seemed highly skeptical of that argument, potentially putting President Trump’s signature economic policy at risk.

“There is no genuine emergency. There is no war that is the precipitating basis for invoking IEEPA. And even if it were, it would not allow the imposition of tariffs,” says legal expert Lisa Graves, founder of True North Research and co-host of the podcast Legal AF.

Graves also discusses her new book, Without Precedent: How Chief Justice Roberts and His Accomplices Rewrote the Constitution and Dismantled Our Rights.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

We’re staying on the subject of the Supreme Court but now turning to a major case before the court on President Trump’s authority to impose sweeping tariffs on foreign goods. The court heard oral arguments on Wednesday. Solicitor General John Sauer argued President Trump has the power to unilaterally impose the tariffs under a 1977 law known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, which grants the president the authority to regulate commerce during wartime or other national emergencies. This is the solicitor general arguing.

JOHN SAUER: I want to make a very important distinction here. We don’t contend that what’s being exercised here is the power to tax. It’s the power to regulate foreign commerce. These are regulatory tariffs. They are not revenue-raising tariffs. The fact that they raise revenue is only incidental. The tariffs would be most effective, so to speak, if no — no — no person ever paid them.

AMY GOODMAN: Challenging the policy in the case is a group of small businesses. This is the plaintiffs’ attorney and former solicitor general, Neal Katyal, speaking outside the court.

NEAL KATYAL: Our message today is simple: The Constitution, our framers, 238 years of American history all say only Congress has the power to impose tariffs on the American people. And tariffs are nothing but taxes on the American people, paid by Americans. This case is not about the president; it’s about the presidency. It’s not about partisanship; it’s about principle. And above all, it’s about upholding the majestic separation of powers laced into our Constitution that is the foundation for our government. We thank the justices today for their extensive questioning in this case, and we look forward to the resolution.

AMY GOODMAN: The case has moved quickly through the federal courts. The court has heard roughly two dozen emergency appeals by the Trump administration, which the conservative majority has largely allowed Trump’s aggressive agenda to go forward. But this is the first time the court will make a final decision on one of those policies. On Wednesday, the justices, including conservative justices, appeared skeptical of the government’s argument. This is Chief Justice John Roberts.

CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS: You have a claim source, an IEEPA, that had never before been used to justify tariffs. No one has argued that it does until this, this particular case. Congress uses tariffs and other provisions, but — but not here. And yet — and correct me on this if I’m not right about it — the justification is being used for a power to impose tariffs on any product, from any country, for — in any amount, for any length of time. That seems like — I’m not suggesting it’s not there, but it does seem like that’s major authority, and the basis for the claim seems to be a misfit.

AMY GOODMAN: For more on tariffs and the Supreme Court, we’re joined by Lisa Graves. She is the director and founder of the policy research group True North Research. Her new book is titled Without Precedent: How Chief Justice Roberts and His Accomplices Rewrote the Constitution and Dismantled Our Rights. She’s also the former deputy assistant attorney general. And she’s joining us now from Superior, Wisconsin.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Lisa. So, in fact, the chief justice is the main focus of your book on the Supreme Court. Talk about the significance of this case. And did it surprise you, the skepticism of the conservative majority, including the three Trump appointees?

LISA GRAVES: Well, this is an important case. And I wish that I could have confidence in the — I suppose, the sincerity of those questions that John Roberts posed, but we know that just last year he invented immunity from criminal prosecution for a president, for President Trump, out of whole cloth, despite the fact that the Constitution does not provide that power. So, now here we are, over a year later, with this court deciding whether this president has the power to engage in tariffs, even though the Constitution expressly gives those powers to Congress. And this law, IEEPA, does not provide any tariff power to the president.

And as you know and your listeners know, tariffs are taxes that end up being paid by the American people in the costs of the goods that we ultimately purchase. And Trump has bragged about how these tariffs are supposedly producing so much revenue, billions and billions of dollars of revenue, and yet we had the administration argue before the court that the revenue was incidental, that this is just a normal regulatory power. It’s not. Nothing’s normal.

I do think this court, the Roberts Court, is going to strike this down, but that’s in part because this court, you know, occasionally will rule against this president. But as you note and noted at the top of this show, 24 times so far this year, this court has intervened to allow reckless and damaging actions to happen to the American people, irreparable harm on the American people. And in this instance, with the business community weighing in, perhaps it will decide against Trump this one time, and then try to use that as a shield to say, “Look, it’s fair,” when in fact this court, under John Roberts, has behaved in innumerable ways, in very unfair ways, in counter-constitutional ways and in ways that have decimated our rights, including our voting rights.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about who actually brought this case. The businesses are not corporate giants. They’re small and medium-sized. And when you say everyone knows that these are taxes, explain more fully who pays these tariffs, as President Trump says, you know, “We’re going to get these countries to pay.” That’s not, in fact, who pays.

LISA GRAVES: Yeah, that’s not who pays. So, the tariffs are tariffs on goods sold in the United States, imported in the United States, which means, ultimately, whether it’s businesses buying those goods as components for building products or whether it’s consumers buying things at the grocery store or a department store, it’s the American people who pays. Right now some of the businesses that are involved in these — in imports are not passing those tariffs on to the American consumers. They’re waiting to see what ultimately happens and absorbing those costs. But those costs are already being passed on to the American consumers in lots of ways. And so, it is — this idea that this is some sort of non or revenue incidental tariff, that it’s supposedly foreign-facing so it doesn’t affect us, that’s not true. It’s we, the American people, who ultimately pay the cost of those tariffs.

And Congress has the power to tax. Expressly, in the Constitution, it’s given to it, not the president. And simultaneously, in that same provision, Congress is given the power to impose tariffs. This statute that the Trump administration is hanging its hat on does not give the president the power to tariff or to tax. And there’s a good reason for that. It’s not just that it’s in our Constitution. Trump’s behavior is exactly why no president has ever been given this sort of power, because putting that power in the hands of one person allows for arbitrary, capricious, whimsical, vindictive action by one person, as we’ve seen Trump do. That initial round of tariffs was announced as including tariffs on Penguin Islands, but not North Korea and Russia. The tariffs are arbitrary. We’re seeing sort of a shakedown process in some of the efforts to try to get countries to appease Trump’s ego in exchange for dropping tariffs or limiting them. That’s not how tariff policy is supposed to go. It’s supposed to be passed by Congress through genuine deliberation. And more than that, because it’s a tax on the American people, it has to be something that only Congress can do, because Congress has the power of the purse, not the president. And we cannot have this president, you know, exercising all the powers, basically, of the legislative branch and the executive branch.

AMY GOODMAN: This is an exchange between Justice Elena Kagan and the Solicitor General John Sauer during oral arguments, speaking about emergency powers.

JOHN SAUER: The president has to make a formal declaration of a national emergency, which subjects him to particularly intensive oversight by Congress, repeated — you know, natural lapsing, repeated review, reports and so forth, that says you have to consult with Congress to the maximum extent possible.

JUSTICE ELENA KAGAN: I mean, you, yourself, think that the declaration of emergency is unreviewable. And even if it’s not unreviewable, it’s, of course, the kind of determination that this court would grant considerable deference to the — to the president on. So that doesn’t seem like much of a constraint.

JOHN SAUER: But it is a constraint.

JUSTICE ELENA KAGAN: And, in fact, you know, we’ve had cases recently which deals with the president’s emergency powers, and it turns out we’re in emergencies everything all the time about like half the world.

AMY GOODMAN: English, please, Lisa Graves.

LISA GRAVES: Well, so, this question under IEEPA is whether there is an emergency that’s the basis for regulation or sort of an embargo. And in this instance, there isn’t. The administration has claimed that the fentanyl crisis somehow allows it to impose these wide and arbitrary tariffs. It’s also claimed that the trade deficit, which has been part of our, you know, economy for decades, is some sort of national emergency. It’s not. We’ve seen Trump assert emergencies in Portland, in Los Angeles. Like, he basically just uses the word “emergency” to try to get away with anything.

And it is true, the Supreme Court has traditionally deferred to declarations of emergencies by presidents. But I don’t think it has any obligation to defer to this president’s claims of emergency, which are factless, which are baseless, and which are just another argument, the kind of argument John — that John Sauer tends to make in justification of his client getting to do whatever he wants. So, there is no genuine emergency. There is no war that is the precipitating basis for invoking IEEPA. And even if it were, it would not allow the imposition of tariffs.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Lisa Graves, you’ve written this new book. It’s called Without Precedent: How Chief Justice Roberts and His Accomplices Rewrote the Constitution and Dismantled Our Rights. If you can talk more about the major points in this book, as you specifically look at Chief Justice Roberts? Start with the whole issue of the Voting Rights Act. Talk about Chief Justice John Roberts’ origin story.

LISA GRAVES: Yes. So, John Roberts chose to clerk for Bill Rehnquist, who was one of the most notorious anti-voting rights people on the Supreme Court. He, in his personal capacity, sought to make it harder for Arizonans to vote, targeting Black communities in Arizona with voter suppression, himself personally, in Bethune, in the neighborhood of Bethune. Then, when he was on the court, right before John Roberts joined him, he issued a decision, the first decision trying to cut back Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, to say that effects would not count.

So, then what happened was, Bill Rehnquist called Ken Starr, who was then the chief of staff for the new attorney general for Ronald Reagan, and urged him to hire John Roberts. John Roberts was hired by the Reagan administration and put in charge of voting rights. John Roberts had no experience in voting rights, no experience in litigation. The only experience he had was clerking for — basically, stodging for — the most regressive justice on Supreme Court when it came to voting rights. Rehnquist, by the way, actually urged that his justice he clerked for dissent from the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Rehnquist aided Barry Goldwater, the guy who — one of the, you know, senators who opposed the Civil Rights Act.

So, this is the origin story of John Roberts. He spent hundreds of hours trying to block Congress from repairing that, from overturning that ruling. And then, the Voting Rights Act was extended for more than 20 years, into 2007, and then, when John Roberts became the chief justice of the United States in 2005, as soon as there was a case teed up for him to do so, in the Shelby County case, he ruled against the Voting Rights Act. He struck down other key enforcement provisions of the Voting Rights Act, Section 4 and Section 5, that required preclearance of changes in jurisdictions that had a history of voter suppression or history of targeting Black voters. And that Shelby County decision unleashed this wave of voter suppression and voter restriction we’ve seen over the past decade. And now, right now, this court, the Roberts Court, is considering overruling Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and allowing white-majority legislatures to dilute the Black vote in Louisiana and other states.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Lisa Graves. Her new book is just out. It’s called Without Precedent: How Chief Justice Roberts and His Accomplices Rewrote the Constitution and Dismantled Our Rights. As you observe this court right now, what are your biggest concerns? And how do the other justices feel about the chief justice?

LISA GRAVES: Well, I think this court is behaving illegitimately. These emergency orders overturning the well-reasoned, factually founded, legally grounded decisions to impose temporary restraining orders in the face of unilateral, extreme actions by this president, where the plaintiffs have shown irreparable harm, these are illegitimate actions by this court basically to aid Donald Trump. And it’s part two of what it did last year in effectively pardoning Donald Trump, preventing the trial, the trial around January 6th, to go forward, and basically paving the way for his return to power. And now, once in power, John Roberts has helped to empower Donald Trump further with the help of his fellow Republican appointees.

I think the Democratic appointees to the court, in the minority, are very frustrated, as you can see from the dissents in these cases, where the court is not describing why it is overturning these lower court rulings and allowing Trump to put his foot on the gas pedal to go forward with them while people are being harmed every day.

I think that this Roberts Court is out of control. It’s behaving arrogantly. It has aggressively intervened in those cases, just like with the immunity decision. It could have let the lower court rulings, which were based on well-grounded precedent, stand, but instead it has sought to aid Trump at almost every turn and, in doing so, has exposed itself as a hyperpartisan court that isn’t really behaving like a court but is behaving like an arm of the MAGA Trump presidency.

AMY GOODMAN: What most surprised you in doing the research for your book?

LISA GRAVES: Oh my goodness. Well, it was a small thing. But, you know, everyone knows that John Roberts talked about how he was going to be a fair umpire just calling balls and strikes. When I looked into his background, it turned out that he never played baseball in high school or college. He was actually a football player. And his coach told a right-wing dark money group that helped support his confirmation that John Roberts was particularly skilled as a tackler, as someone who studied his opponents and sought to find out ways to tackle them. That’s who we really have at the helm of the Supreme Court, is a player on the field who’s moving that right-wing, regressive, Reagan revolutionary agenda forward, not the fair umpire that he claimed to be and that he sought to put — plant into the American people’s minds as who he is. He’s not that umpire. I’ve actually decided to call him a “Trumpire,” because he’s been so willing to help Trump in almost every way as he expands the presidency far more than any other president has had such power. And in fact, that ruling really took out one of the key pillars of the checks and balances in our democracy, making the oath that John Roberts administered to Donald Trump, that he would faithfully execute the law, almost meaningless.

AMY GOODMAN: Lisa Graves, I want to thank you for being with us, director and founder of the policy research group True North Research. Her new book, Without Precedent: How Chief Justice Roberts and His Accomplices Rewrote the Constitution and Dismantled Our Rights. She was speaking to us from Superior, Wisconsin.

“The Republican Party has really become an extremist movement.” Amid a growing political divide in the Republican Party over the release of federal documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, we speak to former Republican political operative Stuart Stevens about the erosion of support for Donald Trump from some of his most prominent backers. Stevens traces the MAGA takeover of the Republican Party and shares how the Lincoln Project, a Republican-led anti-Trump organization where he is a senior adviser, is working to stop Trump’s anti-democratic agenda.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

President Donald Trump has abruptly demolished the entire East Wing of the White House. This comes as the government shutdown enters its 24th day, with Republican majorities in Congress facing growing criticism, some of it from within the party itself. House Republican Congressmember Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke Tuesday on The Tucker Carlson Show.

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: I have no respect for Speaker Johnson not calling us back to Washington, because we should be passing bills. We should be passing bills that reflect the president’s executive orders, which are exactly what we voted for. We should be at work on our committees. We should be doing investigations. And you want to know something? We should be passing the discharge petition that Thomas Massie put in to release the Epstein files. …

Many times I hate my own party, and I blame Republicans for many of the problems that we have today. And I blame them for being so “America last,” to the point where they are literally slaves to all the big industries in Washington, the military-industrial complex, Big Pharma, health insurance industries, you name it. They are literally slaves to them. And they love the foreign wars so much.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican, has also called for the extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies, a key demand of Democrats to end the government shutdown. She wrote on X, quote, “I’m going to go against everyone on this issue because when the tax credits expire this year my own adult children’s insurance premiums for 2026 are going to DOUBLE, along with all the wonderful families and hard-working people in my district,” unquote.

Well, today we look at the growing fissures within the Republican Party, as Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson refuses to swear in the Democratic Congressmember-elect Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, who would be the final vote on a discharge petition to release the Epstein files. Republican Thomas Massie co-sponsored the rare bipartisan bill to require the release of the full Epstein files. So far, four Republicans have signed on: in addition to Massie, yes, Republican Congressmember Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, all Republicans.

Meanwhile, as Trump sends federal forces into Democrat-led cities like Chicago, the Republican governor of Oklahoma, who’s also the head of the National Governors Association, Governor Stitt, has criticized the move, telling The New York Times, quote, “Oklahomans would lose their mind” if troops were sent into their red state.

This all comes as Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, Paul Ingrassia, withdrew from consideration Tuesday following widespread backlash, including of Republicans, over a slew of racist texts. He texted a group of Republicans that he has a, quote, “Nazi streak,” adding that the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday should be, quote, “tossed into the seventh circle of hell,” unquote. After the texts were made public by Politico, several Republican senators said they wouldn’t support his nomination, including the Senate Majority Leader John Thune. Vermont state Senator Samuel Douglass has just formally resigned over his comments in the chat.

For more, we go to Vermont, where we’re joined by Stuart Stevens, a former Republican political operative who worked on George W. Bush’s presidential campaign, was the chief strategist for Mitt Romney in 2012. Stevens did not support Donald Trump as the Republican candidate either time. He’s a senior adviser to the Lincoln Project and the author of nine books, including The Conspiracy to End America: Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy and It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump. His recent essay for Zeteo is headlined “My Plea to Democrats: Stop Being Polite, Go Nuclear.” He also writes for the Lincoln [Square] Substack.

We welcome you back to Democracy Now! Thanks so much for being with us, Stuart Stevens. Is there a growing fissure within the Republican Party? Are these divisions significant?

STUART STEVENS: First of all, it’s great to be here. Thanks for asking me.

Listen, I think that what’s happening with Margie Taylor Greene is very specific to her desire to run as a statewide candidate in Georgia. And as we’ve seen, Georgia is increasingly a purple state. There’s actually a lot of suburban voters that are not comfortable with the sort of ugliness of the ICE raids, are not comfortable with the idea that the, you know, East Wing is being torn down. They’re not comfortable with the idea that Trump won’t release the Epstein files. So, she’s trying to appeal to those voters. I think it would be a mistake to make too much of these fissures, because Donald Trump has a control over the Republican Party unlike anything I think we’ve seen in modern political history.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk about the different issues — for example, the Epstein files. You have one Republican after another now joining the Democrats in demanding they be released. I mean, this week, you know, you have President Trump breaking down, demolishing the East Wing. The East Wing of the White House was the wing of the first ladies, by the way, also paving over the Rose Garden, which was put in by Jacqueline Kennedy, interestingly. But you have one Republican congresswoman after another — Mace, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Boebert — joining with Massie in demanding the Epstein files be released. Do you think more — this will happen with more? And you have this unbelievable move of the House speaker not seating an elected representative because he doesn’t want the Epstein files released — that’s what a lot of people are analyzing it as.

STUART STEVENS: Well, I think that’s an absolutely correct analysis. I mean, say what you will about Jeffrey Epstein. The guy’s dead, and he can still shut down Congress. You know, that’s pretty rare.

You know, I don’t think this Epstein files thing is really very complicated. Most of us aren’t worried about being on the Epstein files — in the Epstein files. The only person who would not want it released is someone who was worried about being in it. And that goes to Donald Trump.

And you have to grasp here, Amy, is the degree to which the Republican subculture, maybe 45, 50% of the party, has made the Epstein files, for a decade, really, to be a great cause — half. This is a part of an international conspiracy of child molesters that run a secret government, like the Illuminati, and Epstein was at the center of this. And they believe this, and it’s become sort of an article of faith. So, now you have the people who made fortunes out of becoming popular podcast hosts, like Dan Bongino, of beating the drum to release the Epstein files — Kash Patel. Now they’re in a position where they can, and they’re not doing it. So, that’s a natural tension there.

And I think it’s going to play out, and it’s ultimately going to have to be released, at least to somebody. When we talk about the Epstein files, it’s sort of: What are we really talking about? There’s such a vast trove of information, digital and otherwise, that was seized by the FBI. I don’t think we’re going to know what all of it is, but I think we’ll know more than we know now.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the ad campaign that you’re involved with, with the Lincoln Project?

STUART STEVENS: Yeah, look, the Lincoln Project, just to kind of go to the origin story, was formed by a small group of Republican consultants who felt that Donald Trump was a great threat to the country. And we looked at this, that, for better or worse, we have certain skills that we’ve developed helping to elect Republicans. Some of these Democrats don’t do as well as we do. There’s other things that Democrats do better. And our mission, really, was to appeal to a group of voters who are reluctant to support Donald Trump but need encouragement not to: soft Republicans, some of these independents and Democrats. I mean, going back to 2020, this is what Steve Bannon said, sort of famously: “If these guys can get 5 to 6% of Republicans to vote for Biden, it’s going to be a problem.” And we started calling that the Bannon line.

You know, it is our frustration of the hesitancy of the Democratic Party to be more assertive. I mean, if you step back from it, Amy, we have this lunatic president who’s supporting Russian stooges, drunks, lunatics like RFK Jr., across the government. We’re tearing down the East Wing. And we’re talking about what’s wrong with the Democratic Party? I really — how did this happen? Now, you’re talking to somebody that’s spent years pointing out flaws in the Democratic Party, but it is the only pro-democracy party in America now. The Republican Party has really become an extremist movement.

So, we’re very good in the Lincoln Project at working inside the Republican Party. We do a series of ads we call “the audience of one.” And we run it where we know Trump is going to see it, which means we buy a lot of golf channels in Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster. And he responds to it. And it’s an extraordinary ability. If you go back to Hillary Clinton, said that we shouldn’t have a president who responds to a tweet. This guy responds to everything. And we’re trying to increase those tensions, because the more that the Republican Party fights internally, the less effective it is.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to one of those Lincoln Project ads, that ran last year, about Trump’s racism against Puerto Ricans.

NARRATOR: We are Puerto Ricans, and we are Americans. But Donald Trump doesn’t see us that way. We remember what he did to us after Hurricane Maria. We were dying by the thousands while he threw paper towels at us like we were a joke, because he thinks we are garbage.

TONY HINCHCLIFFE: I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah, I think it’s called Puerto Rico.

NARRATOR: We are not your punch line. We know who we are. We are proud Americans, proud Puerto Ricans. And we see who you are. You’re a racist. You are a liar. You are the one that is garbage. And we know where real garbage belongs: in the trash.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Stuart Stevens, as we begin to wrap up, your comment on this and also what’s happening in Vermont? On the one hand, you have the governor, Phil Scott, not agreeing to the whole issue of federalizing the National Guard. And then you have Sam Douglass, the Vermont state senator, being forced to step down. He resigned over racist and antisemitic comments, like referring to an Indian woman as someone who just didn’t bathe often enough. In another instance, Brianna Douglass, Sam’s wife and the Vermont Young Republicans National Committee member, saying her husband may have erred by “expecting the Jew to be honest.” Can you comment on the whole Republicans — Young Republicans scandal and what it’s done in the country?

STUART STEVENS: Yeah, you know, look, there always was an ugly side to the Republican Party. Those of us who were involved in the Bush campaign, the compassionate conservative side, we saw this dark side. I mean, literally, like, me, Nicolle Wallace, Matthew Dowd, Mark McKinnon, Pete Wehner, we used to literally sit in the same room. But I think that we thought that we were the dominant gene of the party and that the party would come our way, if only because the country was changing so much. And I don’t know any conclusion to come to but that I was wrong. We were the recessive gene. And the party now has become what the party wants.

So, you have this generation of kids that came of age, a lot of them, under knowing nothing but Trump. And this is where transgressive behavior becomes a mark of purity. And really, the Republican Party has become an extremist movement. What we know about extremist movements is it demands more and more purity checks.

So, it’s ugly. There’s much about — we don’t talk enough about race in American politics, I think. Trump’s coalition in '20 was 85% white, and the country is what? Fifty-nine percent white, and less after this show. He did a little better in the last election. It was 84% white. So, the base of Trump's support is non-college-educated white voters, which is the fastest-declining large demographic in America. And they know this, which is why they’re trying to curate the election and make it whiter and make it less educated.

And obviously, about Phil Scott, who I helped in some of his campaigns, you know, if the Republican Party had any sense, they would look at Phil Scott, who’s one of the most popular governors, if not the most popular governor, in the country, who’s a Republican in a heavily Democratic state, and they would go to him and say, “What can we learn? What can you teach us?” Because if we Republicans could carry states like Vermont or Massachusetts, where Charlie Baker was, or Maryland, where Larry Hogan — all clients of mine — were governors, we would rule the Earth. We’d always win. Instead, they’ve made these governors, like, an increasingly small number of them, like a Phil Scott — they just ignore them. So, Phil Scott did the right thing here. He said, “No, I’m not going to have somebody that is a Republican who is writing this racist stuff.” I mean, why is this even complicated?

AMY GOODMAN: Stuart Stevens, we’re going to have to leave it there, but I thank you very much for joining us.

STUART STEVENS: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Former Republican political consultant, senior adviser to the Lincoln Project, writes for the Lincoln Square Substack.

We speak with Rutgers University professor Mark Bray, who fled from the U.S. to Spain with his family after receiving death threats over his scholarship. He is the author of the 2017 book Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, which explores the history and tactics of anti-fascist movements in Europe, the United States and beyond. Turning Point USA, the conservative campus group founded by Charlie Kirk, had called for Bray’s firing and branded him “Dr. Antifa.” This comes as the Trump administration has dramatically escalated its war on dissent following Kirk’s assassination, using his death as pretext to launch an assault on activists, organizations and speech it disagrees with.

“What we’re seeing today in the U.S. is increasingly fascist. MAGA, I believe — and I study fascism, I don’t say this lightly — is a fascist movement,” says Bray, referring to Trump’s political movement.

President Trump signed an executive order designating antifa as a terrorist organization, but Bray stresses there is no such organization; anti-fascism is a loose political movement or ideology akin to feminism, but Trump is using the label to “demonize resistance” to his policies.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show with the war on antifa that the Trump administration has ratcheted up in the aftermath of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk being assassinated last month. Yesterday, President Trump posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Charlie Kirk at a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden.

Trump recently signed an executive order purporting to designate antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, even though it’s not really an organization. Antifa is actually a shortening of the term “anti-fascist” and is a term that arose in Europe for the movement against the Nazis, both before and after World War II. The decentralized movement in the U.S. today draws on this history.

Several high-level Republicans have accused this Saturday’s “No Kings Day” protests of being organized by antifa. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said last week the administration will take the, quote, “same approach” to antifa as it has to drug cartels it’s bombed in the Caribbean. This is Bondi on Fox News last night.

ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI: That’s one of the things about antifa. You’ve heard President Trump say multiple times they are organized, they are a criminal organization. And they’re very organized. You’re seeing people out there with thousands of signs that all match, pre-bought, pre-put together. They’re organized, and someone is funding it.

AMY GOODMAN: This comes as Los Angeles County officials voted Tuesday to declare a state of emergency over ongoing federal immigration raids they say have, quote, “caused widespread fear,” unquote.

Violent attacks by federal agents at protests against immigrant raids have also been documented in Chicago and Portland. On Tuesday, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson [was asked] if he would call for more oversight of federal agents. He responded by complaining about a naked bike ride protest against ICE in Portland, Oregon, which Trump has called a war zone.

SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: To demand oversight on federal law enforcement? I’ve not seen them cross the line yet, and that we have committees of jurisdiction who have that responsibility, but it’s not risen to that level. What I’ve seen is the abuse of law enforcement by radical leftist activists. You know, most recently, the most threatening thing I’ve seen yet was the naked bicyclers in Portland who were protesting ICE down there. I mean, it’s getting really ugly.

AMY GOODMAN: Experts are increasingly raising concerns the Trump administration’s attacks on antifa are ungrounded in fact and law, and violate free speech rights.

For more, we’re joined by someone who knows a lot about all of this. Mark Bray is a Rutgers University history professor, author of the 2017 book, Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. Last week, he was forced to leave his home in New Jersey and move to Spain with his family after receiving death threats following Trump’s push to categorize the anti-fascist movement as a domestic terrorist organization. Charlie Kirk’s group, Turning Point USA, had also circulated a petition labeling him “Dr. Antifa” and calling for him to be fired.

In a remarkable development, Bray was at first blocked from flying out of the United States last week. He wrote on Bluesky, “Someone canceled my family’s flight out of the country at the last second. We got our boarding passes. We checked our bags. Went through security. Then at our gate our reservation 'disappeared.'” They later took another flight, and professor Mark Bray joins us now from Spain.

Thanks so much for being with us. I’m sorry you’ve gone through all this, Professor Bray. If you can start off by talking about why you left the country and what happened, as we try to follow what was happening to you at the airport?

MARK BRAY: Right. So, I published this book, Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, in 2017. I’m actually researching different historical topics now. But after Trump’s executive order, a series of far-right trolls, online influencers started attacking me. I received a number of death threats. Someone published my home address on X. So I started to fear for the safety of my family staying in our home. More and more death threats came in, and I knew I needed to get away. Getting to another country, getting across the ocean would make us feel much more comfortable.

As you said, our first flight was mysteriously canceled at the last moment. My two small children were sobbing. We had to regroup. The next day, as you said —

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask: When you —

MARK BRAY: — I told — yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: I just want to ask: When say your flight was canceled, you went to — what was it? Newark Airport? Or Kennedy?

MARK BRAY: Yes, Newark.

AMY GOODMAN: And you got — and you got your boarding passes, and you went through security. So you were all set. And you got —

MARK BRAY: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — to the gate. And what did they tell you?

MARK BRAY: Right. Well, there was an error. They had us step to the side to talk to the United worker at the desk. There were a series of phone calls and mumbling. And they basically said, at the last moment, someone had canceled our reservation — not the whole flight, just for the four of us, for me, my wife and our two small children. And this is around the same time that Andy Ngo and Jack Posobiec, two of the far-right provocateurs who had been harassing me online, were meeting in the White House with President Trump to discuss antifa. I just can’t believe it’s a coincidence.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, you were able to rebook the next day, and you made it through security, and you actually made it onto the flight?

MARK BRAY: Well, this time, I was stopped, searched and interrogated by federal agents for an hour. And at one point, they took me into a side room, and my two kids saw what looked like very bad men taking me in another room, and they started sobbing. So, it was quite an ordeal even the next day. But I made it out. And frankly, I’m very fearful about the potential of returning, but hopefully, by next year, things will improve.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, this is astounding. You weren’t trying to come into the United States. You were trying to leave. And you are an American citizen — not that that should have mattered.

MARK BRAY: And I’m not being charged with any crimes. If anything, I’m the victim of crimes. I wrote a book eight years ago. I consider myself politically an anti-fascist — I detest fascism — but I’m not a member of any antifa group. I’m a professor. I’m a dad. I’m just trying to live my life here. But, of course, because the far right is trying to create a bogeyman term in “antifa” to equate protests with terrorism, I got caught up in the middle of this.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you are the author, Professor Bray, of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. If you can explain what antifa is and what it means for President Trump to have issued this executive order calling it a terrorist — domestic terrorist organization? Is it even an organization? Talk about antifa now and through history.

MARK BRAY: Right. So, as you said, it’s a term that is short for “anti-fascist” or “anti-fascism.” It’s originally German from the era of opposition to Hitler. After World War II, anti-fascism continued throughout the world, and the specific European tradition of what they called antifa spread to other countries around the world. For example, in the U.S., you had Anti-Racist Action in the ’80s and ’90s, which was a network of decentralized groups across the continent organizing against the far right.

The term “antifa” really kind of made its appearance in the U.S. in the late 2000s, but it’s not an organization. It’s more of a politics or a movement. I liken it to feminism. Sometimes there are feminist groups, but feminism itself is not a group. There are antifa groups, but antifa itself is not a group. It’s just sort of like more of a verb. It’s a thing you do to organize against the far right in decentralized groups.

Trump, of course, doesn’t care about any of that. It’s a useful bogeyman term to demonize protest, demonize resistance, equate it with terrorism. And it’s really, you know, an obvious page out of the textbooks about fascist and authoritarian leaders. It’s so — it’s such an obvious imitation of, you know, the kind of the Red Scare talk about communism, but applied to today.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s very interesting you’ve moved to Spain. I mean, for years we’ve covered the Abraham Lincoln Brigadistas, Brigade, those Americans who went to Spain, where you are now, to fight against the fascist Franco. Many of them died. Many of them came back. And this was just before World War II. They were the most experienced, presumably, in fighting. But when a number of them signed up to fight in World War II, to fight Hitler, they were labeled “premature anti-fascists.” Can you talk about that? And they were not allowed to fight in World War II.

MARK BRAY: Right. So, there were a lot of activists and leftists in the U.S. and around the world who realized the threat of Hitler well before mainstream society. And a number of them journeyed over to Spain to fight in the international brigades. A significant number of them lost their lives. Some of them returned. They were blacklisted in the U.S.

And it is also worth pointing out that a number of Spanish Civil War veterans from other countries who ended up going to France after the Spanish Civil War played important roles in the French underground. And there was a tank battalion of Spanish anarchists that were among the first to liberate Paris in 1945. It’s a fascinating history. It’s the one that I — I teach a course on the Spanish Civil War.

So, it is strange to sort of have these things twisted around. And I ended up going to Spain because I’m a historian of Spain. But I’ve received a lot of solidarity and support from the social movements here. And actually, there’s a general strike today in Spain for Palestine, as well — just to throw into your news report.

AMY GOODMAN: We had you on last in 2017 to discuss your book, Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, when it first came out. In the introduction, you wrote you hoped your work would promote organizing against fascism and white supremacy. Can you elaborate?

MARK BRAY: Right. So, anti-fascism has a broad history. In the U.S., certainly, there’s the European-inspired antifa tradition. There’s also a really good book called The Black Antifascist Tradition that talks about the role of anti-fascism in Black liberation struggles, Black Panthers and so forth, which I suggest people check out. So, it takes many different forms.

What it has in common is actually this impulse towards unity and putting aside the differences that often divide the left, in the interest of promoting the common struggle against fascism, against white supremacy. And what we’re seeing today in the U.S. is increasingly fascist. MAGA, I believe — and I study fascism, I don’t say this lightly — is a fascist movement. And if we don’t organize, if we don’t take action in the streets, we’re going to end up somewhere really bad.

And for me personally, I felt like my situation was such that I had to get my family out of harm’s way. But this story about me is about me, but it’s not really about me. It’s about attacks on academic freedom, free speech, the right to protest. We’re in a really dangerous situation. And so, everyone, in their own way, needs to take action to try and organize against this.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it’s interesting. You remind me of Timothy Snyder, as well as Jason Stanley, the two Yale professors, who also left the country. They’ve gone to Canada to teach, both having written books against fascism and tyranny. I wanted to ask you about U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s comments, saying the administration will take the, quote, “same approach” to antifa as it has to drug cartels it’s bombed in the Caribbean. The latest bombing, I think, took place yesterday, killing a number of people. Even Republican politicians, behind closed doors, are saying, “Where is the evidence?” for who these people are, who have been killed by the U.S. bombs. Mark Bray, your response to Pam Bondi?

MARK BRAY: Right. Well, the paradox of fascism is that while it’s trying to gain power, it talks about the need for law and order, and to the degree that it gains power, it tramples all over the law. It does not care about the law or legality, due process, civil liberties. And so, this kind of call to murder people in this country, without, of course, even having gone through any due process — not that I’m in favor of capital punishment anyway, but that’s another story — it is this kind of example of calling for the strongman, in Trump, to use deadly force, without any evidence, against people accused of made-up crimes that are being equated with — you know, at times, some of the Trump administration people have compared it to — ISIS to antifa, right? So, to me, it’s really this kind of fascist attack on civil liberties.

And if they’re equating protesters with antifa, and they’re saying that they’re going to use the methods used for the people in the boats in the Caribbean on antifa, the implication is they are ready to kill American protesters. And, you know, we know the history of Kent State — right? — where students were gunned down in the '60s. It could happen again if we're not careful. So we really need to be very vigilant about this.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think progressive groups, groups that care about democracy, free speech, across the political spectrum, are pushing back enough around the attack on anti-fascists?

MARK BRAY: Well, you know, I think there’s always room for more action. And I think that my main takeaway for viewers today is that whether or not you consider yourself an anti-fascist, anyone who has any critiques of Trump is potentially in the crosshairs here, because there’s a concerted project from the top to equate protest with terrorism and to say anyone who’s not a Trump supporter is basically the equivalent of ISIS. You can’t make this stuff up. It’s absolutely ridiculous. They don’t care at all about grounding in fact or information. It’s something that plays to their base and justifies attempts to step beyond due process to use, apparently, lethal force against dissidents. This is terrifying. And so, everyone really needs to do what they can to sound the alarm.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, I wanted to ask you about the Rutgers students calling for the university to support you, wanting Rutgers President William Tate to issue a statement, a, quote, “Resolution in Support of Professor Mark Bray’s Academic Freedom and Free Expression.” This apparently is slated for consideration and vote Friday by the Rutgers University Senate. Your response, Professor Bray?

MARK BRAY: Well, I’ve received a tremendous amount of support from the Rutgers faculty, from the student body and from the administration. I support that call. I hope it passes. I would very much appreciate a statement of direct support from President Tate. But, you know, to his credit, he did issue a statement in support of the free speech and academic freedom of all Rutgers faculty, which did not mention me directly, but I think, implicitly, supported my right to do my scholarship in accord with my job. But, you know, again, the Rutgers community has been fantastic, and especially given attacks on higher education across the country, the way that some subjects have been, basically, straight-up banned in states like Florida, I’m happy to be a professor at Rutgers.

AMY GOODMAN: Mark Bray, Rutgers University history professor, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. He’s just moved his family to Spain after receiving death threats following President Trump’s push to categorize the anti-fascist movement as a domestic terrorist organization.

Judge William Young of the Federal District Court in Boston is a Reagan appointee who has been on the bench for 47 years. Last June, he received a threatening postcard. Handwritten in all caps, it read, “TRUMP HAS PARDONS AND TANKS…WHAT DO YOU HAVE?” The date is significant: June 19th was just five days after Trump’s ostentatious Washington, DC military parade, part of the birthday party Trump threw for himself and the US Army, at public expense. The parade was little more than a multi-hour display of tank after tank rolling by the temporary bleachers where Trump sat among his loyalists.

Judge Young opened an order he issued last week with an image of that postcard. He followed with a message to the cards sender:

“Dear Mr. or Ms. Anonymous,

Alone, I have nothing but my sense of duty. Together, We the People of the United States –- you and me – have our magnificent Constitution. Here’s how that works out in a specific case —”

What followed was a 161-page excoriation of the Trump administration’s attack on free speech.

The case was filed by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and other academic organizations, alleging the government had criminalized “any speech supportive of Palestinian human rights or critical of Israel’s military actions in Gaza,” and was targeting pro-Palestinian visiting students and scholars for deportation.

Ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, Judge Young wrote,

“This case — perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court — squarely presents the issue of whether non-citizens lawfully present here in [the] United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally 'yes, they do.'”

The non-citizens referred to are Mahmoud Khalil, Yunseo Chung, Rümeysa Öztürk, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Badar Khan Suri. Each of them was in the United States legally, and had publicly supported Palestinian rights. As the nine-day trial presided over by Judge Young proceeded, facts accumulated that the Trump administration, and specifically Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and their subordinates had targeted these individuals for deportation largely because of their speech.

“If free speech means anything in this country, it means masked government agents can’t pick you up off the street and throw you into jail because of what you’ve said,” said one of the principal attorneys on the case, Alex Abdo, litigation director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, speaking on the Democracy Now! news hour.

Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil, who is Palestinian, spent 104 days in various immigration jails, mostly in remote Jena, Louisiana. The Trump administration is still trying to deport him. He reacted to Judge Young’s ruling, on Democracy Now!:

“It’s very important to continue to speak out, because this is what the court now confirmed, that this administration’s intention was to chill our speech. So, I want to continue to speak up against this administration, to show that they will never succeed in silencing us, in silencing us against all the atrocities that are happening against our people in Palestine.”

Commenting on the cases of Rümeysa Öztürk and Mohsen Mahdawi, attorney Alex Abdo added, “They were both in court yesterday, because the government has argued that they’re not entitled to challenge their detention, even if the government threw them in jail specifically for the reason of trying to silence their speech and to chill others. The hope is that a ruling like yesterday’s will break the spell, because the goal of this administration in all of these cases in which it is cracking down on political speech is to silence dissent.”

Judge William Young’s ruling is fact-based, deeply researched, and peppered with footnotes highlighting historical precedents, previous struggles to defend essential rights, and other clear offenses of the Trump administration. He attacks the current practice of mask wearing by federal law enforcement agents as “disingenuous, squalid and dishonorable,” adding, “ICE goes masked for a single reason — to terrorize Americans into quiescence.”

Judge Young closes his order as he began, addressing the anonymous author of the threatening postcard:

“The next time you’re in Boston [the postmark on the card is from the Philadelphia area] stop in at the Courthouse and watch your fellow citizens, sitting as jurors, reach out for justice. It is here, and in courthouses just like this one, both state and federal, spread throughout our land that our Constitution is most vibrantly alive.”

At an unprecedented gathering of hundreds of top generals and admirals from U.S. military installations around the world, President Trump delivered a rambling speech Tuesday alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. They laid out their vision of a “warrior” culture in the U.S. military and claimed the United States is facing an “invasion from within.” Eugene Fidell, a military scholar at Yale Law School, says the meeting was a means of “exacting loyalty, special loyalty, from the most senior officers and enlisted personnel” and that by promoting a solely “white male” image of the U.S. armed forces, the administration has made clear it “wants to turn back the hands of the social clock.”democracynow.org

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, as we continue to look at Tuesday’s unprecedented gathering of 800 U.S. generals and admirals who were flown into the United States from around the world and gathered at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called the meeting and ordered generals and admirals to gather together for what many have likened to a MAGA campaign rally. President Trump addressed the generals for over 70 minutes, but Hegseth spoke first.

WAR SECRETARY PETE HEGSETH: We are preparing every day. We have to be prepared for war, not for defense. We’re training warriors, not defenders. We fight wars to win, not to defend. Defense is something you do all the time. It’s inherently reactionary and can lead to overuse, overreach and mission creep. War is something you do sparingly, on our own terms and with clear aims. We fight to win. … Well, today is another Liberation Day, the liberation of America’s warriors, in name, in deed and in authorities. You kill people and break things for a living. You are not politically correct and don’t necessarily belong always in polite society.

AMY GOODMAN: President Trump claimed the United States is facing an “invasion from within.”

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Only in recent decades did politicians somehow come to believe that our job is to police the far reaches of Kenya and Somalia, while America is under invasion from within. We’re under invasion from within, no different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms. At least when they’re wearing a uniform, you can take them out. These people don’t have uniforms. But we are under invasion from within, and we’re stopping it very quickly. After spending trillions of dollars defending the borders of foreign countries, with your help, we’re defending the borders of our country from now on.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Eugene Fidell, senior research scholar at Yale Law School, where he teaches military justice. He co-wrote a piece for The Hill headlined “Trump and Hegseth want to turn the military into a tool of personal loyalty.” He’s an expert on military law, served as a judge advocate in the U.S. Coast Guard.

Eugene Fidell, thanks for joining us. Explain what you mean, as people describe this unprecedented gathering, where it is many of these generals and admirals were asking why they had to be flown in. This was live-streamed. What was the point of this?

EUGENE FIDELL: Good morning.

Well, the first thing is, I think you omitted what the generals and admirals actually said. There was probably an expletive that was inserted in their comments.

But I think, really, the reason for this unusual event at Quantico, unusual and costly event at Quantico, is probably not that hard to figure out. It’s the greatest of all photo ops. We’re all used to photo ops, President Trump with police chiefs as the backdrop, GIs with the backdrop. We’ve seen them in prior administrations, if you remember the “Mission Accomplished” photo op that President George W. Bush offered us, wrongly. So, I think there’s — the photo op stands out as an important factor.

Second, it’s a way of, maybe subliminally, but not so subliminally, exacting loyalty, special loyalty, from the most senior officers and enlisted personnel in the U.S. armed forces. I think every American, by the way, should watch the video. It’s extremely instructive. And even though it’s time-consuming, and it will annoy many viewers, I think it’s a critically important document that people should be exposed to.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Mr. Fidell, I wanted to ask you — in terms of some of the stuff that Hegseth said, for instance, “You kill people and break things for a living,” “We’re training warriors, not defenders,” what are they — what are they trying to impart to these generals?

EUGENE FIDELL: I think they’re — what the broadcast here is a rejection of so many of the progressive innovations that the U.S. armed forces have experienced since World War II. That’s what we’re talking about. It wasn’t until the Truman administration, for example, that there was racial desegregation in the U.S. armed forces. The introduction or reintroduction of women in the armed forces was a major issue. The dirty word in this environment is “woke,” being woke, or DEI projects. All of these serve a useful purpose in terms of integrating American society, and the U.S. armed forces is supposed to be a replica of American society, not simply a white male American society.

There were so many things that were off in this event. I’ll just tick off a few, if you don’t mind. Personally, I found the sectarian religious references highly offensive and inappropriate. That has no place in a nonreligious event, basically a command performance.

I thought the notion that we’re going to get tough with people, as if that’s something new — the U.S. armed forces have always been tough. But the difference is that, until now, there’s been no question about our armed forces’ compliance, strong efforts to comply, with the rules of armed conflict. What you hear here is a replica of things that happened under President Trump’s first administration, where he was pardoning people that were charged with or had been convicted of highly illegal conduct in war zones. And what this is is a kind of green light, that we’re going to throw the rule book out.

And you have to connect some dots here. Remember, one of the first things this administration did was fire a couple of the judge advocates general, the senior lawyers, senior uniformed lawyers, of the armed forces. That’s a terrible signal, and as if they were like softies. They weren’t softies. They were tough people who rose, by dint of their natural gifts, their training, their loyalty, their patriotism, to the highest levels. So, you have to view this holistically with other things that have happened.

I think that one scary point that Mr. Hegseth made was that they were going to make sure that anyone who made a complaint in the armed forces that was later shown not to be substantiated would themselves be subject to prosecution. Well, can you think of a better way to chill the filing of complaints? Now, certainly, there are valid complaints, and there are invalid complaints, and there are complaints that are somewhere in between, that require some investigation. But what they’ve done here is send a clear signal that if you make a complaint, you are going to personally be in the crosshairs if it turns out that we don’t agree with your complaint. That’s a preposterous position.

AMY GOODMAN: So, what do you see is the likelihood, following from that, that the officer class would refuse to deploy troops against U.S. citizens, Eugene Fidell?

EUGENE FIDELL: Well, my feeling is that the people who are going to be on the receiving end of these orders — I’m talking about the senior officers — they should be talking to their lawyers, and not necessarily their staff judge advocate, their uniformed lawyers assigned to advise them, because they may need more independent and confidential advice as to what to do. Remember, the staff judge advocate is not the commander’s lawyer. The staff judge advocate works for the government. And those conversations may prove not to be confidential. And what these senior officers need most of all is some good, private legal advice to help them ensure that they can distinguish between orders that are lawful and orders that are not lawful.

Orders that are lawful, of course, have to be complied with. But some of these issues, some of these orders, about the internal war, for example, or going to war in Chicago as a training mission, raise questions as to whether they’re lawful or not — under, for example, the Posse Comitatus Act, the 19th-century legislation that’s been on the books and has made sure that the Army, the military is not involved in garden-variety law enforcement, until now.

Some of those issues are going to be touchy legal issues that lawyers are going to have to get smart on, hit the books and be prepared to give advice. Maybe the senior officers are going to be able to get that advice, that they badly need. And we already know that, based on what Mr. Hegseth and the president have said. And maybe they’ll be able to get it within the service, but if I were a general or an admiral right now, I’d pick up the phone and call my lawyer, preferably somebody who is knowledgeable in the field.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you, as well — the U.S. military, probably of any institution in American society, has made the most strides, especially during the volunteer army period, in terms of racial diversity and ethnic diversity. Thirty-five to forty percent of the U.S. military are African American and Latino. How do you sense that this whole anti-woke theory of Hegseth and the president — what kind of impact will this have on U.S. military morale?

EUGENE FIDELL: I think it’s going to have a very bad impact. We’ve learned, correctly, over the last several generations that unit cohesion is so critical. And in our country, cohesion is not everybody looks alike, talks alike, you know, and so forth. It’s a cohesion based on diversity and the celebration of diversity in our country. Remember the great poem “The New Colossus”: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” People accepted that offer. My family, everybody’s family can account for that, except Native Americans. And we’ll get to the Native American community in a minute.

But we’ve just made tremendous strides, as you point out. And I see this going back in time to an all-white, all-male military establishment, and I think that that would be so unfortunate. Even when I was on active duty, even though it was well after the Truman administration, there were still holdovers. People who worked in the galley on Coast Guard cutters were often African American, Black sailors. There were stewards who were often Filipino Americans. And that’s not that long ago. So, you know, even since then, we’ve made tremendous strides.

And if you look at some of the people who have been sidelined by this administration, some of these fantastic women officers, fantastic officers of color, you know, there’s a lesson there. There’s a lesson that Americans have to take away. This is an administration that wants to turn back the hands of the social clock, whether it’s Teddy Roosevelt charging up San Juan Hill, whether — I mean, pick your — pick your historic illustration. But it’s not today’s America. It’s not today’s armed forces. So, fasten your safety belts. This is going to be a wild ride.

Now, I want to say a word. I mentioned the Native American situation. There was one point that President Trump made in his remarks at Quantico that I think has been neglected. One of the things he’s celebrating in American history is the war that we waged against Native American tribes, as if that was something to celebrate. I happen to live in a town, Stockbridge, Massachusetts, that was an Indian town. It was the Stockbridge-Munsee Nation, which is now no longer in this area. But, you know, we have to be aware of the fact that our history in dealing with Native Americans is a very, very grim and bloody affair. And for him to celebrate the Indian Wars, to you use the — you know, the old term, is really shocking in this day and age.

AMY GOODMAN: Eugene Fidell —

EUGENE FIDELL: End the editorial on that.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much for being with us, senior research scholar at Yale Law School, where he teaches military justice. We’ll link to your piece in The Hill, “Trump and Hegseth want to turn the military into a tool of personal loyalty.”

We speak with the acclaimed filmmakers Raoul Peck and Alex Gibney about their latest documentary, Orwell: 2+2=5, which explores the life and career of George Orwell and why his political writing remains relevant today.

“We are living again and again — not only in the United States, but in many other countries, including in Europe, in Latin America, in Africa — the same playbook playing again and again,” says Peck, who directed the film.

Gibney, a producer on the film, says Donald Trump perfectly illustrates the “assault on common sense” that is part of any authoritarian system. “What you instinctively know to be true is upended by the authoritarian leader, so that everything flows from him,” says Gibney. “He just invents things on the spot, but he expects them to be revered as true.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: In the days after President Donald Trump took office in 2017 during his first term, George Orwell’s 1984 came a best-seller in the U.S. The classic 1949 dystopian work introduced the world to the terms “Big Brother,” “thought police,” “newspeak” and “doublethink.” Orwell wrote 1984 as a cautionary tale more than 75 years ago, and some say it has even greater relevance now in Trump’s second term and around the world.

Now a new film by the Oscar-nominated director Raoul Peck is opening Friday in theaters, that explores the life and legacy of George Orwell. It’s called Orwell: 2+2=5. This is the trailer.

GEORGE ORWELL: [voiced by Damian Lewis] When I sit down to write a book, I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose.

O’CONNOR: [played by Michael Redgrave] Again, how many fingers?

GEORGE ORWELL: My starting point is always a feeling of injustice. The very concept of objective truth is fading out of this world.

WINSTON SMITH: [played by Edmond O’Brien] I’m going to set down what I dare not say aloud to anyone.

GEORGE ORWELL: This prospect frightens me much more than bombs. The words “democracy,” “freedom,” “justice” have, each of them, several different meanings, which cannot be reconciled with one another. Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The love in the air, I’ve never seen anything like it.

GEORGE ORWELL: And murder respectable. Freedom is slavery. War is peace. Ignorance is strength. Totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?

NERMEEN SHAIKH: That’s the trailer for the new film, Orwell: 2+2=5. And this is a clip that features the voices of President George W. Bush’s Secretary of State General Colin Powell and Russian President Vladimir Putin. It begins with the words of Orwell as read in a 1956 British film adaptation of his novel 1984.

BIG BROTHER: [voiced by John Vernon] We’re at war with the people of Eurasia, the vile and ruthless aggressors who have committed countless atrocities and who are guilty of every bestial crime a human being can commit. They’ve laid waster our land, destroyed our factories, looted our homes, massacred our children and raped our women!

SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL: When Iraq finally admitted having these weapons in 1995, the quantities were vast. Less than a teaspoon of dry anthrax, a little bit, about this amount, this is just about…

GEORGE ORWELL: [voiced by Damian Lewis] This kind of thing happens everywhere. But it is clearly likelier to lead to outright falsification in societies where only one opinion is permissible at any given moment.

PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: [translated] I’ve made the decision to conduct a special military operation. Its aim will be to protect those who have been persecuted in the Kyiv region’s genocide these past eight years. Our goal, therefore, will be to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine.

GEORGE ORWELL: The organized lying practiced by totalitarian states is not, as is sometimes claimed, a temporary expedient of the same nature as military deception. It is something integral to totalitarianism, something that would still continue even if concentration camps and secret police forces had ceased to be necessary. Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.

VICTOR OTTO: [translated] Had we not engaged in our special military operation, they would have attacked Russia. They, the Nazis, had long been preparing an attack.

O’BRIEN: [played by Lorne Greene] How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?

WINSTON SMITH: [played by Eddie Albert] Four.

O’BRIEN: And if Big Brother were to say not four, but five, then how many?

WINSTON SMITH: Four.

O’BRIEN: How many fingers, Winston?

WINSTON SMITH: Stop it. Anything. Five.

O’BRIEN: No, no, Winston.

WINSTON SMITH: Stop the pain!

O’BRIEN: Winston, that is no use. You are lying. You still think you see four.

WINSTON SMITH: How can I help, when it’s — five!

O’BRIEN: Two and two do not always make four, Winston. Sometimes they make five. Again, how many fingers am I holding up?

AMY GOODMAN: That’s a clip from the new documentary Orwell: 2+2=5. That last part is from a 1953 film adaptation of Orwell’s novel 1984.

For more, we are joined by Academy Award-winning director Alex Gibney, producer of Orwell: 2+2=5, and by the film’s director, Raoul Peck, the acclaimed Haitian filmmaker. His past films include Exterminate All the Brutes, I Am Not Your Negro — that’s one of my favorite documentaries of all time — The Young Karl Marx, Lumumba: Death of a Prophet and Haiti: The Silence of the Dogs. Raoul Peck served as Haiti’s culture minister in the 1990s.

We welcome you both back to Democracy Now! Raoul, talk about the origins of this film, why you decided to make this.

RAOUL PECK: Well, Alex is better to answer that first question. You want to tell it?

ALEX GIBNEY: Well, no, I got a call from a man who had assembled all the rights to Orwell’s works and wondered if I wanted to executive produce it. I said, “Yes, on one condition: if we can get Raoul Peck to direct it.” And so, I turned to Raoul. And luckily, he answered my call and said yes. So, that’s how it started. But it also seemed like a film — I mean, it began some years ago. It was like two or three years ago we started on this project. It was relevant then. We had no idea how relevant it was to become.

RAOUL PECK: Yeah, and I remember when we start working on it. For me, Kamala Harris was going to be president, so — and despite that, I knew that this country and many other countries around the world needed Orwell to come back and — because he had been one of the incredibly analyzer of how a totalitarian regime, but also any type of abuse of power function. You know, he teached how the signs — how to recognize the signs. And, you know, coming from Haiti as a young man and young boy, I also recognize the signs — you know, the attack on the press, the attack on justice, the attack on academia, the attack on any institution that can be a bulwark against totalitarian. And we are living again and again — not only in the United States, but in many other countries, including in Europe, in Latin America, in Africa — the same playbook playing again and again.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Raoul, you’ve said in another interview, “I don’t make biographies. I choose a moment in the life of a character that allows me to tell the bigger story. For Orwell, I found that moment quite rapidly.” So, if you could elaborate on that? So, Alex comes to you with the idea of this film, and what do you think of Orwell?

RAOUL PECK: An idea to which I say “yes” immediately. I don’t know why, but that happened. But you’re not offered every day to be able to immerse yourself in the whole body of work of an author that that you revere and that is important, like James Baldwin was important for me, too. But I know that before going, plunging into it, I had to find a story. I had to find — indeed, I don’t do biography. I try to find a story with a character, with emotions, with contradictions, and a story that allows you to see a film multiple times, not just for what is happening now currently, but also that you can watch in 30 years, and you will learn as much.

So, the story for me was Orwell in the last year of his life, where he’s struggling to finish 1984. And he will finally finish it, but will die four months later. And he’s only 49. So, the drama of that, you know, and the struggle to finish that, you know, for an author, I thought, was — would give me the fine line of the story and allow me to revisit all his body of work.

AMY GOODMAN: Writing through dealing with tuberculosis before he died. But for especially the younger generation, who he was, why he came to have this view, this warning to the world about totalitarianism, authoritarianism?

RAOUL PECK: Well, because it’s — you know, people have thought, including myself, you know, reading Orwell when I was young, always thought of him of a sort of dystopian and science fiction author. But in fact, he was writing about things that he went through in his life, being born in India, and that’s why I use that photo of Orwell as a baby in the hand of a Black nanny. And then he went to Myanmar today, you know.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Burma, yeah.

RAOUL PECK: Burma at the time, which was a British colony. And he went there as a 19-year-old, as a soldier there, and he realized the price of colonialism. He was himself the bully. He was on the wrong side. And that experience, I think, shaped his whole thinking. And he wrote about it in a very candid and open way and self-critical way.

And then the Spanish War, again, as a young man in his thirties, to volunteer to fight with the republic against the putschists, Franco, etc. So, all those moments shaped his mind. And, you know, there is a phrase where he said, you know, “After the Spanish Civil War, I knew where I stand.” And that was the turning point for him and of — as well, for the film, to establish who he actually was, and his whole writing, saying that “I want to — you know, to write about politics and art together.” It was never a contradiction for him.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And indeed, he said the decision not to make art about politics is itself a political decision —

RAOUL PECK: Of course.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: — which you —

RAOUL PECK: Yeah, and, as he said, neutrality cannot be — is also a political position. You know, you can’t be neutral. Neutral of what? You know.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: But the other — you talked a little bit about his time in — he was born in India, but I think he was just a few months old when his mother brought him back to England. But then he spends, as you said, from 1922 to '27, five years working as a policeman in, at the time, British-colonized Burma. And as a policeman, he says that he was part of the actual machinery of despotism, and as a result of which — another quote from the film — that he operates, quote, “on a simple theory that the oppressed are always right and the oppressors wrong: a mistaken theory, but the direct result of being one of the oppressors yourself.” So, if you could talk about that? And then, also we'll get into, you know, the extent to which, of course, this experience with colonialism, a direct one, as one of the colonizers, but then also the question of class. Throughout the film, he explains his own formation by his position, as he calls it, being lower-upper-middle class.

RAOUL PECK: Yes. Well, the first part of the question, you know, I have — I had a very good friend, the writer Russell Banks, and we had had that discussion many times. And he said the real story of racism in America can only be told by somebody who was a member of the Klan. And it’s a little bit the same way. If you have been in the belly of the beast, you have learned how the beasts think. You have no — you know all the instruments. You know how they function, etc. And that’s what Orwell was able to do. You know, he was doing things that he would come to regret, but he knew them intimately. And about the second part of your question, I forgot. It’s about —

NERMEEN SHAIKH: About class.

RAOUL PECK: About class. You know, that’s — I was thinking recently about how every politician in this country is using prominently the middle class, as if it’s like something — you have the middle class, and then you have the very rich and the very poor. And so, every citizen wants to be in that middle class. But it’s a way also to erase all class distinction, all the nuance of being in one or the other, is to erasing the working class, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to a clip, again, from your film, Orwell: 2+2=5.

GEORGE ORWELL: [voiced by Damian Lewis] I do not think one can assess a writer’s motives without knowing something of his early development. His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in. At least this is true in tumultuous, revolutionary ages like our own.

When I was not yet 20, I went to Burma in the Indian Imperial Police. In an outpost of empire like Burma, the class question appeared at first sight to have been shelved. Most of the white men in Burma were not of the type who in England would be called “gentlemen.” But they were “white men,” in contradistinction to the other and inferior class, the “natives.”

In the free air of England, that kind of thing is not fully intelligible. In order to hate imperialism, you have got to be part of it. But it is not possible to be part of such a system without recognizing it as an unjustifiable tyranny. Even the thickest-skinned Anglo-Indian is aware of this. Every “native” face he sees in the street brings home to him his monstrous intrusion. But I was in the police, which is to say that I was part of the actual machinery of despotism.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that’s a clip from Orwell: 2+2=5. And there, we hear about Orwell’s experience with colonialism and how that shaped his ideological formation, so — which Raoul just talked about. So, Alex, I’d like you to talk a little bit about, you know, a comment that — an Orwell quote that’s also in the film, the fact that leaders can claim that something that happened didn’t happen, or that two and two is five. This fact scares me “more than bombs,” and this is not a “frivolous statement.” So, if you could elaborate on the significance of and the importance of this in our present moment?

ALEX GIBNEY: Well, I think that what Orwell was talking about was the idea of authoritarian leaders’ assault on common sense. In other words, what you instinctively know to be true is upended by the authoritarian leader, so that everything flows from him — usually “him.” And that’s the — that’s what we’re experiencing in this moment. We have a president who you can’t even say that he’s a liar, because he just invents things on the spot, but he expects them to be revered as true. Two plus two equals five. That is the the effective —

RAOUL PECK: Slogan.

ALEX GIBNEY: Well, it’s a slogan, but that’s how he impresses us with his power, that he can make us rudder against our own common sense. That is — and that’s the danger we must all, you know, rise up against. That’s the problem at this moment.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And also, he makes — I mean, the point that also you have in the film, Orwell saying, “To be corrupted by totalitarianism, one does not have to live in a totalitarian country.”

ALEX GIBNEY: Right. And I think also — you know, the other thing to remember, I think, that’s important here is that what we’re living through in this country is not unique, and it’s kind of a playbook that authoritarian leaders go through throughout the world. But also, you know, one of the geniuses — one of the things that’s great about Raoul’s film is that there’s a juxtaposition of present and past, and also country to country, and you can see these same patterns emerge over and over and over again. And it’s a kind of a simple playbook to make us all believe that two plus two equals five, or at least to assert that the — that’s the pledge of allegiance, “two plus two equals five.” But it’s not unique to Donald Trump. And I think that it’s one of the great triumphs of the film.

AMY GOODMAN: Raoul Peck, you told Variety, “We are in the hands of a bunch of crazy people who have an agenda totally written out in Project 2025, the same way that Hitler wrote Mein Kampf.” And you also — I mean, just talking about Orwell saying, “Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.”

RAOUL PECK: Well, exactly. And I think everybody remembers when Ms. Conway came with the phrase “alternative facts,” you know, and everybody started laughing about that. But that was what we call the beginning of newspeak, you know, and where you’re actually saying one thing and doing the contrary, the same when Netanyahu at the U.N. said Israel wants peace, while they are bombarding Gaza. So, the absurdity and the contradiction of this is — have invaded our lives. And I know, as — again, coming from Haiti, I remember as a young boy hearing Kennedy and other presidents talking about democracy. And at the same time, they were financing and supporting the dictatorship in my country, or in Congo supporting Mobutu, when we were there, and at the same time talking about peace, talking about the good thing that democracy was bringing. So, that double language have always existed for the imperialist countries and colonialism. You know, there is the talk, and there is the reality. And Orwell, if we can learn something from him, is that he wrote about the reality, not some dystopian future, you know. And we can relate to that, and we can understand how this machine functions.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And so, Raoul, you mentioned newspeak. And in the film, you give several examples from the contemporary moment: “special military operation,” which includes — which equals “invasion of Ukraine”; “vocational training center,” which equals “concentration camp,” a reference to the Uyghurs in China; “legal use of force,” “police brutality”; “antisemitism,” 2024, equals “weaponized term to silence critics of the Israeli military.” Now, if you could talk about, in particular — because you do include it in the film — the proliferation of these terms through a totally new form, social media?

RAOUL PECK: Absolutely. It multiplied that by the million. And we are being bombarded by so-called information, which are absolutely not information. And there is no checking about that. And there is this sequence with Ocasio-Cortez, as well, criticizing or asking Zuckerberg, you know: What is his fact-checking department doing on Facebook? So, it’s such an enormous problem. Like, Orwell tells us that at the moment where you cannot trust language anymore, you’re not in a democracy.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you leave this film more hopeful or less?

RAOUL PECK: Well, it’s — “hopeful” is not a word I can function with. For me, it’s about what do you do once you see that something is not functioning. And I think about what response should we make, what alliance should —

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what is the response?

RAOUL PECK: Yes, well, that will be the responsibility of each one of us, you know, wherever we are, journalists, as well politicians, but also the civil society. The response, you know, like Orwell said, 84% of Oceania, you know, they are the one who has — or, he calls them the proles, and they are the one who has to bring a response, like the civil rights movement. You know, it was a coalition of very different people, very different movements, and they succeeded in changing this country.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I encourage everyone to see this film. It’s at IFC, opening tomorrow night here in New York, and then moving on to Los Angeles and then to the rest of the country. Raoul Peck, director of Orwell: 2+2=5. Alex Gibney produced the film. Thank you so much, both, for being with us.

The alleged shooter of conservative activist Charlie Kirk was formally charged Tuesday by Utah prosecutors. The top charge is aggravated murder, along with six other counts. The accused, 22-year old Tyler Robinson, also made his first court appearance to hear the charges read. Prosecutors say they will be seeking the death penalty in the case.

The case has set off media speculation about the shooter’s possible motives, including the meaning behind cryptic meme references engraved on bullets recovered by police. Makena Kelly, senior writer at Wired, says that the messages are not “inherently political” and allude to some of the online communities Robinson was involved in.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

The alleged shooter of conservative activist Charlie Kirk was formally charged Tuesday by Utah prosecutors. Twenty-two-year-old Tyler Robinson faces charges of aggravated murder and six other counts. Prosecutors say they’ll seek the death penalty.

On Tuesday, prosecutors released the transcripts of text messages Robinson allegedly sent to his roommate, who’s also his romantic partner, that he sent after the shooting. In one of the alleged messages, Robinson wrote about Charlie Kirk, quote, “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out,” unquote. Robinson also texted his roommate after the shooting that he had left a message under his keyboard. The message reportedly read, quote, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I’m going to take it,” unquote.

The messages showed the roommate was shocked that Robinson was the assassin. The roommate now is cooperating fully with investigators, according to the Utah governor.

In the wake of Kirk’s murder a week ago, the Trump administration has vowed a crackdown on the political left, but the motives and ideology of Robinson, whether or not he acted alone, are still mostly a subject of speculation. Some of the first evidence released in the case were inscriptions written on bullets found with a rifle. This is Utah Governor Spencer Cox reading some of the inscriptions.

GOV. SPENCER COX: Inscriptions on the three unfired casings read, “Hey fascist! [exclamation point] Catch! [exclamation point]” up arrow symbol, right arrow and — symbol and three down arrow symbols. A second unfired casing read, “O Bella ciao, Bella ciao, Bella ciao, Ciao, ciao!” And a third unfired casing read, “If you Read This, You Are GAY Lmao.”

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by senior writer at Wired, Makena Kelly. Her latest piece is headlined “Bullets Found After the Charlie Kirk Shooting Carried Messages. Here’s What They Mean.”

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Makena. If you can start off just by explaining — I mean, yesterday, also in the questioning of the FBI Director Kash Patel, there was this whole discussion about Discord, and he says that everyone that he was communicating with — you know, apparently, Tyler Robinson said on Discord, “I hate to tell you, I’m the one who did this.” They’re going to investigate all the people he was talking to. But Discord, the deep web — can you explain to people who are not familiar with all of this, and then what these messages — how they may have been misinterpreted and what they mean?

MAKENA KELLY: Sure, yeah. So, Discord has become a huge messaging platform, especially for young people. It operates similarly to Slack, if you use Slack at all. So, there’s options to create a server, which is what your company would use, and then separate little channels divided into topics. So, a Discord channel operates in the same way. There are different channels, oftentimes for groups of friends. Like, the one that it looks like Robinson was involved in had a channel for probably memes, had a channel for like a general discussion, things like that.

And so, the people who use Discord, it’s a variety of folks for a variety of different purposes. They could just be kind of a friendly group chat, something that maybe you would have on your messages app on your phone, with a little bit more direction or topic and some more niche focuses. But also Discords can be used for a bunch of different things. I have friends in the New York area, actually, who use Discord for political organizing and for bringing folks that they meet, you know, on the streets or helping organize voting drives and things like that.

And so, it’s not necessarily a political platform. It is a very, like, politically neutral platform that people use because it serves a certain purpose. But that doesn’t get away from the fact that people who are involved, deeply involved and deeply, you know, indebted to the internet, who get on it every day, who maybe are accessing stranger forms than you or I do every day, they’re able to organize and bring people from those maybe deeper, darker places of the internet, bring them to Discord and be in touch with them, basically at any moment every day.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Makena, FBI Director Kash Patel, during an interview on Fox News, said that Tyler Robinson, quote, “subscribed to left-wing ideology.” Can you talk about this idea that Robinson’s motives may not be rooted in traditional extremism, but constructed from randomness and irony of online culture?

MAKENA KELLY: Yeah, if you even look at the documents that came out yesterday, the charging documents for Robinson, in the text exchange that they show, these transcripts, he specifically notes that, like, “I will die laughing,” or something like that, “if Fox News reads some of the memes that I have inscribed on these bullets.” So, all of these memes themselves are not inherently political. “Hey fascist!” sure, that can be read, you know, as maybe being a bit leftist. It can also be seen to be maybe ironic. And until we actually get some idea of the communities that Robinson was involved in, then we’ll get a better idea of what he ascribed to. But these memes are everywhere online. You would have people using them ironically, people using them perhaps seriously. But we just don’t have enough information to go off of right now to really make any real decision on what it is that Robinson ascribed to.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Makena, can you talk about video game culture and the up and down arrows and how they are being misread, and how you talked about particular games they’re from, as opposed to a leftist ideology?

MAKENA KELLY: Yeah. So, the first bullet casing that they mentioned in that press conference said, “Hey fascist! Catch!” And then it had an up, and then a right, and then three downward arrows. At the beginning of this investigation, a lot of folks were saying that those three downward arrows were an anti-fascist symbol, but when you add those additional first two arrows, it’s actually just a code that you would input when playing a game called Helldivers 2, which is a satirical anti-fascist game where you’re playing as what you — what the characters believe to be anti-fascists, but you really are the fascists. So it’s just a game that folks play.

The bomb that that code calls for is like this thing called an Eagle 500-kilogram bomb or something. And it’s a meme in the community of Helldivers, where it’s seen as — when you call that down, it is in a comically excessive bomb to drop. It will just basically — in the game, it’ll solve all of your problems, and you don’t have to think about anything else.

And so, instead of thinking — instead of looking at that bullet casing and saying, like, “Oh, this is a leftist ideology, right?” you could look at it coming from the community around the folks who play this game, be like, “Oh, I’m doing something perhaps comically excessive in assassinating this man,” fortunately, and trying to send that sign — right? — trying to make it a joke and a meme, something that we kind of saw him reference in the charging documents yesterday.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we will, of course, continue to follow this case. I think the funeral, next Sunday. Makena Kelly, I want to thank you for being with us, senior writer at Wired. We’ll link to your piece, as you focus on the intersection of politics, power and technology.

We speak to Bishop William J. Barber II about conservative Christian activist Charlie Kirk’s killing and the right-wing weaponization of his death. Barber says outrage over political violence should also extend beyond Kirk’s assassination, to what he refers to as the political violence of policy, including the hundreds around the world who die of poverty, war and disease every day. “You cannot claim that you believe in a God and a Christ of love and justice and mercy and grace and truth, and then you push policies that prey on the very persons, in the very communities, that the Scriptures, that the example of Jesus and the prophet, tells us we should not only pray for, but we should also be lifting up and helping up and protecting.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

Prosecutors are expected to file charges today in the murder case of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot last week during a campus event at Utah Valley University. The alleged shooter, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson of Utah, is currently in custody and may be facing the death penalty. He’ll be arraigned today.

Charlie Kirk was a well-known figure in the MAGA movement, a close ally of President Trump. Through his organization Turning Point USA, he’s credited with mobilizing young conservative voters, expanding Republican turnout in 2024. He also reached a wide audience with his podcast, The Charlie Kirk Show. Kirk strongly identified as a Christian and didn’t believe in the separation of church and state. This is Kirk speaking in 2022.

CHARLIE KIRK: Of course, we should have church and state mixed together. Our Founding Fathers believed in that. We can go through the details of that. They established, literally, a church in Congress.

AMY GOODMAN: While the motives for the murder are not known at this time, President Trump and his allies are accusing the political left of fomenting violence. President Trump was questioned about this by a reporter at the White House yesterday.

NANCY CORDES: Given the killing of Melissa Hortman, the attack on Paul Pelosi, the attack on Gabby Giffords, the attack on the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, why make the case that violence is only on one side? It seems to be taking place across the spectrum.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I didn’t say it’s on one side, but I say the radical left causes tremendous violence, and they seem to do it in a bigger way. But the radical left really is — caused a lot of problems for this country. I really think they hate our country.

AMY GOODMAN: Last year, a unit of the Department of Justice published a major “study”on domestic terrorism. It found, quote, “Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists,” unquote. The DOJ removed the study after the Charlie Kirk killing.

For more, we’re joined by Bishop William Barber, president of Repairers of the Breach and founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School, also national co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and leader of the Moral Mondays movement, co-author of the book White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy, joining us from Raleigh, North Carolina.

Welcome to Democracy Now! Your response to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Bishop Barber?

BISHOP WILLIAM BARBER II: I pause for a minute, Amy, because of the last statement that you made, where you said that they removed the study where the facts did not line up with the narrative that the president, Stephen Miller and others were seeking to put out. And I just had to — I’ll come back to that, but I just had to stop for a moment. I want people to hear that, who are listening here.

You know, this past week, there was a brutal, on-camera assassination of brother Charlie Kirk, and we must all despise it, as one — I’ve known what it means to live with people who send you threats and want to see your demise. And because we’re human beings, we should despise violence against any other human being. We should despise that it left him dead, his wife broken, heartbroken, without a husband, his children without a father. And all of us should be bothered. All of us should denounce political violence and pray for the family and stand against this viciousness and violence, murder. We’ve had too much.

Just yesterday, we had a Moral Monday, on September 15th, remembering that after the March on Washington, 17 days afterwards, four girls were blown up in a church in Birmingham, what they called “Bombingham” at that time, with a white supremacist trying to stop the civil rights movement. And Dr. King said at that time — he raised the issue of not just who killed her, but what killed her. And so, we should all be — be deeply moved, deeply bothered.

But here’s the other side, Amy, and to the audience: If you didn’t get bothered by political death until the other day, this must be challenged, too. The prophets in the Bible, and even in the — Jesus in the New Testament, they talk about how our trouble in nations is rooted in political violence. So, if we — if you’re bothered by what happened last week, you can’t be quiet and not cry out against what happened to some politicians earlier this year in Minnesota. If you’re bothered by that kind — what happened last week, you have to cry out also against the 800 people who die every day from poverty and over 200-and-some thousand who die every year from policies that cause violence among the poor. You have to cry out against the hundreds of thousands that died needlessly, died needlessly during the height of COVID, and still die from the lack of healthcare — the lack of healthcare in a nation where politicians, in the middle of a pandemic, refused to ensure healthcare. And one study said over 350,000 people died not from COVID, but from the lack of healthcare.

You have to cry out against any kind of political violence. You have to cry out against the violence perpetrated against the homeless, and accented by policies that say “lock them up” rather than build housing, or when a Fox News host says, “Just kill them. Just give them a lethal injection.” You have to cry out against threats of political violence in all of its forms. The president is saying, “I can stand in the middle of the Fifth Avenue and shoot someone, and I wouldn’t lose any followers.” You have to stand against the violence we see happening in Gaza and the Congo and Yemen.

America has been facing a turning point in this society for some time. And the question is: When will America say that death is and violence is no longer an option? Not just that that happened, as terrible as it was. We have to have a real, real serious moral debate about political violence in this nation.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Reverend Barber, I wanted to ask you — during the recent speech at a Senator Bernie Sanders rally in North Carolina, you called Christian nationalism, quote, “heresy by another name.” Could you — could you talk about that?

BISHOP WILLIAM BARBER II: Well, the reason I called it that, because of what the Scriptures say. If you go to the ancient Scripture Isaiah 58, that’s lifted up by Jews, Muslims and Christians, it says that the kind of religion, the kind of fasting that God requires is not just saying that everybody pray — I’m paraphrasing. It says the kind of religion that the Lord wants is to speak truth to the nation, to tell the nation its sin, to cry out against oppression, against paying people less than what they deserve, against those things that hurt and cause more homelessness. Throughout the Scriptures — there are more than 2,000 Scriptures. You go to the New Testament, says a nation will be judged by how you treat the least of these.

And what happens with so-called religious nationalism is that it attempts to lift the flag above the cross. It attempts to say — suggest that one political side or one political party or one political framework is, in fact, God’s way, when, in fact, the Scriptures are clear about that. And what heresy is is when you take something that is truth, and you try to twist it, when you try to twist faith to support political violence, when you try to twist faith to give you the right to denounce even those who are trying to live out the call of love and justice.

Are we not — and this is not the first time we’ve had a debate with a kind of religious nationalism. Religious nationalism was what undergirded the slave masters. They created a religion that said that slavery was all right. There was the kind of religious nationalism that was formed to come against Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he called for the New Deal. There was a religious nationalism that came against Dr. King and many others who were standing up for civil rights. We’ve always had this debate in this nation. And really, we need to have it even the more today, because, on the one hand, you cannot claim that you believe in a God and a Christ of love and justice and mercy and grace and truth, and then — and then you push policies that prey — P-R-E-Y — on the very persons, in the very communities, that the Scriptures, that the example of Jesus and the prophet, tells us we should not only pray for — P-R-A-Y for — but we should also be lifting up and helping up and protecting.

AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, Vice President JD Vance hosted The Charlie Kirk Show and interviewed Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff for policy at the White House. Vance asked Miller to elaborate on how the administration would be working to prevent what he called the, quote, “festering violence that you see on the far left,” in reference to the assassination of Kirk.

STEPHEN MILLER: We are going to channel all of the anger that we have over the organized campaign that led to this assassination to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks. So, let me explain a little what that means. So —

VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE: I’ve got 30 seconds, so be quick, Stephen.

STEPHEN MILLER: The organized doxxing campaigns, the organized riots, the organized street violence, the organized campaigns of dehumanization, vilification, posting people’s addresses, combining that with messaging that’s designed to trigger, incite violence, and the actual organized cells that carry out and facilitate the violence, it is a vast domestic terror movement. And with the God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people. It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Stephen Miller talking to JD Vance, who was hosting Charlie Kirk’s daily podcast because Kirk was assassinated. We just have 30 seconds, Bishop Barber, but as they talk about the left as “terrorists” and taking down the network “in Charlie’s name,” can you respond?

BISHOP WILLIAM BARBER II: Three things real quickly. First of all, when people of faith are Christian, we’re supposed to do things in Jesus’ name, not in somebody’s name, and that Jesus would not be talking what he’s talking about there.

Secondly, you just said at the beginning of the program that they had documentation of what’s really going on, factual evidence, and they removed it from the website because they don’t want to deal with the truth. And instead, they want to use a tragic, violent death, that all of us should be against and should be concerned about, and use that to stoke more division, possibly more violence, more ugliness. And that is wrong. It is undemocratic. It is unjust. And it does not line up with their oath to establish justice, to promote the common defense, to promote the general welfare and to ensure domestic tranquility and equal protection under the law.

What Stephen Miller should be working on is stop terrorizing immigrants, stop pushing policies of healthcare that are going to cause people to prematurely die, stop being against living wages, and stop trying to undermine equal protection under the law. That’s what we ought to be doing. And we ought to do that in the name of all that is holy and good and gracious, and we ought to do it in line with our deepest political — constitutional values and our deepest faith values.

AMY GOODMAN: Bishop William Barber, I want to thank you so much for being with us, president of Repairs of the Breach, national co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign.

The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah on Wednesday sent shockwaves across the country and around the world, not only through its raw violence, with a single, deadly sniper shot, but as a hallmark of worsening political divisions wracking the United States. President Donald Trump could and should use his enormous platform to calm tempers. Instead, he immediately blamed, without evidence, the “radical left” for Kirk’s murder. This came just days after Trump threatened war against Chicago and while he’s assembling a paramilitary force for domestic deployment against citizens, immigrants, and anyone else he cares to target.

Trump has been threatening for weeks to deploy the National Guard to Chicago. On September 5th, Trump renamed the Pentagon the “Department of War.” He had no authority to do so – only Congress can – so his order specifies “Department of War” as a “secondary title” and instructs the executive branch to use the name. Sporting his new title “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth announced in the Oval Office, “We’re going to go on offence, not just on defence. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality. Violent effect, not politically correct.”

Trump then issued a disturbing post on his Truth Social platform, declaring, “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” along with the phrase, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning…”

The post included an image of Trump in a US Army cavalry officer’s uniform, squatting before a smoke and flame-engulfed Chicago skyline, with the phrase, “Chipocalypse Now.” The image was based on a scene from the 1979 Vietnam war film, “Apocalypse Now,” in which Lt. Col. Kilgore, played by Robert Duvall, massacred a Vietnamese village so he and his troops could safely surf on a nearby beach. Kilgore says, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

Trump had already recently deployed troops without reason, request by state or local authorities, or legal justification in Los Angeles. This, from the president desperate to win a Nobel Peace Prize. A federal judge in California has already ruled this was a violation of the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, prohibiting the use of the military in domestic law enforcement except in limited cases like insurrection.

“Trump has always wanted his own muscle,” investigative reporter Radley Balko said on the Democracy Now! news hour. “He’s always expressed envy for dictators and authoritarians overseas who have forces that they can deploy to do their own personal bidding, whether it’s putting down protests or going after political opponents,” Radley Balko wrote the book, “Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces.”

Trump also recently ordered the launch of an online portal to recruit “Americans with law enforcement or other relevant backgrounds and experience to apply to join Federal law enforcement” in policing Washington, DC. In other words, he wants to recruit and deputize vigilantes.

Balko also noted how the “unlimited budget that Congress has given Trump to hire ICE and Border Patrol agents is going to allow them to really build out those forces. It would be one of the largest militaries in the world if ICE itself were a military. They’re going to staff it with people who are primarily loyal to Trump and who aren’t going to be questioning unconstitutional orders. He’s trying to fulfill this vision of his own personal paramilitary force in multiple different ways.”

Which brings us back to Trump’s disturbing reference to “Apocalypse Now.” While the comparison to the callous, violent Lt. Col. Kilgore might be valid, a more appropriate comparison would be to the film’s chief antagonist, Col. Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando. In the film, Kurtz abandons his command and retreats deep into the jungle, to control his own fiefdom and a military force of native Vietnamese, who seem to revere him as a demigod. Kurtz seems convinced of his own infallibility, and rejects any authority or bounds on his power.

The film is based on Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella, “Heart of Darkness,” set in the Belgian Congo. In it, another Kurtz goes rogue, assuming local power, amidst the rampant violence of colonialism and resource extraction.

Political violence has no place in society, and must be rejected by everyone, on all sides of any debate. This includes the targeted assassinations of political foes, as happened with the assassination of Minnesota’s former Democratic house speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband in June, or the assassination this week of Charlie Kirk.

Likewise, Trump’s constant threats of violence against entire cities, against marginalized communities, or against individuals he deems his political enemies, must also be rejected and resisted, relentlessly.

President Trump announced on Friday that a suspect was in custody for the killing of far-right activist Charlie Kirk. Although the motive has not yet been established, Trump has escalated his attacks on the political left, saying, “We just have to beat the hell out of them.” Democracy Now! speaks with Mehdi Hasan, editor-in-chief and CEO of Zeteo, who says that the right is using Kirk’s killing to smear the left.

“There’s a real rewriting of history going on. It’s what far-right regimes do after tragedies like this: They try and weaponize them to go after their enemies,” says Hasan. “None of us should celebrate political violence, because it’s a threat to all of us,” he adds.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: President Trump has just announced on Fox News that the suspected gunman who shot the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, killing him, has been caught. Trump said, quote, “I think with a high degree of certainty we have him in custody,” unquote.

Trump’s comments came a day after the FBI announced a $100,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. Officials also released photos and video of the suspected gunman who shot Kirk during an outdoor event at Utah Valley University. A bolt-action rifle was also recovered in a wooded area near the campus. In one video, the suspected gunman is seen jumping from a roof on campus and running away.

On Thursday, President Trump said he’ll honor Charlie Kirk with a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Trump also escalated his attacks on the political left, saying, quote, “We just have to beat the hell out of them.”

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have a great country. We have radical left lunatics out there, and we just have to beat the hell out of them.

AMY GOODMAN: On the floor of the House, Republican Representative Bob Onder of Missouri described the political left as, quote, “pure evil.”

REP. BOB ONDER: Well, everything has changed. If we didn’t know it already, there is no longer any middle ground. Some on the American left are undoubtedly well-meaning people. But their ideology is pure evil. They hate the good, the truth and the beautiful, and embrace the evil, the false and the ugly.

AMY GOODMAN: This call comes as some lawmakers, including Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are canceling or postponing public events out of safety concerns.

To talk about all of this and more, we’re joined by Mehdi Hasan, editor-in-chief and CEO of Zeteo, where his new piece is headlined “Hypocritical Conservatives Are Using Charlie Kirk’s Horrific Murder to Cynically Smear the Left.”

Mehdi, welcome back to Democracy Now! Why don’t you lay out what you’re seeing in these last few days, as we talk about this breaking news that the suspected gunman has been caught?

MEHDI HASAN: Thanks, Amy, for having me.

The problem with this administration, of course, is you can’t trust anything they say. Kash Patel put out multiple statements over the last 48 hours suggesting that somebody’s been caught, somebody’s in custody. They leaked to The Wall Street Journal that there was trans ideology on the weapon, and then walked it back. We have an administration of gaslighters and serial liars. So, unfortunately, in the old days, even if a president lied, you could try and take the bureaucracy or the law enforcement people, maybe — maybe sometimes — at their word. Now you have to start from a position of pure skepticism. So I don’t believe anything Trump says until I see more verification. I do hope they’ve caught the person.

The problem is, Amy, that since the — from the moment Charlie Kirk was horrifically murdered, on camera, a horrific act, inexcusable act, on Wednesday in Utah — from the moment that happened, Republicans, conservatives, prominent figures in this country on the right went to work to blame this on the left, even though the killer was not in custody — apparently is now. Let’s see the alleged killer. They — no killer in custody, no motive, and yet for the last 36, 48 hours, we’ve been told again and again that the left did this, the left killed Kirk, the left has blood on its hands.

And I wrote that piece for Zeteo because I was deeply frustrated at what I was seeing. It’s not just frustrating. It’s dangerous, right? Your response to a political assassination, to political violence, cannot be to ratchet up more political violence, more dehumanization and demonization.

And the reality is, of course, as I say, we don’t know the motive of the killer. Let’s say the killer turns out to be someone on the left. Even then, that doesn’t mean the right is somehow scot-free here. And that’s why I wrote my piece, pointing out that the vast majority of right-wing political violence in this country comes from Trump supporters, comes from people on the far right, comes from all sorts of people who have horrific views about minorities and white supremacists. And I laid down the evidence in my piece.

For example, this summer, just a few weeks ago, I know the right wing has been erasing her killing, but Melissa Hortman, the speaker emerita of the Minnesota House, was murdered in her home with her husband. Another lawmaker was shot and almost killed with his partner. That was done by a Trump supporter this summer. Trump didn’t even bother to show up at the funeral. No one mentions Melissa Hortman’s death on the right when they’re talking about political violence. We’ve erased January 6th. We’ve erased the attack on Josh Shapiro’s home earlier this year. We’ve erased multiple attacks over the years that have been attributed to or that the suspect turned out to be some kind of Trump supporter.

And I think that is why I wrote that piece, because there’s a real rewriting of history going on. It’s what far-right regimes do after, you know, tragedies like this: They try and weaponize them to go after their enemies. And Trump’s made that very clear — in all his statements, “the radical left.” This is a guy who has incited violence himself, including on January the 6th.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to Hunter Kozak. He’s the Utah Valley University student who posed a question to Charlie Kirk about gun violence just before Kirk was shot and killed.

HUNTER KOZAK: Five is a lot, right? I’m going to give you — I’m going to give you some credit. Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?

CHARLIE KIRK: Counting or not counting gang violence?

HUNTER KOZAK: Great.

AMY GOODMAN: On Thursday, that young man — he was 29 years old — Hunter Kozak, the Utah Valley University — I think he was a student — posted his message response to what happened after he asked the question.

HUNTER KOZAK: And people have obviously pointed to the irony that I was — the point that I was trying to make is how peaceful the left was, right before he got shot. And that — that only makes sense if we stay peaceful. And as much as I disagree with Charlie Kirk — I’m on the record for how much I disagree with Charlie Kirk — but, like, man, dude, he is still a human being. Have we forgotten that?

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Hunter Kozak, who posed the question. He started by asking about how many trans mass shooters Charlie Kirk thought they were, and then talked about that percentage as the number of mass shooters in this country. But as he says, was horrified, as here is Charlie Kirk answering a question about gun violence, then is shot dead. Your response to this young man, who’s in a lot of pain? He said, in fact, though, he disagrees with almost everything, is known for opposing —

MEHDI HASAN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — Charlie Kirk, himself a TikToker. His wife just gave birth to their second child. He sees their families, you know, both of them having two children. And he said, “But I’m absolutely against violence and for his freedom of expression.”

MEHDI HASAN: Amy, we all are. I mean, 99% of the people in this country, I hope, are against politically motivated murders. I mean, it’s horrific. What happened to Charlie Kirk is horrific on a human level, on a political level, on multiple levels. And, you know, people are going around saying, “Well, you know, he didn’t believe in empathy, so I don’t care.” Well, just the fact that he didn’t believe in empathy is irrelevant. I believe in empathy. Most of us should believe — have empathy. And I do have empathy for his wife and kids. Two kids are going to grow up without their father. The fact that their father had vile political views that I disagree with, the fact that their father said I should be deported from the U.S., is irrelevant. All right? You don’t kill people for their speech, ever. And that young man gave a very eloquent statement there.

The irony of him being killed after taking a question on gun violence and trying to make it about gangs, I mean, Amy, right now everything in American politics just feels bizarre and ironic and unprecedented. You know, if you sat in a Netflix TV writers’ room and said, “Hey, this is a script for a political drama about politics in the United States,” and it was the script of the last five or 10 years, the TV writers would throw you out of the room and say, “This is ridiculous. We can’t make this TV show. This is so unrealistic — the plot twists, the turns.” But that’s our daily life right now. I mean, we’re all going crazy seeing, you know, what happens on a daily basis. You know, it’s beyond anything we see on TV or in the movies these days.

And I worry that everything’s going to get worse. I was on the BBC just a couple nights back, and, you know, the question they asked was: Is America going to come together after this? That’s what other countries are wondering. That’s what would happen in most normal countries after a tragedy like this. Unfortunately, the U.S. is not a normal country right now. And I suspect not only are we not going to come together, we’re going to go further apart, because the president is someone who takes this opportunity to incite more. I mean, everything Donald Trump has said since this murder has been unhelpful at best, dangerous and destructive at worst. He’s not the right leader whenever there’s a tragedy, whenever there is a murder or a terrorist act. That’s always been one of my great criticisms of Trump — I have many. But he’s not the right person to lead a nation when there is a tragedy or a crisis.

AMY GOODMAN: Mehdi, in 2023, Charlie Kirk called for you to be deported over your views on the COVID-19 pandemic while you were working at —

MEHDI HASAN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — MSNBC. I just wanted to play a clip from The Charlie Kirk Show.

MEHDI HASAN: So we need to reassert what the actual truth of the matter is, especially if we are to be prepared for the next pandemic when it inevitably comes.

CHARLIE KIRK: Wow, who is that neurotic lunatic? Who is that guy? Send him back to the country he came from? Holy cow! Get him off TV. Revoke his visa.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Charlie Kirk. And again, the horror of his murder right now. Your response then, Mehdi, and as you reflect on this now?

MEHDI HASAN: Yeah, I responded at the time pointing out how racist that statement was. Charlie Kirk was very anti-immigrant. He was very anti-Muslim. People forget this stuff. But again, you know, I’ve spent the last 48 hours condemning his killing. I have been — I’ve found the posts celebrating his death — very few of them; I know the Republicans are trying to exaggerate. There are deaths. There are obviously posts online celebrating his death. I found them distasteful, inappropriate. It’s not something I would do. And yet, I think to myself, had I been the one shot in the neck and passing away, I wonder whether — what Kirk would have said about me. This is the reality of where we live.

I mean, we’re in this weird situation, Amy, now where some liberals are going to another extreme, which is we should all condemn the killing of Charlie Kirk, but we don’t need to participate in the whitewashing of his record or the kind of — this suggestion that he’s some kind of free speech martyr. He was not a supporter of free speech. You just saw that clip. I said something on MSNBC he did not like — I, an American citizen. He said I should be deported from the United States. Is that someone who sounds like they support free speech? He was super anti-Muslim. Just a couple of days ago, he was posting about Islam being the sword with which the left slits the throat of America. He called Muslims conquerors, invaders. His rhetoric was horrific. He put targets on people’s backs.

But again, I don’t measure my own views or my own responses to tragedies by the standard set by Charlie Kirk or Donald Trump or anyone else. The fact that he may have had a more gleeful response to my death than I do to his is irrelevant. As I say, none of us should celebrate the death of a human being. None of us should celebrate political violence, because it’s a threat to all of us and to this country.

And I think it’s interesting that so many people are now trying to suggest that this guy — I’ve seen people saying, “Oh, he never did anything. He just went and had good-faith debates with college students.” Just not true. He supported the — you know, he supported the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a green card legal resident who was punished for his speech, nothing else, by the Trump administration.

So, look, even us having this conversation, Amy, will be clipped somewhere by a Republican and say, “Look! Look! They’re celebrating his death. They’re criticizing him.” No, criticizing someone’s views is not celebrating the death. We can do two things at once. We can walk and chew gum. We can say it’s absolutely outrageous that Charlie Kirk was murdered for his views, and we have absolute empathy for his wife and kids and friends and family. But we can also say those views were horrific. We’re not going to suddenly say, because he was murdered, his views are somehow good. No, bad people can be unjustly murdered. Bad people can be innocent when it comes to being killed, because even bad people shouldn’t be killed for their views.

US President Donald Trump is on a losing streak this week. Just look at the latest judicial decisions challenging his policies, from mass deportations to tariffs to his troop deployments to US cities.

The courts are proving to be a significant check on Trump’s thirst for absolute power.

These cases illustrate the point:

Immigration

Over Labor Day weekend, Immigration and Customs Enforcement attempted to begin deporting up to 700 unaccompanied Guatemalan children. In the dead of night, the first children were loaded onto planes in south Texas. “These are unaccompanied children who do not have a parent or a guardian with them,” Efrén Olivares, an attorney representing the minors, said on the Democracy Now! news hour.

At 1:00 am on Sunday morning, Olivares and his colleagues filed an emergency complaint with the federal court in Washington, DC. Judge Sparkle Sooknanam was woken after 2:00 am, and by 4:00 am she issued a temporary restraining order blocking the deportations until the children had the immigration hearings to which they have a legal right.

Meanwhile in Texas, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, considered the nation’s most conservative, ruled that Trump’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport people was illegal.

Tariffs

The Appeals Court in Washington DC ruled that Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs were illegal and unconstitutional, noting that only Congress has the power to impose tariffs. The ruling was “a sweeping decision that unequivocally rebukes President Trump’s idea that he can impose tariffs on American consumers on his own,” Neal Katyal, the attorney who argued the case, said on Democracy Now!

Domestic Deployment of the Military

Trump says, “We’re going in,” threatening to invade Chicago using, among other forces, the Texas National Guard.

But in California, a federal judge, invoking the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act that bars the use of military in domestic law enforcement, ruled in favor of Gov. Gavin Newsom, finding Trump’s deployment of the California National Guard to the streets of Los Angeles, along with several hundred US Marines, was illegal. Judge Charles Breyer, the brother of retired US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, issued an injunction barring the Trump administration from “deploying, ordering, instructing, training, or using the National Guard currently deployed in California, and any military troops [from] engaging in arrests, apprehensions, searches, seizures, security patrols, traffic control, crowd control, riot control, evidence collection, interrogation, or acting as informants.”

These are just a few of the recent court cases that have rebuked Trump as he attempts to subvert the US Constitution.

We recently got a personal glimpse into what judicial wins over Trump look like. In the high mountain air of Telluride, Colorado, we had a chance to spend time with E. Jean Carroll, the renowned advice columnist and journalist. She was at the Telluride Film Festival for the premier of the new documentary, Ask E. Jean.

Carroll had a long and storied career as the advice columnist for Elle Magazine, and has published several books. In recent years she became known as one of the most prominent women to accuse Donald Trump of sexual abuse, saying he raped her in the dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s, in Manhattan.

The courts are playing a central role in opposing the lawless Trump administration, but the core of the resistance are people.

Carroll sued Trump in civil court, and a jury found him guilty of sexually abusing her. Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote, “Trump did in fact ‘rape’ Ms. Carroll as that term commonly is used and understood.” She was awarded a $5 million settlement from Trump. After the verdict, he called her a liar. She then sued for defamation, and won an additional jury award of $83.3 million.

Carroll cut an elegant figure, walking along Telluride’s main avenue with the sweeping Continental Divide as a backdrop. Her film premiered to rave reviews, and, should there remain a film distributor in this country not cowed by threats of lawsuits from Trump, it should be available for viewing by a wide audience. The film highlights the story of one courageous woman refusing to be defined as a victim of Donald Trump, providing inspiration, no doubt, to the hundreds of survivors of Trump’s old friend, the now-dead sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. Many of them spoke this week outside the US Capitol, demanding the full release of the Epstein files. The Trump administration, which controls the files, is resisting.

Behind each lawsuit are impacted people, whether immigrant children pulled from their beds in the middle of the night and thrown on planes, or people standing up in the streets of LA confronting illegally deployed troops, whether sexual abuse survivors banding together, or federal workers fired en masse.

The courts are playing a central role in opposing the lawless Trump administration, but the core of the resistance are people–people at every level organized in opposition, defending democracy.

NOW READ: Trump's horrific cult contains the seeds of its own destruction

Jeffrey Epstein survivors rallied in front of Congress on Wednesday, detailing their experiences of abuse and calling for the release of all Epstein files. “We cannot heal without justice,” says one Epstein survivor, Chauntae Davies. “We cannot protect the future if we refuse to confront the past.” Survivors also announced that some victims would work to confidentially compile their own list of individuals implicated in Epstein’s crimes. This comes as lawmakers seek to force a House floor vote compelling the Justice Department to release all the files from the Jeffrey Epstein case.

Lauren Hersh, the national director of the anti-trafficking organization World Without Exploitation, is a former sex-trafficking prosecutor in New York who joined survivors for their press conference just steps from the Capitol on Wednesday. “Courage is contagious,” says Hersh, adding that “we were approached by several other Epstein survivors who we didn’t even know.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Survivors of serial sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein held a press conference steps away from the Capitol Wednesday to share their testimonies and demand lawmakers release all government files related to the Epstein investigation. Calls for the full files to be released have continued to grow, particularly among President Trump’s base. Trump campaigned on releasing the files but has called it a distraction and a, quote, “Democratic hoax” since taking office. The women were joined by members of Congress who have introduced a rare bipartisan bill that would make release of the Epstein investigation files law.

AMY GOODMAN: In a few minutes, we’ll speak with Congressmember Ro Khanna, who co-sponsored the bill, and Lauren Hersh of World Without Exploitation, which helped organize the survivors who spoke out Wednesday. But first, the voices of survivors.

MARINA LACERDA: My name is Marina Lacerda. I was minor victim one in federal indictment of Jeffrey Epstein in New York in 2019. I was one of dozen of girls that I personally know who were forced into Jeffrey’s mansion on 9 East 71 Street in New York City when we were just kids.

Today is the first time that I ever speak publicly about what happened to me. I never thought that I would find myself here. The only reason that I am here is because it feels like the people who matter in this country finally care about what we have to say. As an immigrant from Brazil, I feel empowered knowing that the little girl struggling to get by at 14 and 15 years old finally has a voice. For the first time, I feel like I matter as an American.

I was only 14 years old when I met Jeffrey. It was the summer of high school. I was working three jobs to try to support my mom and my sister, when a friend of mine in the neighborhood told me that I could make $300 to give another guy a massage. It went from a dream job to the worst nightmare. Jeffrey assistant Lesley Groff would call me and tell me that I needed to be at the house so often that I ended up dropping out of high school before ninth grade, and I never went back. From 14 to 17 years old, I went and worked for Jeffrey instead of receiving an education. Every day, I hoped that he would offer me a real job as one of his assistants or something, something important. I would finally have made it big, as, like we say, the American dream. That day never came. I had no way. I had no way out. I was — until he finally told me that I was too old.

There are many pieces of my story that I can’t remember, no matter how hard I try. The constant state of wonder causes me so much fear and so much confusion. My therapist says that my brain is just trying to protect itself, but it’s so hard to begin to heal, knowing that there are people out there who know more about my abuse than I do. The worst part is that the government is still in possession right now of the documents and information about — that could help me remember and get over all of this, maybe, and help me heal. They have documents with my name on them that were confiscated from Jeffrey Epstein’s house and could help me put the pieces of my own life back together.

HALEY ROBSON: My name is Haley Robson. I was a 16-year-old high school student athlete who made good grades and had high aspirations for college, when I was recruited and asked by a classmate of mine, alongside with a 20-year-old male, if I wanted to give an old rich guy a massage. But what high school girl would not want to do that? That day changed my life forever.

And when I got into the massage room, Jeffrey Epstein undressed and asked me to do things to him. My eyes welled up with tears, and I have never been more scared in my life. When it was over, he made — he paid me $200 and requested, in exchange, that I bring a girl each time to make another $200. I told him I did not want to do that, and then he gave me an ultimatum: “Either you come here and massage me when I call you, or you bring me friends of yours to massage, and I will give you $200 per girl for each time she comes.”

I felt and hoped to never hear from him again, but he called me every day. He was so wealthy and powerful, and he would not let me go. I felt I had no choice. If I disobeyed him, I knew something bad would happen. So, knowing I did not want to be sexually abused — I’m sorry — I started to bring him other girls from my high school, and he paid me $200, $200 for bringing them. I just hoped each time it would be the last time.

One day, the stepmom of one of the girls brought him and called the police on Jeffrey Epstein. The police then called me, called me in for questioning. I had told them the truth, despite the fact that I was a teenager and a minor, and I was able to tell the police the names of all the other victims. The police treated me like a criminal. I had, by this time, had turned 18. I had been with Jeffrey since I was 16 and for two years. So, they had told me I distribute — I distributed to the — so, they told me I was going to be arrested. My name was then distributed to the press as a co-conspirator of my abuser, who I detested. My entire world was crashing in around me, and I started being threatened and bullied, ’til this day still receiving death threats.

CHAUNTAE DAVIES: My name is Chauntae Davies, and I’m here before you today as a survivor, a survivor of decades of pain, the trauma, betrayal at the hands of Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, and the people who enabled them, and a government that for far too long refused to help. …

I was just one of the many young women trapped in his orbit. I was even taken on a trip to Africa with former President Bill Clinton and other notable figures. In those moments, I realized how powerless I was. If I spoke out, who would believe me? Who would protect me? Epstein himself was the most powerful leader of our country — Epstein surrounded himself, I’m sorry, with the most powerful leaders of our country and the world. He abused not only me, but countless others, and everyone seemed to look away. The truth is, Epstein had a free pass. He bragged about his powerful friends, including our current president, Donald Trump. It was his biggest brag, actually.

And while I — what I endured will haunt me forever. I live every day with PTSD. I live as a mother trying to raise my child while distrusting a world that has betrayed me. This kind of trauma never leaves you. It breaks families apart. It shapes the way we see everyone around us. But one thing is certain: Unless we learn from this history, monsters like Epstein will rise again.

There are files, government files, that hold the truth about Epstein, who he knew, who owed him, who protected him, and why he was allowed to operate for so long without consequence. Why was Maxwell the only one held accountable when so many others played a role? Why does the government hide this information from the public? This secrecy is not protection; it’s complicity. And as long as the truth is buried, justice will remain out of reach.

That is why this bill matters. Passing it will — bless you — endure — ensure that the suffering of survivors is not in vain. Passing it will bring accountability, transparency and prevention. It will help protect the next generation of predators who seek to place themselves above the law through wealth, influence and connections.

This is not just my story. It is about every survivor who carries invisible scars. It’s about the weight we live with daily. It is about the families broken and the futures stolen. So, I ask you, President Trump and members of Congress: Why do we continue to cover up sexual abuse and assault? Who are we covering for? Let the public know the truth. We cannot heal without justice. We cannot protect the future if we refuse to confront the past.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Those were some of the Epstein survivors who spoke out Wednesday in a news conference outside the Capitol. They also called for the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, introduced by Republican Thomas Massie and Democrat Ro Khanna, who will join us in a moment.

AMY GOODMAN: World Without Exploitation helped organize the survivors who spoke out. It’s the largest anti-trafficking coalition in the country. For more, we’re joined by its national director, Lauren Hersh, the former chief of sex-trafficking unit here in New York.

Lauren Hersh, welcome to Democracy Now! If you can talk about the significance of this moment? You had scores of women, of survivors. Some of them had never spoken before, surrounding the group of women who did speak. Talk about this moment and also what it means for them to be calling for something that the Trump administration said they were protecting the victims when they were not releasing the files, calling for the release of the Epstein files.

LAUREN HERSH: Well, good morning, and thank you so much for having me.

This was truly a historic moment. We saw more than 20 Epstein survivors come together. They stood in solidarity with one another and so many survivors of other exploiters who joined them at the Hill yesterday to listen to their voices. And it was historic for so many reasons, because this was really the first time that these women were coming together and really connecting with one another.

But also, it was so powerful to listen to their stories and also listen to their call to action, and listen to the other women who surrounded them, many of whom were exploited by other people. But interestingly, we were approached by several other Epstein survivors, who we didn’t even know who were in the space, who said, “I needed to be here today. I needed to listen to my survivor sisters. And this gave me strength and empowered me for the very first time.”

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, that’s extraordinary, Lauren. Do you think any of those people would be willing, the people who were there who were also survivors of Epstein’s or his consorts, cohorts, subject to their — to sexual abuse by them, whether they would also be willing to speak out?

LAUREN HERSH: Well, what we know is courage is contagious. And we saw that yesterday. I’m not sure if any of these women who came yesterday, who were Epstein survivors who had never said that out loud, if they planned to even approach some of us. And yet, once they listened to these survivors speaking their truth, they felt empowered and safe enough to come forward and say, “Yes, me, too.” So, I think this may be the moment where we are unlocking even more, more voices, more survivors, and the possibility of so much more truth coming out.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to President Trump’s response when asked about the Epstein survivors’ testimony, as he was sitting in the Oval Office.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: So, this is a Democrat hoax that never ends. … I think we’re probably having, according to what I read, even from two people in this room, we’re having the most successful eight months of any president ever. And that’s what I want to talk about. That’s what we should be talking about, not the Epstein hoax.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was President Trump. Lauren Hersh, a “hoax.” I keep thinking of one of the women saying, “I’m a Republican. I voted for President Trump. This doesn’t have to do with party politics.” Your response, Lauren?

LAUREN HERSH: I mean, what I want to talk about is listening to the voices of survivors, right? They said, loud and clear, this is not a political issue. This is not a partisan issue. This is an issue about people. This is an issue about what they, these women, collectively and individually, have experienced over decades. There has been so much trauma. There has been so much terror. And they’re finally at the point where they’re saying, “No more. We are ready to speak our truth.”

And truthfully, this is not the first time that women have come forward. Many have come forward individually, saying, “We want these people to be held to account.” But this is really the first time that they’re collectively coming together. And so, we want to make sure that we’re centering those voices, we’re listening to the voices, who are saying, very loud and clear, it’s time to release all of the files.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Lauren, if you could comment on the significance of the survivors saying that they are, in fact, compiling a list of clients themselves? They didn’t say necessarily that they would release that client list, but just the fact that they’re compiling it. Your response to that?

LAUREN HERSH: My response is, there is such power in this incredible community. What you’re hearing from them are decades of frustration. These are women who have been let down by system after system, and they’re at the point where they’re saying, “We’ve got answers. We know the truth. And if we come together, we can provide the truth.” And so, that is what they intend to do. It’s very powerful.

AMY GOODMAN: Lauren Hersh, we want to thank you so much for being with us, national director of the largest anti-trafficking coalition in the country, World Without Exploitation, former sex-trafficking prosecutor in New York. The organization helped to organize the survivors who spoke out Wednesday just steps from the Capitol.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, recaps and responds to the latest legal news on the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration crackdown. We cover judicial decisions that the Trump administration cannot deport alleged Venezuelan gang members without due process, that it broke the law by sending National Guard troops to put down protests in Los Angeles, as well as its attempts to deport hundreds of Guatemalan children currently in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement and deputize military lawyers with no experience in immigration law to serve as immigration judges, and more.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

We look now at a slew of legal developments with the Trump administration’s deployment of National Guard troops to U.S. cities and his broader immigration crackdown. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, the brother of the retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, ruled Trump broke the law when he deployed the National Guard to L.A. to quell protests against immigration raids. Breyer expressed concern [that] the deployments are, quote, “creating a national police force with the President as its chief,” unquote.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has authorized up to 600 military lawyers to serve as temporary immigration judges.

And in more immigration news, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a two-to-one ruling that blocks President Trump from using the 18th-century wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans accused of being gang members, because, quote, “We find no invasion or predatory incursion had occurred.” The 5th Circuit is considered to be one of the most conservative appeals courts in the United States. The case is expected to head to the Supreme Court.

For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.

Aaron, welcome back to Democracy Now! Let’s start with that last overnight court decision. If you can talk about this very conservative court ruling against Trump using the Alien Enemies Act, the AEA, and then just go through these latest decisions in the last two days?

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK: Yeah, well, first, starting with the Alien Enemies Act, we saw the 5th Circuit, in a two-one decision, rule that the Alien Enemies Act is a wartime authority, which is what everyone has been saying so far. The judges’ panel’s rule, it was a two-one decision. They joined over a dozen other federal judges to rule that this law, adopted in 1798 during the quasi-war with France, and that has only ever previously been invoked during declared wars, is in fact a wartime authority and not something that can be used to deport Venezuelan alleged gang members without any due process whatsoever. So this is yet another blow for the Trump administration in their efforts to use the Alien Enemies Act. And though we know that this case will eventually make it to the Supreme Court, at the Supreme Court, as well, the Trump administration is zero for two in their efforts to use the law without any due process.

Beyond that, of course, we had Judge Breyer’s decision in California finding that the President violated the Posse Comitatus Act when the military was used for domestic law enforcement, things like riot control or crowd control in Los Angeles.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And for those who are not aware, what is the Posse Comitatus Act?

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK: The Posse Comitatus Act is a 150-year-old law, adopted after the Civil War, that says extremely clearly that the U.S. military may not be used for domestic law enforcement unless explicitly authorized to do so by Congress. And here, Congress has never authorized the military to be used for basic law enforcement tasks like crowd control.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Also, if you could comment on the federal judge’s decision over the weekend stopping the Trump administration from illegally deporting as many as 700 Guatemalan children in the middle of the night back to Guatemala?

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK: Yeah, that’s another case that looks very suspiciously similar to the kinds of things the Trump administration did in the Alien Enemies Act case. They adopted a very out-there, bizarre legal interpretation that had never been for — been put forward, and then tried to execute mass removals in the middle of the night, or very early in the morning, before a judge could stop them. In this case, a judge acted at 2 a.m. to put forward an order to block the Trump administration, and continued forward that order and her actions throughout the day, so they did, in fact, prevent the planes from taking off.

But at its heart, this resulted from — this was a result of the Trump administration’s bizarre claim that the Office of Refugee Resettlement has an authority to effectively run its own shadow repatriation system and has the ability to send children home outside of the normal constraints of immigration law, which include things like the right to seek asylum. So, those flights have been blocked. This case will now continue forward in the courts. But unlike what happened with the Alien Enemies Act and the deportations to El Salvador, the planes did not manage to take off and deplane their passengers.

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has authorized up to 600 military lawyers to serve as temporary immigration judges. The head of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Ben Johnson, warned the decision will gut due process and undermine the immigration court. He said to the Associated Press, “It makes as much sense as having a cardiologist do a hip replacement.” Talk about the meaning of Army lawyers becoming immigration judges.

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK: Yeah, Ben Johnson is right here. The reality is that immigration law is extraordinarily complex, and it’s often been described as second in complexity only to the tax system. And immigration court has often been described as death penalty cases in traffic court procedures. So, what we have here are 600 lawyers, who may very well be good lawyers and conscientious, but have absolutely no experience in immigration law whatsoever, and they’re being assigned to take cases that could lead to someone’s death if they’re decided wrong. While undoubtedly they could eventually become experts in immigration law with months and months of training, these deployments are supposed to last only 179 days. So, you have people who have been or are going to be ordered to take on these incredibly weighty, difficult, complex cases, without any of the relevant experience they need, which is only going to strain the immigration court system. And indeed, the purpose of this is clear. Corey Lewandowski, who is a senior adviser to Secretary Noem, and, of course, a longtime member of Trump world, said on X yesterday that the goal of this is to increase deportations. And I think that really gives away the game.

AMY GOODMAN: So much for being with us —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, I wanted to —

AMY GOODMAN: Oh, go ahead, Juan.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: No, no, I just wanted to ask him about the pending invasion of Chicago by both federal agents and the military, especially this idea that Trump has of bringing National Guard troops from, essentially, Republican states to occupy largely minority cities in Democratic states.

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK: Yeah, I think, as Governor Pritzker has stated, this is particularly disturbing. You know, when you look at the statistics, Chicago is not even in the top 20 most violent cities, which is not to say, of course, that there are not issues with gun violence, but not ones that would justify deploying the National Guard.

But I want to emphasize that, you know, beyond the National Guard, this is in many ways also about immigration. Here in Washington, D.C., the National Guard has mostly been standing around the Mall or doing tasks like spreading mulch and picking up trash. But what’s actually been happening, most significantly, is the invasion of the city by federal law enforcement officers to carry out immigration enforcement. You have ICE and the Metropolitan Police Department setting up checkpoints in major thoroughfares in the city. You have a major increase in ICE raids across the city and people being afraid to take their children to school. So, while a lot of the attention in Chicago is going to be on the National Guard deployment, keep an eye out for what ICE is doing, because this could be yet another Los Angeles, where we see huge increase in immigration enforcement throughout the city and immigrant communities forced to shrink back in fear.

AMY GOODMAN: Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, thanks so much.

NOW READ: Here's why we really don’t trust Donald Trump

“How much is Trump pocketing off the presidency?” That’s the question driving a major new investigation by journalist David D. Kirkpatrick in The New Yorker, which finds that the first family has been leveraging its place atop U.S. politics to rake in billions. According to Kirkpatrick, Donald Trump and his immediate family have made $3.4 billion from his time in the White House, including more than $2.3 billion from various cryptocurrency ventures alone.

“What really surprised me about all this is just how fast they’re making this money. They seem to turn down no opportunity,” says Kirkpatrick. “It really sharpens the question of what a buyer, so to speak, might be getting for that.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

“The Number: How Much Is Trump Pocketing Off the Presidency?” That’s the headline of an exhaustive new investigation published by The New Yorker magazine. In the piece, journalist David Kirkpatrick writes, quote, “Many payments now flowing to Trump, his wife, and his children and their spouses would be unimaginable without his Presidencies: a two-billion-dollar investment from a fund controlled by the Saudi crown prince; a luxury jet from the Emir of Qatar; profits from at least five different ventures peddling crypto; fees from an exclusive club stocked with Cabinet officials and named Executive Branch.”

In March, Forbes estimated that Trump’s net worth had more than doubled over a year to $5 billion. And a few months later, The New York Times estimated Trump’s wealth had grown to $10 billion. But these estimates and others did not attempt to look at how exactly his fortune is growing.

David Kirkpatrick writes, quote, “Although the notion that Trump is making colossal sums off the Presidency has become commonplace, nobody could tell me how much he’s made. … I decided to attempt to tally up just how much Trump and his immediate family have pocketed off his time in the White House,” unquote.

Well, David Kirkpatrick joins us now in our New York studio.

Welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. Explain how you arrived at the number. And what are the — is the period of time that he has made this money?

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: Well, what’s important here is that I’m trying to be fair to the president. I’m not out to get Trump here. I went through and looked at all the sources of income, the income streams flowing into the Trump Organization, the president and his family, and I asked: Is this money that he would have made absent the presidency? Because he’s got hotels, he’s got golf courses. Sometimes people go there just to play golf or rent a hotel room. We’re not talking about that. So, I only wanted to look at money that he has made because he is or has been in the White House. And then I tried to ask, as best I could: What is each one of those things worth? And that’s how I came up with $3.4 billion. And again, I think what I hope will make this report credible, and the reason I urge people to read it, is that it’s — I’ve tried as best I can to be fair. I’ve shown all my work. And people can make their own conclusions.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, David, could you talk about some of the specifics, from the small to the big, for instance, the ubiquitous MAGA hat at Trump rallies? How is — Trump has a private store that sells these? Can you talk about that, and also the family’s investments in crypto?

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: Yeah, the hats. I was quite surprised to realize that in addition to the campaign merchandise sold by his campaign, which all candidates and all presidents do — that’s money that goes into the campaign coffers, that he can’t really touch for personal purposes — the Trump Organization also has its own online store, and they sell all kinds of Trump merchandise that looks very much like its campaign merchandise, but this money flows to Trump and himself — you know, $20, $40 for a pair of flip-flops, a pair of beer koozies, a baseball hat. He’s making, you know, millions of dollars — you know, I forget what the exact number was, but 20 millions of dollars over the last few years — selling this kind of merchandise, which is arguably competing with his own campaign and diverting some of the money that his supporters might think is supporting the MAGA movement and his candidates to his own pocket. That’s the — you know, that’s the small end. Nobody thinks that anybody who’s paying $50 for a baseball hat is actually going to get any influence, you know, over the president in return for that. That’s just a way of making money.

On the other extreme, there’s significant amounts of money flowing into the Trump Organization now through its various or the president’s various crypto enterprises. Some of these, you know, predate his return to the White House, but I tried to look here at the — you know, all the money that they made off of the White House over the course of the two terms and the time in between, when he remained a kind of kingmaker in the Republican Party, so — and most of it has happened during around his second term, you know, shortly before, through his second term. In terms of crypto, you know, should I go through and break down all the ways they’re making money off of crypto?

AMY GOODMAN: Yes.

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: OK, well, here you go. So, first of all, for people who might not be familiar with crypto, all it is, really, is a kind of online ledger or spreadsheet keeping track of who owns what. There’s a number of ways the Trump family has tried to take advantage of this new technology. He started out by selling NFTs, non-fungible tokens, which are basically sort of digital cartoons of himself.

Then he moved on to setting up a company. His family, his sons set up a company called World Liberty Financial. And that’s done a couple things. It sold a kind of token or online certificate that would ostensibly allow somebody to vote on whatever its futures, plans in the crypto business might be. They raised, you know, $550 million selling those tokens, and 75% of that flows to the Trump Organization. Then it went into a new business, selling what’s known as a stablecoin. A stablecoin is basically the online equivalent of a dollar. It’s not really an investment. It’s just a kind of, like, almost a checking account. It’s a way to transfer money here and there, perhaps more efficiently by doing it digitally. For the company, World Liberty Financial, they get to make money off of investing that money in treasuries while it’s out in the world circulating as a stablecoin. So, they go into the stablecoin business. Their first customer is a company owned by the United Arab Emirates that puts up $2 billion to buy stablecoin. While that money is out circulating as stablecoin, they’re going to get about 4% a year on that, I calculate, by investing it in short-term treasuries. So, that’s a couple.

There’s a few others he’s gone into. His memecoin is perhaps the most famous. President Trump, right around the time he was elected, before he was inaugurated, went into this business selling a kind of online novelty, basically just a joke. It’s a kind of digital certificate that just allows you to say, “I paid money to own a little Trump novelty.” That’s it. That’s all it is. There’s nothing to it. And it doesn’t even purport to sort of hold wealth, although you can trade it back and forth. He’s made about $300 million selling those memecoins.

And the last thing is a little bit of kind of a financial engineering that his company, Trump Media & Technology Group, a publicly traded company of which he’s the chairman — a little bit of financial engineering that that company has done. Now, that is the company that owns Truth Social. Truth Social is a very small online platform, social media platform. It doesn’t have much revenue, maybe a million dollars a quarter. It’s never really made a profit. It doesn’t have much chance of ever making a profit. And yet, the stock that owns it, Trump Media & Technology Group, trades at a kind of surprisingly high price. People on Wall Street consider it a meme stock. It trades basically on how people feel about President Trump. And in the last couple months, really in June, that company has done a remarkable thing, which is they have sold — they’ve issued new shares of stock. They’ve sold the stock at their inflated memecoin price, and they’ve taken that money, and they’ve bought bitcoin. They’ve also done the same thing to try to stockpile some cash, but they’ve bought about $2.3 or $2.4 billion worth of bitcoin, and they’ve stockpiled about $760 million worth of cash. So, in the end of last quarter, they said, “Look, we’ve got $3.1 billion of liquid assets on our books.” So, I calculate that since President Trump owns 42% of that company, he has an ownership interest in that $3.1 billion. So, as I was doing this reporting over the last few months there, my calculation of their net worth, of his net worth, bumped by — I shouldn’t say “his net worth” — of the amount of money he’s made off the presidency, jumped up by a billion dollars.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, other members of the family, for instance, Jared Kushner and his daughter, in terms of the investments by foreign government sovereign funds in them, and what that looks like?

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: I think you’re thinking about Jared Kushner’s private equity firm.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes.

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: So, after he left — after Trump left the White House in 2020, his son, Jared Kushner, who had been in real estate, went into private equity, a new line of work. And he went to the Persian Gulf to solicit money, and he asked the sovereign wealth fund of the United — of Saudi Arabia to invest. Their panel of advisers said, “This is a mistake. He doesn’t have a track record in private equity, only real estate. There could be some public relations problem here. People are going to say this is a payoff to the family of a president.” The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, who controls the public investment fund, overruled that and, nonetheless, invested the $2 billion with Jared Kushner’s private equity firm.

Since then, he’s accumulated as much as $4.8 billion in assets under management, almost all of it from foreign sources, quite a bit of it also from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Under standard private equity terms, he would get 2% a year of that money as asset management fees. With Saudi Arabia, it’s a little bit lower. But that is also, I’m counting as, money flowing into the Trump family coffers as a result of their time in the White House.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us, David, about the family? I mean, in the first term, many of them were advisers to President Trump. They were in the White House. They would have to deal with ethics rules. We don’t see that right now. So, I’m wondering how the family business has changed from the first term to the second term. And I also wanted to ask you about — for example, President Trump says he struck a trade agreement with Vietnam. He’ll apply a 20% tariff on Vietnamese imports, down from the 46% he threatened. The reported deal comes just weeks after the Trump Organization broke ground on a $1.5 billion golf course in Vietnam. A few questions there.

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: Yeah, a few questions there. So, during the first term, President Trump, on his way into office, volunteered that he and his family were not going to do any deals overseas, because they didn’t like the way that looked. Right? It raises the specter that some foreign interest, or even foreign government, is going to try to buy favor with the U.S. government by paying Trump and his family privately.

During the second term, the family has said, “We’re not going to do that anymore. We’re no longer going to abstain from those deals.” Donald Trump Jr. has said publicly, “Look, we restrained ourselves last term, and people accused us of profiteering anyway. So we’re not going to lock ourselves in, quote-unquote, 'the proverbial padded room.' We’re just going to go ahead and be businessmen and do as many deals as we can.” And they’ve done quite a few.

Now, again, in my accounting, I’m not including deals which appear to be extensions of the business they were in before he was elected. You know, he had licensed his name for use on four condominium buildings around India before he ever went into the White House. Now there are five more Indian projects. Fine, let’s leave that aside. That’s, more or less, legitimate Trump business.

On the other hand, since late 2022, when he was really the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, he’s had a whole flurry of new deals around the Persian Gulf with one Saudi Arabian company, and that’s in, you know, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, a couple in Saudi Arabia and one in Qatar. And I don’t think there’s any way those would have happened without the presidency. And that adds up to, I would say, you know, guessing as best I can the various income streams involved — that’s more than $100 million right there in terms of its present value.

You mentioned the Vietnam project. That’s another one that I think, you know, would not have unfolded as it has, were he not returning to the White House. That is probably, you know, physically, going to be the largest Trump-branded property in the world. Its planned size is about three times as big as Central Park with 54 holes of golf. It’s very hard to know how much the Trump family is actually going to make out of that property. On his most recent financial disclosure form, he said that the Trump Organization had already received $5 million in initial licensing fees from lending their name to that property. He’s not going to build it. He’s not going to own it. They’re just lending their name and some management services. So, I figure, over 10 years, which is kind of a minimum term for a management or licensing agreement, he’s likely to make at least $50 million, with a present value of about $40 million. Probably it’ll be a lot more than that.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And how much of this, in your perspective, is legal or — and also, how much of it is unprecedented for a president?

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: As far as I can tell, it’s all legal. You know, I don’t have any evidence of a quid pro quo. I don’t have any evidence of a specific instance where he has explicitly sold a public favor for personal profit. And the remedy that our laws prescribe for potential conflicts of interest is disclosure. Elected officials disclose what they own and how they’re making money, and the voters or the Congress can decide what’s appropriate or inappropriate. And I guess we’ll have to see how voters feel about that. The other part of your question, I think, was — what again?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: How much of this is unprecedented for a president?

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: Oh, yeah. Well, a lot of — that’s been widely reported. There’s nothing like this before, right? A lot of presidents make money after they leave, selling books, you know, various other endeavors. But he and his family are making this money while he’s in the White House. And the scale is really quite novel.

AMY GOODMAN: And in the last 10 seconds, you talk about the frenzy.

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: Well, that’s right. What really surprised me about all this is just how fast they’re making this money. They seem to turn down no opportunity. And that’s what makes the questions about a conflict of interest all the more pressing, because I feel like when they are so evidently zealous, so eager to make money, it really sharpens the question of what a buyer, so to speak, might be getting for that.

AMY GOODMAN: David Kirkpatrick, we want to thank you so much for being with us, reporter with The New Yorker. We’ll link to your piece, “The Number: How Much Is Trump Pocketing Off the Presidency?”

Watch the segment below:

As President Trump threatens to use U.S. special forces against drug cartels abroad, a new book, The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces, reveals some of the most secretive and elite special forces in the Army are heavily involved in narcotrafficking themselves. “There’s at least 14 cases that I’m tracking of Fort Bragg-trained soldiers who have been either arrested, apprehended or killed in the course of trafficking drugs in the last five years or so,” says author Seth Harp. The book also looks at “how U.S. military intervention often stimulates drug production,” including in Afghanistan, which he says became the biggest narco-state in the world during the 20-year U.S. occupation. “Most of the drug trafficking and drug production was being carried out and done by warlords, police chiefs, militia commanders, who were on the U.S. payroll in a corrupt structure,” says Harp.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

As the National Guard expands its presence in Washington, D.C., President Trump says he’ll seek long-term federal takeover of the D.C. police force.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We’re going to need a crime bill that we’re going to be putting in, and it’s going to pertain initially to D.C. It’s almost — we’re going to use it as a very positive example. And we’re going to be asking for extensions on that, long-term extensions, because you can’t have 30 days. Thirty days is — that’s — by the time you do it — we’re going to have this in good shape.

AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this week, Trump declared a crime emergency in D.C., even though violent crime in the city is at a 30-year low. Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser has denounced Trump’s takeover of the police force as an “authoritarian push.” At least 800 National Guard troops are being deployed in D.C., alongside 500 federal law enforcement agents.

The Washington Post revealed Tuesday the Trump administration is also planning a so-called Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force composed of hundreds of National Guard troops set to rapidly deploy to other U.S. cities targeted by Trump, including Democratic strongholds of Baltimore, New York, Chicago, Oakland. The force would be comprised of two groups of 300 soldiers permanently assigned to the force, stationed at military bases in Alabama and Arizona.

This comes after Trump earlier deployed the National Guard and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles during protests against immigration raids and arrests by masked, unidentified agents who also targeted U.S. citizens when they were making their arrests.

Rolling Stone reports, quote, “One of Trump’s biggest regrets from his first term in the Oval Office, according to former and current senior Trump advisers, is that he didn’t use military forces and other federal assets to crack down harder than he ultimately did in the summer of 2020” on racial justice protests. Trump’s secretary of defense at the time did not agree with the president’s idea to shoot Black Lives Matter protesters near the White House.

Meanwhile, earlier this week, Trump secretly signed a directive approving the Pentagon’s use of military force on foreign soil to target drug cartels, especially in countries like Mexico.

All of this comes as Trump is due to meet Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska to discuss a ceasefire in Ukraine, where the U.S. has also sent troops.

Today, we take a rare look at U.S. special forces deployed around the world, whether we’re talking about Mexico, Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan or here at home. They’re stationed at the most populous military base in the country, which was renamed Fort Liberty in 2023, until Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the Army to change the name back to Fort Bragg, saying, “Bragg is back.” Fort Bragg is home to Delta Force, the most secretive black ops unit in the military, which carries out classified assassinations and other clandestine missions and is also heavily involved in drug trafficking, as our next guest reveals in his new book.

Rolling Stone investigative reporter Seth Harp is a foreign correspondent who’s reported from Iraq, Mexico, Syria and Ukraine, also an Iraq War veteran. His new book, out this week, is titled The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces.

I don’t think people usually expect to see, when talking about a cartel, the largest U.S. military base, Fort Bragg. So, if you can talk about drug trafficking and murder in the Special Forces? Begin with what Fort Bragg is, who the Special Forces are, especially Delta Forces, and who these dead bodies are that are turning up all over Fort Bragg and the surrounding area.

SETH HARP: Well, Trump says he wants to deploy military forces to countries like Mexico to crack down on drug cartels there, but I think he should look closer to home, because there’s at least 14 cases that I’m tracking of Fort Bragg-trained soldiers who have been either arrested, apprehended or killed in the course of trafficking drugs in the last five years or so, often in conjunction with those very same Mexican drug cartels.

This is especially concerning because of what Fort Bragg is. It’s not only the largest U.S. military base, but it’s central to U.S. operations and special operations. It’s the home of the 82nd Airborne Division, which is the United States’ main contingency force. It’s also the headquarters of the Green Berets, the Special Forces, as well as the Joint Special Operations Command, which includes Delta Force, which is the most —

AMY GOODMAN: That’s JSOC?

SETH HARP: That’s JSOC. That’s the most secretive and elite component of the U.S. military. And as you said, there have been some members of Delta Force who have been involved in trafficking drugs recently.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you begin this book with the discovery of two bodies. Tell us when they were discovered and who those men were.

SETH HARP: In December of 2020, two dead bodies were found in a remote training range of Fort Bragg. One of them was a member of Delta Force. They had both been shot to death. And the limited information from police at that time was that it was believed to be a double homicide from a drug deal gone wrong. The other person who was killed at that time was Timothy Dumas, who was a support officer, a logistics officer, for JSOC. The other one, the Delta Force operator, his name was Billy Lavigne. And my book mostly is, or at the core of it, it’s an investigation into who committed these murders.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Billy Lavigne, Delta Force. Talk about the Delta Force operations. And you just mentioned that people are being killed in Fort Bragg, and part of the killing responsibility is the Mexican drug cartels, but those cartels, you talk about being trained at Fort Bragg?

SETH HARP: Mm-hmm. Well, it’s unclear who committed the murders of Billy Lavigne and Timothy Dumas, I’ve got to say. Certainly, we might suspect that it could have been some of their associates in the drug trafficking industry. I did learn in the course of researching the book and reporting it that Lavigne and Dumas were buying cocaine through the Los Zetas cartel in Mexico, which, in fact, was trained in the United States. It began as a project, a joint project, between the U.S. Special Forces and the Mexican government to create an elite paratrooper unit of the Mexican Army, and later went rogue and became one of the most feared cartels in Mexico, Los Zetas.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you’re talking about a kind of Mexico Delta Force.

SETH HARP: You could say that. You could say that, or Mexican Green Berets.

AMY GOODMAN: The numbers that you’re talking about of soldiers who have died at Fort Bragg, in a couple years over 100?

SETH HARP: A hundred and nine from 2020 to 2021. And only four of those deaths took place in foreign combat zones, in Afghanistan and Syria. All the rest took place stateside, either on Fort Bragg itself or in Fayetteville, which is the town right by Fort Bragg.

AMY GOODMAN: So, can you talk about, with this number of deaths, how does it compare, for example, to Fort Hood? And talk about what happens when you have this massive number of deaths. Who is held responsible? And how are they dying?

SETH HARP: Well, so far, nobody has been held responsible. Fort Bragg is the largest military base; however, the number of deaths there, on a per capita and absolute basis, outstrips any other that you might compare it to. For example, we’re well aware that in Fort Hood in 2020, 38 soldiers died. That led to extensive news coverage, as well as two congressional investigations, which ultimately concluded with the entire chain of command at Fort Hood being fired. Even though the situation at Fort Bragg is objectively worse, and has been for years, so far, to my knowledge, nothing has been done about it.

AMY GOODMAN: You say that “Fort Bragg has a lot of secrets. A lot of underground narcotics secrets. It’s its own little cartel.” That was Freddie Huff, who is the ex-DEA agent, talking about Fort Bragg. What exactly does that mean?

SETH HARP: So, Freddie Huff was a corrupt North Carolina state trooper and DEA task force agent who became a high-level drug trafficker in North Carolina. He was the connection between Los Zetas in Mexico and this group of Special Forces soldiers on Fort Bragg who were trafficking and distributing drugs in the area. And that quote was from Mr. Huff. And, you know, he was alleging that he sold, you know, hundreds of kilograms of cocaine to this group.

AMY GOODMAN: How many people die of suicide, and how is that dealt with, in the military at Fort Bragg?

SETH HARP: A shocking and depressing number. You know, the Army is well aware that it has a suicide problem. It has for a long time. But the numbers at Fort Bragg are really extreme, and it’s the number one cause of death at Fort Bragg by far. And many of those deaths are also drug-related, regrettably.

AMY GOODMAN: So, why isn’t there investigation going on? As President Trump tariffs Mexico and increases tariffs on Canada, talking about fentanyl, talk about what’s happening at Bragg.

SETH HARP: Well, on the contrary, there haven’t been. Not only has there not been any sort of reforms or any crackdown on this, but Trump and Hegseth, they make a big show of their support for Fort Bragg, changing the name back to Fort Bragg from Fort Liberty, giving speeches there, touting the Special Forces and the Airborne Corps, without really taking seriously some of these underlying and systemic issues, which are quite troubling.

AMY GOODMAN: One of the ways you use these murders to talk about U.S. presence in the military around the world is when you talk about Timothy Dumas — you say he was a quartermaster with the Special Forces — and how he used his position — was it in Afghanistan? — to bring drugs into the United States. Now, this is the guy who was murdered.

SETH HARP: Yes, that’s the allegation. Not only did — not only was he involved in that, actually, Timothy Dumas, before he died, wrote a letter, a blackmail letter. It was with the intention of blackmailing the Special Forces, because he had been kicked out of the Army for his misbehavior and his crimes and had been deprived of his pension as a result of that. In order to — in a stratagem to exert leverage on the Special Forces and get his pension reinstated, he composed this document, which purported to name the members of what Mr. Huff called the “Fort Bragg cartel.” But before he was ever able to release that letter, he himself was murdered.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk about Afghanistan for a moment. Talk about the U.S. presence there, the forever war, and talk about heroin, drugs and how they became so critical to the Afghan economy. And did the Taliban have anything to do with that?

SETH HARP: It’s really shocking, the degree to which the war in Afghanistan had to do with drugs and drug production. It’s an aspect of the war that was never covered to the degree that it ought to have been. Afghanistan under U.S. occupation became by far the biggest narco-state in the world, producing more heroin than the entire planet could absorb. Most of the drug trafficking and drug production was being carried out and done by warlords, police chiefs, militia commanders, who were on the U.S. payroll in a corrupt structure, which you could plausibly describe as a cartel, that went all the way up to the president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, and his brother, as well as Ashraf Ghani. During the entire time that the U.S. occupied the country, it was turning out staggering quantities of very high-potency heroin, which flooded the entire planet and caused terrible heroin crises all over the world, including in the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: You write, “No person in any position of influence dared to suggest that the scourge of opiate addiction then afflicting the poor and working class across the United States might have resulted from the wartime narcotics bonanza.”

SETH HARP: Right. And part of that has to do with the DEA’s assertion that only 1% of heroin in the United States comes from Afghanistan. This is something that we were told by the DEA during the course of the war, and which was duly repeated by many media outlets. But I go into some detail in my book about why I believe that that number was fictitious. And in fact, just as in Canada, just as in Australia, Russia, wherever you look in the world, by far the majority of heroin in the United States, I believe, came from Afghanistan.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to move over to Ukraine. You have the summit that President Trump is holding with Vladimir Putin in Alaska tomorrow. You spent a good amount of time in Ukraine. Talk about where you were, when you were there, and what the U.S. Special Forces were doing there.

SETH HARP: I was in Ukraine at the start of the war. I was in Kyiv during the Battle of Kyiv. And at that time, we had been told that there were no U.S. military forces in Ukraine, that they had all been withdrawn on orders of President Biden before the Russian invasion. However, I was the first to report that, in fact, there were members of the Joint Special Operations Command active in Ukraine from day one, including members of the Delta Force, as well SEAL Team Six. And that reporting was subsequently confirmed by other media outlets. They may not have specified what units they came from, but certainly the presence of U.S. special operators in Ukraine has been confirmed.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk more about the significance of this, where they came from in the United States, what they were doing.

SETH HARP: Well, they all come from Fort Bragg. And the conventional troops that were there in Poland to back up the Ukrainian army also came from Fort Bragg, the 82nd Airborne Division. That’s an illustration of the centrality of Fort Bragg to all U.S. military operations. Now, where are they in the country of Ukraine right now? That’s not — I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know that anybody knows that. But certainly, it is concerning that we have our U.S. military personnel there in a conflict with another nuclear-armed power.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to President Trump’s relationship with the military. There’s the op-ed in The New York Times today talking about how it was thought it would ultimately, interestingly, be the military that would stop Trump from using it on the ground in the United States. The headline is “We Used to Think the Military Would Stand Up to Trump. We Were Wrong.”

And I wanted to go back to — well, we’ve talked about The New York Times revealing a trove of confidential military interviews with the Navy SEALs who accused Chief Edward Gallagher of war crimes. He met with President Trump at Trump’s private resort in Mar-a-Lago weeks after Trump overruled his own military leaders and blocked them from disciplining Gallagher, despite him being — despite him being convicted of posing with a teenage corpse in a high-profile war crimes case. He was also accused of fatally stabbing the captive teenager in the neck and shooting two Iraqi civilians, but he was acquitted of premeditated murder. In the never-before-released videos, the soldiers tell Navy investigators Gallagher was “toxic” and “freaking evil.” So, he was a Navy SEAL. You served in Iraq. You also report on Iraq. Talk about the significance of this pardoning, ultimately, that Trump did of Gallagher, and who exactly he was, and where he was found guilty of committing these crimes in Iraq.

SETH HARP: Trump’s cozying up to war criminals like Eddie Gallagher is the one — one of the most deplorable features of his administration and is an illustration of the incredibly deleterious effect that Trump’s malignant command influence has had on the entire special operations community, because Eddie Gallagher is somebody who was turned in by his own teammates, who were far from bleeding-heart liberals. These are active-duty Navy SEALs fighting in Mosul, in Iraq, who see their chief murdering people right and left, men, women, children, unarmed people. He was caught on video about to stab that teenage ISIS fighter in the neck. His teammates wanted him gone. The Navy SEAL command wanted him gone.

But Trump saw an opportunity to make guys like Eddie Gallagher part of his personal political brand. And that is — he also pardoned people like Mathew Golsteyn, who was the Green Beret officer who admitted to committing murder on live television. Other people that Trump has made part of his retinue, some of the craziest people in the special operations community.

All of this has had the effect of — you know, there are people in this community who do go by a sense of ethics and who are not so criminally inclined, and the more Trump is in office and doing things like this, the fewer you have of those people, and the more you have of the sort of piratical types like Eddie Gallagher staying in and rising higher in the ranks. And you see that in the kind of fallout of the domestic crime that I describe in my book.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Seth Harp. He is the author of The Fort Bragg Cartel. It’s out this week. The subtitle, Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces. What did you discover, Seth, about the intelligence role of Delta Force and its covert actions in countries where the U.S. is not at war?

SETH HARP: It’s really incredible how little we know about the Delta Force. I believe my book is the only sort of serious investigative look at the unit, despite the fact that it is the most elite unit in the U.S. military and has been at the forefront of all U.S. wars since at least 2001. So, Delta Force, I’d be happy to tell you anything about the unit. What was your — what should I say?

AMY GOODMAN: You tell us. You did the — you wrote the book.

SETH HARP: The intelligence gathering, you said.

AMY GOODMAN: Yes.

SETH HARP: So, it’s interesting, because a lot of people are not aware the extent to which these type of units, Delta and JSOC, which Delta is a part of JSOC, are — besides their paramilitary capacities, besides their operations doing assassinations and abductions in war zones, they also have strong intelligence-gathering capabilities and are — they have troops that are overseas, that are active-duty U.S. military members who are not wearing uniforms, who are not carrying IDs, who are operating under cover identities, sometimes pretending to be American businessmen, other times pretending to be State Department employees, but, in fact, are carrying out military operations in countries with which the United States is not at war, including things like bugging missions, other things that we don’t know about.

And I think what’s most crucial to emphasize in this context is that, unlike the CIA, unlike other civilian intelligence agencies that are subject to congressional oversight and must report their covert actions to Congress, the military is largely exempt from that type of oversight. And so, I think that’s one reason why you have seen a lot of the authority over covert action shift from civilian agencies to JSOC over the last 20 years.

AMY GOODMAN: Before we wrap up, I wanted to go to these latest moves by Trump, I mean, that special secret directive. We’re using it today to talk about what’s happening at home when it comes to drug cartels. But what about — and you’ve reported from Mexico. What about what Trump is saying, that the Pentagon can deploy in countries like Mexico? The Mexican president said — you know, had a very fierce reaction against this, going after drug cartels there. You started talking about Fort Bragg being a place where some of the most dangerous of these cartels were actually trained.

SETH HARP: Mm-hmm, that’s right. Los Zetas were trained at Fort Bragg, at Fort Benning, and they also received training from Israeli instructors, before they went rogue — another indication or another illustration of how U.S. military intervention often stimulates drug production. What was the second part of your question? Or what was the —

AMY GOODMAN: Well, talking about Mexico, and the U.S. deploying troops there.

SETH HARP: I mean, it’s complete — to the extent — in these days, with the genocide in Gaza and so many other things going on, we almost have lost sight, and it seems like nobody cares about international law. But I just want to point out kind of the obvious, that using military force against drug traffickers, however bad you think drug traffickers are, that’s a total violation of the laws of war. They’re not combatants in war; they’re criminals. So, that’s one thing.

Another aspect of it is, you know, the sort of typical Trump showmanship. It’s not clear to me, having worked in Mexico as a reporter for years, that the sort of cartels that the DEA creates organization charts to illustrate and tout and purport — I don’t know that those really are such coherent organizations as they might imagine, and I question whether they have the intelligence on these purported organizations where they could actually carry out military strikes on them. I don’t know that they actually have the targeting intelligence for that to become a reality. But in any event, they ought to look more closely at the drug crime that’s taking place in the United States and even on our own military bases.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the long U.S. history, military and clandestine operations and drug trafficking in Southeast Asia, for people who are not aware of what happened, as well as in Latin America, for example, the illegal funding and support of the Contras in Nicaragua, and the thousands of Nicaraguans who were killed?

SETH HARP: Sure. There is a long pedigree of this kind of thing, covert alliances between U.S. Special Forces and paramilitaries and intelligence agencies and foreign forces that are implicated in the international drug trade. As you indicate, one of the first examples of that was in Laos and in Cambodia and Vietnam during that era, as well as in Central America, the case of the Nicaraguan Contras.

However, I must say, all of it pales in comparison with the complicity of the — practically the whole of the U.S. government with heroin cartels in Afghanistan during the war there. The amount of drugs that were produced, the openness of the alliance between the United States and known drug traffickers in that country surpass anything that we had previously seen in American history.

AMY GOODMAN: What most surprised you, Seth, in your research for this book? You, as a member of the military, but then stepping outside, you became a lawyer. You were an assistant attorney general in Texas, but a longtime investigative journalist around the world.

SETH HARP: The stuff about Afghanistan, I think, was the most shocking to me, because it was one country where I had not worked, and I really wasn’t aware of the degree to which the U.S. client state was the entity responsible for producing most of the drugs in Afghanistan. I have been kind of snowed, like everybody else, with this narrative that it was the Taliban that was doing it. But in the course of writing the book, the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, and the Taliban in 2023 had completely eradicated all drug production from Afghanistan. So, seeing the Taliban come into power and totally eliminate that massive drug-producing industry that the U.S. had not only tolerated, but supported for 20 years, really showed — I guess, really belied the claim, until then, that it was either the Taliban or it was both sides, when, in fact, it was really our guys that were doing it the entire time.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think with this special directive, a secret directive that Trump has signed, that special forces operations in Latin America will increase under the guise of fighting cartels?

SETH HARP: It’s possible. I find that to be a very complicated prospect. So many of the drug traffickers in Latin America are military or police forces that are allied with the United States. Things are changing in Mexico and in Colombia, but, historically, the biggest drug traffickers in the Americas have been, let’s say, the Colombian Army and right-wing paramilitaries affiliated with the Colombian military, as well as, you know, you see the same type of phenomenon in Honduras and El Salvador and also in Mexico. So, when they talk about targeting these people, who exactly are they talking about?

AMY GOODMAN: Well, you’ve set us up well for our next segment. I want to thank you so much, Seth, for joining us. Seth Harp, Rolling Stone investigative reporter, his new book is just out. It’s called The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces.

WATCH THE SEGMENT BELOW OR AT THIS LINK:

NOW READ: 'Trolling the president': How the myth of Trump's mental fitness has finally been revealed

Jess Michaels lives with the PTSD from her 1991 assault by the serial sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. She is part of a national chorus of voices calling on the Trump administration to release files related to the federal case against Epstein, who reportedly died by suicide while awaiting trial in 2019. Trump’s personal relationship with Epstein has been under heavy scrutiny since he broke a campaign promise to publicize details about the Epstein case and instead moved to cut a new deal with convicted Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. The decision has fractured his right-wing base, but as demands for transparency grow within the MAGA movement, Michaels says survivors are still struggling to be heard. “You never hear the words 'Epstein victim' or 'Epstein survivor' out of this White House,” she says, slamming the politicization of survivors’ pain and trauma. “The victims of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell have been speaking up for almost two decades,” Michaels says. “It is appalling that there is so little justice for this issue.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

We end today’s show looking at attempts by the Trump administration to quell an uproar by Trump’s MAGA base over the government’s refusal to release files related to the dead serial sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein. CNN is reporting Vice President JD Vance met with top Justice Department officials Wednesday to discuss the Epstein case. The meeting was reportedly set to take place at his Washington, D.C., home but was moved to the White House amidst intense media coverage. The gathering reportedly included Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, among others, of course, with JD Vance, who discussed the need to craft a unified response to the Epstein scandal and emerging details of Trump’s longstanding friendship with the dead serial sex trafficker. CNN’s reporting directly contradicts Vance’s denial that officials huddled behind closed doors for this discussion.

Meanwhile, the family of Jeffrey Epstein survivor Virginia Giuffre has called on President Trump not to consider clemency for the serial sex trafficker’s co-conspirator, the convicted sex felon Ghislaine Maxwell. She was the first — Giuffre was the first survivor to come out publicly against Epstein. She died in Australia in April, reportedly by suicide. In a statement, Giuffre’s family members said they were alarmed by these comments of Donald Trump in July, when Trump said Epstein “stole” Giuffre away from his Mar-a-Lago club, and that was the reason that he threw Epstein out.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think she worked at the spa. I think so. I think that was one of the people, yeah. He — he stole her. And by the way, she had no complaints about us, as you know. None whatsoever.

AMY GOODMAN: In response, Giuffre’s siblings and their spouses wrote, quote, “It was shocking to hear President Trump invoke our sister and say that he was aware that Virginia had been 'stolen' from Mar-a-Lago. It makes us ask if he was aware of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal actions, especially given his statement two years later that his good friend Jeffrey 'likes women on the younger side … no doubt about it.' [unquote] We and the public are asking for answers; survivors deserve this,” the family of Virginia Giuffre wrote.

Well, Ghislaine Maxwell was moved from Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas just days after she met with Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, who formerly served as Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse and traffic underage girls. Trump has not ruled out pardoning Maxwell.

For more, we go to Jess Michaels, a survivor of a 1991 sexual assault by Jeffrey Epstein. She’s an advocate for sexual assault survivors, the founder and CEO of 3 Joannes, a public benefit corporation.

Jess, thanks so much for joining us. I think the key question right now, as we hear about these private huddles — we know about Todd Blanche getting the nine-hour response of Ghislaine — of Ghislaine Maxwell, who is a convicted perjurer, as well. Is he also speaking to survivors? This very serious question of where voices like yours are. Can you talk about what this all has meant for the survivors? It’s believed the survivors of Maxwell and Epstein might number as much as 1,000, you included.

JESS MICHAELS: Well, firstly, Amy, thank you so much for having me on, and thank you for asking for the survivors’ perspective on what’s happening, because you are, and this White House is not. When you ask me how we feel about that meeting that they had about the “Epstein situation,” in quotes, what it didn’t include was any survivor voices, any victim voices. And that’s something that is very frustrating for all of us to hear.

I also had heard you mention earlier, you know, “Where are survivors in this?” And I want to point out, the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell have been speaking up for almost two decades. That’s two decades including the 2006 case against him. But before that, authorities were alerted in 1994, 1996, by Maria Farmer, who’s now leading a class-action suit against the government, the FBI, and I believe it’s the Florida Attorney General’s Office, for not following protocols for being alerted of sex trafficking. So, victims have been doing the right thing. Where it’s fallen apart is any accountability and justice. And that’s really frustrating.

What’s incredibly beautiful about this moment is that this issue is crossing party lines. There is no one out there that is OK with child sex trafficking.

AMY GOODMAN: As you point out, Maria and her sister Annie Farmer. Annie Farmer testified at —

JESS MICHAELS: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial. And what is also amazing here is that she has been moved, after speaking to Todd Blanche, Trump’s former attorney, criminal defense attorney, to a — from Florida to a Texas minimum-security prison camp. I don’t know —

JESS MICHAELS: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — if any sex felon has ever been at a minimum-security prison camp, because, again, important to point out — and you’ve worked with so many of these survivors — she’s not only accused with conspiring to bring women and girls to Epstein, but she herself —

JESS MICHAELS: She participated.

AMY GOODMAN: — abused women.

JESS MICHAELS: Yes, yes, she participated. And so, when I hear a call for her to be considered a victim of this, I am appalled. I am sick to my stomach that anyone would say a grown woman molesting children is a victim in any way. And we could go on — that’s a whole other interview and discussion, Amy, on what is a victim. But it is appalling that there is so little justice for this issue.

So, on one hand, we have this wonderful public support of finally believing that survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell have been harmed, and they’re behind — America is behind the victims 100%. That’s what I’m seeing in my comments. That’s what I’m seeing on social media. That’s what I’m getting in emails and DMs in an overwhelming degree.

And the reason they’re responding this way is because they are seeing now, maybe for the first time, the horrific lack of justice for sexual assault survivors, when there is so much evidence. Because it’s not just — it’s not just all of the videotapes and the audiotapes. It is victim impact statements. All of our victim impact statements are in those files. And we are all saying the same thing: Release them. Protect our identities, but release them. Release them now. And guess who else doesn’t want those — doesn’t want those files released? Ghislaine Maxwell does not want those files released.

AMY GOODMAN: Why?

JESS MICHAELS: Because it’s going to prove how much she was involved. There are victim statements about her.

AMY GOODMAN: And what do you make of President Trump refusing to rule out a pardon? You almost have the sense of moving to a minimum-security prison camp, then possibly what? House arrest and then a pardon. Each one is a trial balloon to see how the public responds. But what’s so interesting about this is that MAGA has divided over this, President —

JESS MICHAELS: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — Trump’s base.

JESS MICHAELS: Yes, yes. Do you know what I find really fascinating about this whole thing, is the miscalculation on his part. I have been speaking up as an advocate for four years. And in my comments four years ago, when I shared that I was an Epstein survivor, I would see right-leaning up to MAGA, serious MAGA, saying, “You know what? Donald Trump is on top of this. Donald Trump is the one that’s helping the FBI get the evidence on him.” They really believed that he was law and order. And I think that’s the big disconnect right now, is they’re finding out that he’s not following through with what they — who they thought he was, and it’s really backfiring.

I think it’s also backfiring for him because we are not — I’m not the 22-year-old girl that was raped in 1991. The children that were abused by Maxwell and Epstein are no longer children. We are women. And I think he is greatly misunderstanding the strength and resolve of women that have been systemically and over time completely ignored.

You never hear the words “Epstein victim” or “Epstein survivor” out of this White House. I have yet to hear those two words. It’s always about “We are going to get the bad guys. Here’s the first — the first big phase one dump of information from Pam Bondi,” in February. But we never hear, “We’re going to get the victims justice. We care about how the victims feel right now. We’re going to try to move this along in a way that gets the victims and those survivors, that have been working so hard to speak up, justice.” That’s not happening. So —

AMY GOODMAN: Jess —

JESS MICHAELS: — it is a level of injury that is painful.

AMY GOODMAN: We just have 30 seconds, but I don’t want to end before you talk about trauma, before you talk about PTSD or, as you call it, PTSI, post-traumatic stress injury, of the survivors at this point.

JESS MICHAELS: What I think people assume is that we are just struggling emotionally. And what they — what the — what happens for me, I should — I’m speaking for me now — is that the pain is physical. It’s fatigue. It’s stomachaches. It’s heart palpitations. It’s headaches. It’s insomnia. It’s anxiety. It’s an inability to just calm my nerves down. So it has physical repercussions that I think people are not aware of.

AMY GOODMAN: Jess Michaels, I want to thank you so much for speaking out, 1991 Epstein rape survivor. She was 22 at the time. Now she’s head of an organization called 3 Joannes. That does it for our program. I’m Amy Goodman, This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report.

Investigative journalist Vicky Ward spent decades reporting on the deceased sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, his rich and powerful associates, and the impact of his crimes.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We’re continuing now with Part 2 of our conversation with the investigative journalist Vicky Ward as we look at Trump’s attempt to quell his MAGA base uproar over the Trump administration’s refusal to release the files of dead serial sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein. President Donald Trump’s deputy attorney general, who is Trump’s former private lawyer, just finished two days of meetings with the convicted felon Ghislaine Maxwell, who’s serving a 20-year sentence for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse young girls. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Maxwell met for nine hours at the courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida.

Now, I want to go back to April, when Virginia Roberts Giuffre, an outspoken survivor of sex trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein, died, apparently by suicide, in Australia at the age of 41. She was the first survivor to come out publicly against Jeffrey Epstein, as well as Ghislaine Maxwell. Virginia also sued Prince Andrew for sexually assaulting her when she was 17. The disgraced prince was forced to step away from his royal duties and settled with Giuffre in 2022. In a statement, Giuffre’s family said, quote, “Virginia was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking. She was the light that lifted so many survivors,” unquote. Back in 2019, Virginia Giuffre spoke to the BBC.

VIRGINIA GIUFFRE: It was a wicked time in my life. It was a really scary time in my life. I had just been abused by a member of a royal family. So when you talk about these chains, you know, yeah, I wasn’t chained to a sink, but these powerful people were my chains. I didn’t know what could happen. And I just — I didn’t — I couldn’t comprehend how the highest levels of the government and powerful people were allowing this to happen, not only allowing it to happen, but participating in it.

AMY GOODMAN: “But by participating in it,” as well. That was Virginia Roberts Giuffre in 2019.

We’re now continuing our conversation with Vicky Ward, the longtime investigative journalist, who wrote for Vanity Fair, now host and co-producer of the podcast series and TV series Chasing Ghislaine: The Untold Story of the Woman in Epstein’s Shadow.

If you can give us some background on Giuffre? This was back in 2019. That’s when Jeffrey Epstein was charged in a much more comprehensive and serious way, to be followed a few years later by Ghislaine Maxwell, after he supposedly committed suicide. And she was found guilty. Give us the history of this story and what Virginia is alleging.

VICKY WARD: Well, so, Virginia Roberts Giuffre plays a really, really important role in all of it, because after Jeffrey Epstein avoids federal charges the first time round, when the feds come for him in 2000, investigate him in 2006 for the next couple of years, that is when there is this sweetheart — he has a huge team of hugely influential and high-powered lawyers, and he is able — we don’t yet know all the details as to quite why, but he is able to —

AMY GOODMAN: And these lawyers, just to say —

VICKY WARD: — through Alex Acosta —

AMY GOODMAN: — from Ken Starr to Alan Dershowitz, a battery of lawyers.

VICKY WARD: Right. There were nine of them, I believe. And they managed to convince Alex Acosta, then-attorney general in Florida —

AMY GOODMAN: U.S. attorney.

VICKY WARD: — to drop the federal — sorry, yes, to then drop the federal charges, and instead he gets this slap on the wrist. He pleads guilty to the state charges, which is one count of prostitution and one count of soliciting a minor. And as you outlined, Amy, he has this really cushy 13-month sentence where he’s, you know, half in the jail, half not. He goes to work, you know, and he comes out basically unscathed and carries on.

Virginia surfaced, but what had happened that was illegal was that this plea deal had been done without notifying any of the women, any of the victims who had come forward. Virginia, who was not part of that case, joined what was a class-action lawsuit of all the victims coming together. And because she had a rather infamous photograph of herself with Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew with his arm around her waist, her allegations immediately hit the headlines. And she went public, accusing, as you said, not just Jeffrey Epstein, but also Prince Andrew, and also she named other men who she claimed Jeffrey Epstein had pimped her out to.

Ghislaine Maxwell — and Virginia Roberts did all this publicly — and Ghislaine Maxwell then, in public, called her a liar, at which point Virginia Roberts sued Ghislaine Maxwell civilly. And ultimately, although this case was settled, it was the — it was all the depositions and the discovery in that civil litigation that really then became the backbone of the government’s charges that they finally brought against Jeffrey Epstein in 2019. As you say, he then dies in strange circumstances without facing the music. But the stuff that was in the civil litigation with Virginia Roberts is also what formed the backbone of the government’s case against Ghislaine Maxwell during her trial. Virginia Roberts was not called as a witness in her trial, and that, you know, largely was to do with the fact that when there is so much — when there has been a big civil case, prosecutors prefer not to go down that discovery, and so they found four other victims to actually appear in court to testify against Ghislaine Maxwell. But a lot of what Virginia Roberts had said about Ghislaine Maxwell came up in that courtroom.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, one of the things you point out in your series is this deal that the U.S. attorney at the time, then chosen as labor secretary by Trump in his first term, then forced to resign immediately because all of the scandal came up as a result of Julie Brown’s reporting in the Miami Herald — like, why did he make this sweetheart deal? In the actual deal, it says, “In consideration of Epstein’s agreement to plead guilty and to provide compensation in the manner described above, if Epstein successfully fulfills all of the terms and conditions of this agreement, the United States also agrees that it will not institute any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein, including but not limited to” — and the names are blocked out, but something like four names. Now, this could be the basis — right? — of Ghislaine Maxwell getting off. It says not only if he does this 13-month sweetheart deal, but anyone who was involved with sexually abusing or raping girls or women will be protected from prosecution? Is this possible?

VICKY WARD: Yes. I mean, the whole — the whole nonprosecution agreement was something that, you know, his attorneys believed would have actually protected him, too. I mean, his own attorney, Jeffrey Epstein’s attorney, Reid Weingarten, told me that one of the reasons he found it very difficult to believe, initially, that Jeffrey Epstein had committed suicide was that they’d had a whole conversation the day before, in which his attorney said, “You know, I don’t think the government will be able to keep going with the charges against you because of this nonprosecution agreement muddying the waters.”

Amy, I will tell you, you know, the four names that are redacted in the nonprosecution agreement, I mean, you know, I know who they are. And again, it speaks to, you know, the sickness of this web. You know, these are all women who were victims at one point of Jeffrey Epstein, who then — victims who then turned around and brought in, helped bring in other women. But, yeah, unquestionably, Ghislaine Maxwell believed she was, and still believes she is, protected by the nonprosecution agreement, 100%.

AMY GOODMAN: And then Alex Acosta said something very unusual when he was really pressed about why he would do this, when, in fact, the investigations that were going on in Florida brought up dozens and dozens of women who, in many cases, were girls when Epstein raped or assaulted them, in some cases with the help of Ghislaine Maxwell. He talked — he mentioned something about “I thought he was involved with intelligence”?

VICKY WARD: Well, so, that, that is my reporting, and I 100% stand by it. He said that when the issue of Jeffrey Epstein came up in — during the transition. And he was asked, you know, by the committee during the Trump transition. You know, they get a sheet of background, because he’s going to have to be confirmed by the Senate. And it’s like, “Oh yeah, you were the guy who gave Jeffrey Epstein his plea deal. Is there going to be — is there any problem with that?” And that is when he said — you know, it was a very quick conversation — “No, I was told he belonged to intelligence.”

And this, you know, this comes back to, I think, Amy, the heart of the questions swirling around Jeffrey Epstein and why it is that the MAGA base want answers, because people want to understand the network of men who enabled Jeffrey Epstein, the system of soft power around him that enabled him to wield so much influence in the face of such horrendous criminal charges. So, you know, why did so many prominent men gather around Epstein? Many of them, you know, finance him. I mean, there’s no evidence that Jeffrey Epstein abused or trafficked underage women, until he quite mysteriously — this is a man who’s not a college graduate. He was a high school math teacher. He suddenly, in the 1990s, explodes with all this money, you know, vast, vast, vast wealth, and builds the — you know, he’s in this enormous private townhouse in Manhattan. He’s got an island. And it’s almost like the walls go up, behind which he starts to do these — perform these terrible sex crimes. But why did — why and how did he make all this money? Why and how were all these boldface names frequently in his company, on his planes, going to his island with him? You know, why did he carry on almost in plain sight with impunity? And that’s the question that people want answered.

AMY GOODMAN: And who were some of these people? I mean, they are well known now.

VICKY WARD: Well, they’re extremely well known. You had — yes, you have Donald Trump. You also have Bill Clinton. You had the president of Harvard. You had Leslie Wexner, the billionaire. More recently, you’ve had another billionaire, Leon Black. You’ve had Bill Gates. We’ve had, you know, the lawyer — one of his lawyers, as you mentioned earlier, you know, Alan Dershowitz, former Senator George Mitchell, Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson, a huge assortment, former — Henry Rosovsky, a huge assortment of academics, Prince Andrew. We know the now current crown prince of Saudi Arabia was a guest in his house, Mohammed bin Salman. He was friends with the Gaddafi family, the rulers of Africa, the former prime minister of Israel, Ehud Barak. I mean, you could go on and on and on.

AMY GOODMAN: And in the last months of Jeffrey Epstein’s life, it’s clear he was completely shocked when he flew in from Paris on his jet, and, you know, the authorities had moved in on him and picked him up at Teterboro Airport. He had, you describe it as, a kind of kitchen cabinet of advisers, everyone from — even if they’re informal, everyone from Steve Bannon to the former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak — something he denied. Talk about that group that was advising him, because he thought maybe something was going to happen to him.

VICKY WARD: Well, I think he did and he didn’t, right? I mean, this is a man who has always used his money and his connections to basically outwit law enforcement. I mean, you know, my understanding, in the last months before his arrest, he was sort of undergoing some sort of media training, bizarrely. I mean, he thought — he thought he could massage his image one more time and again, I’m sure, throw money at a situation. I’m not — which is why I don’t think he for a second thought he was going to be arrested at Teterboro Airport. This is a man who’s never been held to account in his life.

AMY GOODMAN: And when they broke down the doors of his apartment — right? — they found in a safe other passports, as well as diamonds. Talk about the significance of that.

VICKY WARD: Well, you know, he had talked — I do remember this — even years before, of going, moving and living in Saudi Arabia. There was one point in time when he talked about, you know, also going, possibly living in Israel. I mean, this was a man — you know, there are still questions as to, you know, when Alex Acosta mentioned in the transition, “I thought he belonged to intelligence,” I mean, that’s not as far-fetched an idea as it sounds, because, you know, Jeffrey Epstein was unusual at a moment in time, given the influence that he did have in both Israel and in the Gulf states and frankly, in the Clinton White House at one point. I mean, he was in and out of there over 20 times. And when you are able, just through people you know, to walk to sort of have dialogues with that many leaders, it does mean that you are in a position. You don’t have to be a spy. You don’t have to be on a government’s payroll. But it does mean that you are a useful asset. In Chasing Ghislaine, the term that the intelligence community uses for someone like that is a “hyper-fixer,” someone who can move easily between the leaders of countries, that may not have official or friendly relations at the time.

AMY GOODMAN: So, can you talk about what’s happening now, what it meant that Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, now deputy attorney general, meets with Ghislaine Maxwell for two days? They’re talking about coming up with a list of a hundred people. Interestingly, apparently —

VICKY WARD: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — former President Bill Clinton has called for the release of the documents. But what does this all mean? And President Trump himself? What was it? Senator Dick Durbin was the one who said that he had a thousand FBI agents going through all the files to tag every time he’s mentioned, and he’s been told he’s been mentioned a number of times in these documents. Where is this all headed?

VICKY WARD: Well, so, one of the tantalizing and sort of frustrating things about sitting through Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial was that the scope of it was very narrow. It was about the sex crimes, you know, understandably so, and that, you know, the government tends to only bring cases it thinks it can win. So it was confined to that. But there were these sort of frustrating cameo brief mentions of all these names of all these men who appeared on Jeffrey Epstein’s flight logs or who had been, you know, invited to stay on the island, but you never got, you know, as someone sitting in that courtroom, to piece it all together. You never got to understand the other side of Jeffrey Epstein’s life, which was the power and the money and what the heck all these guys were doing there.

And so, I’m sure that what Ghislaine Maxwell has been doing with the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, is filling him in on that, all the pieces of that side of Epstein’s life, which she had, you know, a front-row — not just a front-row seat to, actually, she was part of it. I mean, let’s not forget that, you know, part of Jeffrey Epstein’s rise to power was Ghislaine Maxwell. She was the one who arrived in New York right around the time of her father’s mysterious death. She was the one with the Rolodex of Prince Andrew and the heads of state, because that’s who her father had known and done business with and traded information with. So, that is the part of this puzzle that Ghislaine Maxwell can answer. And I’m sure that there are at least a hundred names. This was a woman who knew hundreds and hundreds of powerful people.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk about what’s being said now. You have Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin saying on CNN, quote, in “2009, there was a [sweetheart plea deal that] was made under the Obama administration with Epstein.” He was corrected by Jake Tapper, “No, that’s not right. It was 2008. The U.S. attorney at the time was Alex Acosta. He was a Bush appointee. He went on to become President Trump’s secretary of labor.” And this from MSNBC: “But what made Mullin’s error even more notable was the fact that it offered a fresh opportunity to remind the public that it was Trump who rewarded Alex Acosta — the guy who helped orchestrate Epstein’s deal — with a Cabinet position in the president’s first term” — though, ultimately, he didn’t get away with it. Your response to that, Vicky Ward?

VICKY WARD: Well, I have always really, really wanted to understand what really went on behind the scenes regarding Alex Acosta and that plea deal. What was the leverage that was used? And I think that is a key question that actually Trump’s base wants answered. And Ghislaine Maxwell, I think, probably has a pretty good idea. She had — by 2008, she had sort of left Jeffrey Epstein’s orbit. She had got a boyfriend, a guy called Ted Waitt. But she would have a pretty good idea of what went on behind the scenes there. And that’s exactly the kind of the use of soft power that I’m talking about. That’s what people want to understand.

AMY GOODMAN: So, why has the MAGA base pushed so hard? Why has this been a tenet of what binds people together, of Trump supporters, to release the Epstein files? He so clearly has been a part of Epstein’s life. He was for years. We all saw the pictures. We know his famous quote, you know, “We both like women. He just likes them a little younger,” Trump said. Why would they be pushing for this from the beginning?

VICKY WARD: Well, because among the MAGA base — right? — you have this fundamental mistrust, which Trump has leaned into, of the — you know, this mistrust of the, quote-unquote, “deep state” and, you know, mistrust of invisible systems of power. And, you know, I think that Trump has happily leaned into this for his political purposes. And this is a case of being hoist by your own petard, Amy. It’s as simple as that. And so, you know, but it is — we are now in this very tricky situation, because any deal that is done, if a deal does get done with Ghislaine Maxwell, you are quite understandably going to have victims of both — her victims and Jeffrey Epstein’s victims up in arms, and rightly so. So, this is a — this is a real political nightmare for Donald Trump.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, you have people like Maria Farmer, one of the first people —

VICKY WARD: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — to speak out, that you dealt with — right? — who said not only was she sexually abused by both of them, and then they abused her little sister Annie, which she felt so horribly guilty about, but when she went to the —

VICKY WARD: And Annie was underage, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: When she went to the FBI in New York, and then they didn’t investigate this, she said for years she would get a phone call, and she would pick up her cellphone, and it would be Ghislaine saying something like, “I know where you live.” She moved like 30 times, Maria said. But she would call up, “We know where you live. We know what time you run every day” — this constant threat. And then, of course, we didn’t even talk about, with Graydon Carter, who spiked your story, the editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, the part of it that talked about the girls and women who were sexually abused, he found a bullet? A cat’s head was left at his house? Is that right?

VICKY WARD: Yes, I’m told, you know, that was — that, I believe, was after the piece. But Jeffrey Epstein — it was a very frightening time, that whole period reporting that piece. But, you know, that’s not a reason to then go and cut out the on-record allegations of two sisters. You know, all the more reason to go ahead and print them. And, you know, Graydon Carter has since said, you know, that I’m a terrible journalist and that I didn’t have the reporting. I did. I absolutely did. Because, you know, I mean, this is years before the #MeToo era, but even then, you know, I went out, and I spoke to their mother and to the artist Eric Fischl and to another businessman whom they knew, all of whom they had gone to contemporaneously. So, it was complete garbage.

But, you know, and Ghislaine Maxwell, I had known her, not well, but socially. I mean, we’re both originally — we grew up in England. She’s a few years ahead of me, and I would run into her from time to time at, you know, things in New York. And, you know, she seemed to have an extraordinary life. She talked about flying helicopters and flying around with Bill Clinton. And, you know, one didn’t have really a clear view of what she was really doing, but she was indignant when I put the Farmer sisters’ allegations, to me, absolutely indignant, and sort of said: How could I possibly believe two women who I didn’t know over her? And she was a journalist, but, you know, she wasn’t. I mean, you know, she and Jeffrey Epstein were — you know, I mean, they knew how to go about killing these stories and these allegations, and, you know, in hindsight, you can see exactly why they were so powerful and why they got away with this for so long.

AMY GOODMAN: And interestingly, though she has French citizenship, she has British citizenship, she did not leave the United States after Jeffrey Epstein died, for any extended period. And ultimately, while she was being sought after, when they were wanting to serve her when she was being charged, she was found at her — a house she had bought for a million dollars in cold cash, right in New Hampshire.

VICKY WARD: I know. You know, who knows? I mean, you know, one has to believe that at the — you know, she thought that she could outrun this, in a way, in a way just like Jeffrey Epstein had. But, you know, now she’s got an opportunity, or her lawyer does, to — you know, she’s got some leverage to negotiate with a president, you know, his lawyers, a president who likes to negotiate. So, you know, it’s a very, very precarious situation.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think part of these discussions were what she knew about Donald Trump?

VICKY WARD: I’m — listen, she is going to be sitting there discussing everything. I mean, this is a woman who knew Donald Trump — we know this — pretty well. But, you know, a few years ago, I believe Trump said, on record, you know, “I wish her well.” So —

AMY GOODMAN: That’s something that her brother, Ian Maxwell —

VICKY WARD: — anything — you have to believe that anything is on the table.

AMY GOODMAN: Her brother, Ian Maxwell, who’s fighting for her freedom, her two brothers — Ian Maxwell said they very much appreciated what Trump had to say. And Trump has so much at stake here.

VICKY WARD: Well, that’s exactly right. I mean, I found it hard to believe that at the end of these two days of conversations and, you know, the reporting that there’s a hundred names, that the needle isn’t going to move one way or the other. I mean, Trump’s going to have to give his base something, and she’s going to get something in return. It’s very, very troubling, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Vicky Ward, we want to thank you so much for being with us, longtime investigative journalist, host and co-producer of the podcast series and the TV series Chasing Ghislaine: The Untold Story of the Woman in Epstein’s Shadow. To see Part 1 of our conversation, you can go to democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.

Watch the segment below or at this link

As controversy over President Donald Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein continues to dog his administration, we speak with investigative journalist Vicky Ward, who has spent decades reporting on the deceased sexual predator, his rich and powerful associates, and the impact of his crimes. Much of Trump’s political base is in an uproar after federal officials declined to release government files about Epstein and his serial sexual abuse of women and girls, with Trump himself reportedly named in the documents.

“They were friends. They hung out with each other,” Ward says of Trump and Epstein.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

In an attempt to quell the MAGA base uproar over the Trump administration’s refusal to release the files of the dead serial sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein, President Donald Trump’s deputy attorney general, who is Trump’s former private lawyer, just finished two days, Thursday and Friday, of meetings with the convicted felon Ghislaine Maxwell, who’s serving a 20-year sentence for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse young girls. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Maxwell met for nine hours at the federal courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida. This is Maxwell’s attorney, David Markus.

DAVID MARKUS: Ms. Maxwell answered every single question. She never stopped. She never invoked a privilege. She never declined to answer. She answered all the questions truthfully, honestly and to the best of her ability.

AMY GOODMAN: The meetings with Ghislaine Maxwell at a federal courthouse in Tallahassee come as President, Trump faces growing bipartisan pressure to release the government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein, longtime friend of Donald Trump. On Friday, Trump was questioned if he considered pardoning Maxwell.

KEVIN LIPTAK: Would you consider a pardon or a commutation for Ghislaine Maxwell if she’s cooperating —

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s something I haven’t thought about. It’s really something —

KEVIN LIPTAK: If it’s recommended —

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s something — I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I have not thought about.

AMY GOODMAN: One of the first accusers of Jeffrey Epstein says she warned the FBI and the New York Police Department to look into his relationship with Donald Trump as early as 1996. Maria Farmer is now suing the government, which she said failed to protect victims. In a new interview with The New York Times, Maria Farmer said her only sense of justice has come from the conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s convicted sex trafficking accomplice. Maria Farmer also spoke on MSNBC with Jen Psaki about Ghislaine Maxwell.

MARIA FARMER: I’ve never met a more predatory, terrifying human being in my entire life. And neither had Virginia Giuffre, and neither has Annie or Anouska or many girls, like Chauntae Davies. There’s hundreds of us that were preyed upon by Ghislaine Maxwell. She’s a very dangerous person, and she threatened my life on many occasions. I’ve had to move and be in hiding because of this predatory child predator and just victim predator. So, it’s completely unacceptable for anyone to call her a victim. The woman is not a victim. She’s a victimizer.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Maria Farmer, who has alleged that both Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein abused her and her sister, Annie Farmer, who has testified about how Ghislaine Maxwell not only groomed and recruited her, but also took part in her abuse. Annie Farmer spoke on ABC News.

ANNIE FARMER: She was the one who asked me to undress. She was the one who exposed my chest. She’s the one who touched me. And I think that that was not unusual. I mean, that was something that came out in her trial and one of the things that she was found guilty of. If you — you know, the Department of Justice is clear on that, that she herself is a sexual predator who has participated in this abuse.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Vicky Ward, longtime investigative journalist, host and co-producer of the series Chasing Ghislaine: The Untold Story of the Woman in Epstein’s Shadow. It’s a podcast series. It’s a TV series. Vicki Ward profiled Jeffrey Epstein for Vanity Fair in 2003.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Vicky. Let’s go back to 2003, before we talk about this deputy attorney general meeting, the fact that you tried to get Maria and Annie’s story out so many years ago. You would have broken this story. But you talk about how the editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair stopped you from doing this, and it came out to be just a kind of profile of Jeffrey Epstein.

VICKY WARD: That’s right, Amy. And thank you for having me.

Yeah, you know, I was assigned to write about Jeffrey Epstein, who was an enigma back then. He was not someone whose name was in the newspapers, except for the fact that he popped up in the fall of 2002 as having flown Bill Clinton on his plane to Africa. And on the back of that, I was assigned to go out and find who this kind of Gatsby-like figure was, who lived in the biggest private townhouse in New York, who had an island, ranch in New Mexico. Where had his money come from?

And along the way, I discovered that he had a reputation for having a lot of young women around him. This was in addition to Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sort of like a Girl Friday. It was — her role became sort of very nebulous. And I did encounter the two Farmer sisters, who told me their harrowing stories. They went on the record, which was a very brave thing to do, given, as you heard Maria Farmer just there saying that, you know, she felt they were coming after her for a lot of her life.

And, you know, it was a difficult time for me. I was on a high-risk pregnancy, so once I had handed the piece in, I went on bed rest before I ultimately went into labor. Jeffrey Epstein was threatening me and telling me he was going to find out where I was giving birth, and he was going to have a witch doctor place a curse on my unborn children, if he didn’t like this piece. He was clearly furious about the fact that I had spoken to the Farmer sisters. That, more than anything else about what I had uncovered, enraged him. And when I was at home on bed rest, I heard from a fact-checker at the magazine, who emailed me, that he was in the Vanity Fair offices meeting with the editor-in-chief in person. I knew that the magazine —

AMY GOODMAN: This was Graydon Carter?

VICKY WARD: — was still waiting for photographs. Yes. And the next thing that I knew was, you know, when I saw a final galley of the piece, that was already on its way to appear in the published version of the magazine, the Farmer sisters’ allegations had been removed. And I will stress I didn’t, obviously, at the time have any idea of the scale of this awful sort of pyramid scheme that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell had going on with underage girls. But I did have the Farmer sisters. And obviously it was appalling, because they had gone on record, so Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were aware of what they had said. And it was a horrendous situation.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, Jeffrey Epstein, there was this deal that ultimately would take down Alex Acosta once he became secretary of labor, because he was the U.S. attorney in Florida that cut this sweetheart deal that meant Jeffrey Epstein could serve 13 months in a Palm Beach jail, leaving every day for about 10 hours, in which the allegations are he abused one young woman after another, 13 months, then he was out, and it would take until 2019 for the federal charges to be brought in New York. Now, that’s a lot to get in here. But these victims, let’s talk about how many you believe there have been. I mean, you have one victim after another saying they were victimized, and then Ghislaine Maxwell or Jeffrey Epstein would say, “Can you go get others?” One young woman said she can’t live with herself. She recruited like 40 kids in her high school, girls, often, you know, poor, needing money. They would be paid something like $200. Another said 60 — she recruited 60 friends. Are we talking upwards of a thousand people, children or young women, who were abused or raped by Jeffrey Epstein with the help of Ghislaine Maxwell?

VICKY WARD: Well, Amy, I mean, that’s actually a figure I think Pam Bondi — you know, I think she said “thousand.” I mean, one of the things that became very, very clear when, you know, I sat through Ghislaine Maxwell’s six-week trial was the sort of the cleverness, as well as the sickness, of the manipulation that went on inside Jeffrey Epstein’s household, beginning, if you like, with Ghislaine Maxwell, this very polished, sophisticated, Oxford-educated woman who spoke many languages, who knew presidents and heads of state all around the world. Once she had got these much more vulnerable young women inside that house, sort of effectively normalizing for them the incredible abuse that went on, you know, they were then incentivized to turn around and go and get, as you say, these other children. And it became — I mean, you know, one of the things that became very clear in her trial was the sickness, but also the scale of this web.

And, you know, one of the reasons that you sort of only had four victims come and testify at Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial was that there were complications with other stories, because, you know, Virginia Roberts, for example, who was, in a way, the single victim whose civil litigation against Ghislaine Maxwell ultimately caused this whole sort of house of cards to come tumbling down and Jeffrey Epstein finally to face the music in 2019, you know, Virginia Roberts’ story is a complicated one, because she then was accused of going out to recruit other girls. So, it’s a —

AMY GOODMAN: And Virginia Roberts, you’re talking about —

VICKY WARD: It’s a very complicated, horrible story.

AMY GOODMAN: Virginia Roberts, you’re talking about Virginia Giuffre, who was an outspoken survivor —

VICKY WARD: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — and ultimately sued Prince Andrew, settled for some undisclosed amount —

VICKY WARD: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — and apparently died by suicide, though it’s not clear if she died by suicide. It’s not clear Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide. But she just recently died in Australia at the age of 41.

VICKY WARD: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to get to President Trump, what his connection is to this, and who are the people who you feel have not been properly investigated, and this possibility — you heard Trump himself, you know, saying not clear whether she would be pardoned or her sentence commuted.

VICKY WARD: Right. And I also think, you know, it’s worth thinking about the fact that Ghislaine Maxwell is a citizen of many countries. You know, another option is whether or not she would be sent back to Europe or to England, you know, where there may be a different view of her, given her background.

AMY GOODMAN: “Given her background” meaning that she’s the daughter of Robert Maxwell.

VICKY WARD: Well, she comes — yeah, exactly. She comes from a family that’s very prominent socially in England that once held great power and great wealth. And, you know, it’s a different culture, different society. I mean, that, I think, would be an option.

AMY GOODMAN: He was — I mean, for people to understand, he was the — he was sort of the competitor with Rupert Murdoch, a media mogul, who she was very close to, and died mysteriously at sea, his body overboard.

VICKY WARD: That’s right. But he was also a politician. He was a massive worldwide publisher who had enormous influence all around the world. As you say, he died in very strange circumstances. He’s buried. He was given a sort of hero’s burial in Israel at the Mount of Olives. When he died, it emerged that he had basically robbed the pensions of his employees at this big media group. Two of his sons went on trial but were acquitted for that. But so, but this is a story that is very — this is a family, rather, that is very high-profile in England and in Europe.

You asked, Amy, though, about the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump. You know, they were friends. They hung out with each other. These were two guys, you know, between Donald Trump’s marriages, who were single and who both hung out with models. Jeffrey Epstein’s main financial benefactor, Leslie Wexner, was the owner of Victoria’s Secret, the most sort of prominent, you know, modeling organization in the world. We know, particularly last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that when — for Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday, the Journal claimed — Trump denies this, says it wasn’t him — that, you know, Donald Trump sent him a sort of racy congratulatory message alluding to Jeffrey Epstein’s private life. So, Donald Trump, you know, clearly, we do know, was aware of Jeffrey Epstein’s predilection for women and, you know, his sort of social life.

They did fall out. You know, interestingly, Donald Trump, who is very articulate about a lot of subjects, has not ever really explained why. He has said to, you know, campaign operatives around him, or did say back in 2014, when Virginia Roberts first sort of surfaced with her public claims about Epstein, that he had severed ties with him when Epstein had come after a daughter of a member of Mar-a-Lago. There is also reportedly a dispute that — well, there was a dispute between the two men over a piece of real estate near Palm Beach that both men wanted and that Donald Trump ultimately ended up getting at a bankruptcy auction and then flipped at a massive profit a couple of years later. But he’s never — he’s never actually talked about that in public. He has just said, you know, he’s just distanced himself —

AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds.

VICKY WARD: — from Jeffrey Epstein.

AMY GOODMAN: But we’re going to continue with a post-show with you, because it’s really critical to talk about what are these files the MAGA base and many Democrats and Republicans have called for releasing. Vicky Ward, longtime investigative journalist, host of the series Chasing Ghislaine.

Watch the video below or at this link.

We speak to a survivor of sexual abuse perpetrated by Jeffrey Epstein and enabled by his partner Ghislaine Maxwell. Teresa Helm was sexually assaulted by Epstein at what she was told was a job interview in the early 2000s. She now works as the survivor services coordinator for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation and joins many voices calling for the release of federal documents pertaining to Epstein’s criminal case, though Helm emphasizes that the goal of their release must be to promote accountability and justice for victims, not as a form of political score-settling. “I really urge everyone to focus their commitment, their intention, all this time, effort and energy onto … these survivors and their healing,” says Helm. “We’re talking about people’s lives, and it should not be weaponized either way, in any administration.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

Missing in much of the MAGA frenzy over the Jeffrey Epstein files are the voices of survivors of the sexual abuse he perpetrated against them. Many, like our next guest, have joined the call for transparency and for the Trump administration to release the files as promised.

This comes as Virginia Giuffre, an outspoken survivor of sex trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein, died, apparently by suicide, at age 41 in April. She was the first survivor to come out publicly against Epstein and his co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, who remains in prison. She also sued Prince Andrew for sexually assaulting her when she was 17. The disgraced prince was forced to step away from his royal duties and settle with Giuffre in 2022. Her family said in a statement, quote, “Virginia was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking. She was the light that lifted so many survivors,” unquote.

Just last week, when the FBI and Department of Justice announced there was, quote, “no incriminating client list,” it also said Epstein harmed over 1,000 victims over two decades, far more than previously known.

For more, we’re joined by Teresa Helm, who is a survivor of sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein, facilitated by Ghislaine Maxwell. She was assaulted by Epstein in the early 2000s. She now works as the survivor services coordinator for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. Her 2024 piece for Newsweek is headlined “I’m a Jeffrey Epstein Survivor. The Documents Are an Opportunity.”

Thank you so much for joining us. You, Teresa Helm, have talked about the dangers of grooming. As you see all of this taking place, the uprising within the MAGA movement, lost are what sexual violence survivors go through. Talk about how you first met Jeffrey Epstein, how you were brought to him, how you were groomed.

TERESA HELM: Well, hello. Good morning. I can certainly talk to that.

So, I was attending college out in California at the time and was a full-time student and a full-time employee there. And so, that began the process of recruitment to grooming, passed along the line from various people as far as “This is an opportunity that I’d like for you to see if you’re interested in, and go talk to this person.” So, after speaking with a couple young women about an opportunity that I thought I was being blessed with at the time, I eventually met with Ghislaine Maxwell, who really — what she did was pretty astounding, in the fact that within a day I was convinced that I was in a safe, healthy, wonderful environment, blessed with an opportunity to pursue a career that I could — had only dreamed of having. In fact, that was my dream, to do what she had stated I would do alongside her, working for her. She was very polite and kind. She built trust in a very — you know, within hours, I thought that I had really landed the opportunity of a lifetime. My family was very pleased that I was there interviewing with her, which is what — the intention. That’s what the — that’s what I thought I was there for, was an interview. And things went so amazingly well. And then, she was so successful in all of that very, I would call it, you know, master manipulation. She was very calculated in her craft and did it very well.

I was very young. I mean, I was an adult, 22 years old. However, I had such big dreams and aspirations and determination and really wanted to make the most of this opportunity that I thought that I was getting, to the point where at the end of my time with Ghislaine Maxwell, although I hadn’t known that there was a partner, as she referred to him, that I would be meeting at the end of my time with her — I hadn’t heard Jeffrey or any other person’s name the entire time, from beginning, sitting behind the desk at work in California at the college, to meeting Sarah Kellen at the beach to — who then introduced me to Ghislaine. I had no idea that there was a final person that I was going to go meet.

And once I learned of him, by the name of Jeffrey, I did not — I paused and thought about some things, waived any kind of red flag in my mind, because, again, she was so — Ghislaine was so, so good at what she had done and built that trust in me. And so, then I walked — I walked myself to Jeffrey’s home later that day to what I thought was to interview with him, without really a lot of question, actually being quite excited, because I thought, “Well, if I was so successful here with Ghislaine, which she has really made me believe that I have been, now I get the opportunity to go complete this, like a second round of the interview.” And that was — really, I walked myself into tragedy. I had no idea. I could — I actually should and I will reframe that. I didn’t walk myself into tragedy. I was lured there. I was coaxed there, coerced there, under false and fraudulent, you know, conditions and expectations.

AMY GOODMAN: And it was there —

TERESA HELM: And that’s how I —

AMY GOODMAN: It was then that Jeffrey Epstein assaulted you?

TERESA HELM: That’s right, there in his very big, beautiful home there in Manhattan, you know, the home that Ghislaine was raving about after I had been complimenting her on her home and speaking about the different various buildings and the architecture and how much I enjoyed it and comparing different cities to New York. And then she raved about his: If I thought hers was great, wait ’til I see his. Yeah, so, it was there.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you have joined the call for the Epstein files to be released. Can you explain why you feel this is so important?

TERESA HELM: Where I stand with all of this is in, you know, utter solidarity with survivors of this entire nightmare that’s just been ongoing for decades with these people that have gotten away with so much for so long, you know, whether it was a failure of the system back in the ’90s, whether failure of the system again in the early 2000s. There are so many women and, at the time, even, you know, children that have been harmed by these people.

I really urge everyone to focus the — you know, the commitment, the intention, all this time, effort and energy onto bringing to light what needs to bring to light for these survivors and their healing, and less about political weaponization of anything, because at the end of the day, that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about people’s lives, and it should not be weaponized either way in any administration, no matter who’s in control at the time, who did what, when, who’s doing what now. Transparency is key, because we cannot move forward as a society and as a culture without these fundamental changes of — these fundamental changes of doing the right thing and holding people accountable, because we can’t continue to have systems of power that just get away, or people — whether it’s a system or a person, we cannot continue to have these people or systems continue to get away with anything that they can get away with, because they’re not — they’re skating through. They’re dodging accountability. There’s too much money involved, so, you know, people silenced through money.

We have got to change the — it’s degrading our society to continue to allow these predators and perpetrators to get away with harming so many people. You know, those that harm and exploit, they have to be silenced, not the survivors continuing to be silenced, because when you don’t have accountability, you don’t have justice. We are so far out of balance with justice. It’s almost like, you know, Lady Liberty, she can take us a small step to the ground, because we’re so uneven, where survivors are holding on, clinging on to hope, which tends to be, you know, one thing that you can’t take away from a survivor. It’s how we get here. We survive through it because we have so much hope. But hope tends to get shattered often. And it’s like the onus is on us to pick up the pieces and try to get louder and louder. You know, our silence is not — it’s very loud within us. We have to then — you know, we’re tasked with rising back up, fighting bigger, fighting louder, you know, screaming from the mountaintops.

Like, who is going to do something? Because we are setting horrible, horrible influences to our children and to our youth of what you can and can’t get away with, depending on who you are, what position you are in. And as I said, I just feel like, you know, oftentimes we have these huge-profile cases where people are harming others, and there’s just such a big — you know, “Did this really happen to you? Well, if it did, what about this?” We have to get to the point where we are survivor-focused in the justice system, because we’re such a huge part of it that we have to stop politicizing everything and listen to the survivors, listen to the ones that have the lived experience. You cannot take this experience — people can say there’s nothing there. You cannot take the lived experience away from us, not that we wanted it in the first place, but here it is. It lives with us. It remains with us. We’re fighting for justice. You cannot take away our lived experience.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Teresa Helm, I want to thank you so much for being with us. We’re going to link to your piece, “I’m a Jeffrey Epstein Survivor. The Documents Are an Opportunity.”

President Donald Trump has signed a wave of pardons for people convicted of fraud, including a Virginia sheriff who took tens of thousands of dollars in bribes and a reality TV couple who evaded millions in taxes after defrauding banks. Last month, Trump pardoned a Florida healthcare executive convicted of tax evasion for stealing nearly $11 million in payroll taxes from the paychecks of doctors and nurses. Many of Trump’s pardons have gone to supporters of his or those who made political donations to the president.

“These pardons are not indiscriminate,” says constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein. “They’re targeted to help people who are politically his supporters, raise money for him or otherwise.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

We end today’s show with a slew of pardons President Trump has issued, many this past week. In one case, Trump pardoned Scott Jenkins, a former Virginia sheriff and longtime Trump supporter, convicted on corruption charges after undercover video showed he accepted over $75,000 in bribes.

In another case, Trump pardoned the former reality show couple Todd and Julie Chrisley after they were sentenced to long prison terms for evading taxes and defrauding banks of more than $30 million. The couple’s daughter helped campaign for Trump. She requested the appeal on Fox News.

This comes as Trump loyalist Ed Martin has a new role as the Justice Department’s pardon attorney, after he failed to win Senate approval to become District of Columbia’s top prosecutor.

For more, we go to Washington, D.C. We’re joined by Bruce Fein, constitutional lawyer, former associate deputy attorney general and general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission under President Ronald Reagan, author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy.

Bruce, thanks so much for joining us. Why don’t you go through these pardons with us? Talk about the Virginia sheriff, talk about the reality TV couple, what they were imprisoned for, and what it means that they’ve been freed, not to mention fines worth millions of dollars being forgiven.

BRUCE FEIN: Well, in the two cases you mentioned, the sheriff was convicted of basically using his office to raise money through bribes, $75,000, to give favors to friends. The other case concerned tax evasion and fraud, the kinds of crimes that Mr. Trump himself has been under attack for.

I think that if you look in the broader sense, Mr. Trump is trying to create an aura of incredulity about the legitimacy of the criminal justice system, at least with regard to the pardons of these slew of white-collar offenses, and sometimes they’re political allies, as well. We just learned today in the newspapers a former congressman, former governor of Connecticut also pardoned. And I think that Mr. Trump recognizes that he’s losing overwhelmingly in the courts now, and that’s why he’s even turning on the Federalist Society and Leonard Leo, because he believes when he loses in the United States Supreme Court, he’s going to need a political reason for why he’s losing, and he’s trying to cast aspersion, I believe, on the legitimacy of the entire justice system. That’s why these pardons are not indiscriminate, because they’re targeted to help people who are politically his supporters, raise money for him or otherwise, which is very dangerous.

I want to add this: The framers understood the possibility that the pardon power would be abused. There was an exchange in the Virginia ratification debate between James Madison and George Mason. And Mr. Madison, when Mr. Mason said, “Well, what if the president uses his pardon power to help his political friends? That could be very, very dangerous. Why are we endowing the president with such pardon power?” — and Mr. Madison said, “Well, if the president uses pardons to help his political friends or personal friends, certainly the House will impeach, and he will be removed from Congress,” because it’s very difficult for an individual citizen, you or me, to have standing to challenge a pardon.

Unfortunately, Congress has turned into an ink blot. It has no spine. And so, that remedy is gone, which I think underscores the importance, if we’re going to have any kind of pushback, of public opinion saying we need the law to be enforced even-handedly.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about Paul Walczak. In April, President Trump pardoned him, the Florida healthcare executive convicted of tax evasion for stealing nearly $11 million in payroll taxes from the paychecks of doctors and nurses. The jury found him guilty after prosecutors showed he used the money to finance a lavish lifestyle. Walczak is the son of Betsy Fago, a healthcare entrepreneur and Republican Party donor. Trump pardoned Walczak three weeks after Fago attended a million-dollar-a-plate fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago. And he also pardoned or forgave the fine of something like $4 million that he’d have to pay in addition to serving time in jail. The significance of this, Bruce?

BRUCE FEIN: Well, at least it has the appearance of bribery. You’re raising money, and then, shortly after you raise money, then comes the pardon. And we know at least one of the offenses that justifies impeachment is bribery, even if it’s indirect. I think this is very dangerous.

But I want to underscore, Mr. Trump is not the first one who’s abused the pardon power. He’s had to take it a different scale, I think. We have Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. We have, remember, Marc Rich and William Jefferson Clinton and Roger Clinton. And even George H.W. Bush, he pardoned the Iran-Contra defendants, including Cap Weinberger. So it’s been abused before, but it’s taken to a scale now where it threatens to undermine the entire legitimacy of the criminal justice system.

And you mentioned earlier Ed Martin, which is really quite alarming, since Mr. Martin said, “I am going to use my position not to just go after people I think committed crimes, but to stigmatize them. Even if we can’t convict them, we want to harass them, make them lose their reputation.” It’s a danger that Justice Robert Jackson, a former attorney general, warned against in 1940, because the laws are very vague. And here we have a member of the Justice Department saying, “We’re coming after you, even if we can’t prove that you’re guilty of a crime, just to harass you and give you a bad name.” That clearly is an abuse of the obligation to faithfully execute the laws. Typically, you have an obligation in the Justice Department not even to begin an indictment unless you believe you can prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And now we have a very, very low threshold for beginning an investigation, that probably will go nowhere other than tarnish reputations.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Bruce Fein, I want to thank you very much for being with us. You mentioned Martin. Politico reports Martin spent his first week on the job reviewing pardon applications of January 6 insurrectionists, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, seeking to have President Trump convert their commuted sentences into full pardons. Bruce Fein is a constitutional lawyer, former Reagan attorney, was associate deputy attorney general and general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission under President Ronald Reagan.

We speak with esteemed historian scholar Ellen Schrecker about the Trump administration’s assault on universities and the crackdown on dissent, a climate of fear and censorship she describes as “worse than McCarthyism.”

“During the McCarthy period, it was attacking only individual professors and only about their sort of extracurricular political activities on the left. … Today, the repression that’s coming out of Washington, D.C., it attacks everything that happens on American campuses,” says Schrecker. “The damage that the Trump administration is doing is absolutely beyond the pale and has never, never been equaled in American life with regard to higher education.”

Schrecker is the author of many books about the McCarthy era, Cold War politics and right-wing attacks on academic freedom. Her recent piece for The Nation is headlined “Worse Than McCarthyism: Universities in the Age of Trump.”democracynow.org

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: President Trump’s crackdown on academic institutions in the United States was the focus of protests and commencement speeches this week as universities like Harvard held commencement ceremonies.

The Trump administration has now directed federal agencies to review all remaining contracts with Harvard, after it already canceled nearly $3 billion in federal research grants for the university and moved last week to revoke its ability to enroll international students. Harvard has two separate suits pending against Trump, arguing the moves violate due process, as well as free speech protections under the First Amendment because they target the university’s staff, curriculum and enrollment.

In his address at Harvard’s commencement ceremony Thursday, Stanford University professor, doctor and novelist Abraham Verghese praised the school’s defiance of Trump and spoke to students facing threats of deportation or having their visas revoked.

DR. ABRAHAM VERGHESE: When legal immigrants and others who are lawfully in this country, including so many of your international students, worry about being wrongly detained and even deported, perhaps it’s fitting that you hear from an immigrant like me. Perhaps it’s fitting that you hear from someone who was born in Ethiopia when it was ruled by an emperor, someone who then lived under the harsh military leader who overthrew the emperor, someone who had at least — who had at least one his medical school classmates tortured and disappear. … More than a quarter of the physicians in this country are foreign medical graduates. … So, a part of what makes America great, if I may use that phrase, is that it allows an immigrant like me to blossom here, just as generations of other immigrants and their children have flourished and contributed in every walk of life, working to keep America great.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the novelist and medical doctor, Ethiopian Indian American, Dr. Abraham Verghese addressing Harvard’s commencement ceremony on Thursday. His latest book, The Covenant of Water.

Meanwhile, down the road in Cambridge, the Indian American class president at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, spoke about how MIT’s undergraduate body and Graduate Student Union had voted overwhelmingly to cut ties with Israel. Megha Vemuri wore a red-and-white keffiyeh and said MIT students would never support a genocide, and praised them for continuing to protest despite, quote, “threats, intimidation and suppression coming from all directions, especially,” she said, “your own university officials.”

MEGHA VEMURI: Last spring, MIT’s undergraduate body and Graduate Student Union voted overwhelmingly to cut ties with the genocidal Israeli military. You called for a permanent cease fire in Gaza, and you stood in solidarity with the pro-Palestine activists on campus. You faced threats, intimidation and suppression coming from all directions, especially your own university officials. But you prevailed, because the MIT community that I know would never tolerate a genocide.

Right now while we prepare to graduate and move forward with our lives, there are no universities left in Gaza. We are watching Israel try to wipe Palestine off the face of the Earth, and it is a shame that MIT is a part of it. The Israeli occupation forces are the only foreign military that MIT has research ties with. This means that Israel’s assault on the Palestinian people is not only aided and abetted by our country, but our school. As scientists, engineers, academics and leaders, we have a commitment to support life, support aid efforts and call for an arms embargo and keep demanding now, as alumni, that MIT cuts the ties.

AMY GOODMAN: That was MIT class president Megha Vemuri, now Indian American graduate of MIT.

This comes as Jelani Cobb, the dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism — another school facing attacks by the Trump administration — writes for The New Yorker magazine this week about how, quote, “Academic freedom in the United States has found itself periodically under siege.” In his piece headlined “A Tumultuous Spring Semester Finally Comes to a Close,” he describes how he consulted with Ellen Schrecker, a historian and the author of No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities, along with other deans at Columbia. They spoke about government repression on college campuses in the 1950s through to the present. Schrecker told him, quote, “I’ve studied McCarthyism’s impact on higher education for 50 years. What’s happening now is worse,” he quoted her saying.

Well, we begin today with Ellen Schrecker in person, joining us in our New York studio. She’s the author of Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America, No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities. Schrecker is also the author of The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom. And she just wrote a piece for The Nation headlined “Worse Than McCarthyism: Universities in the Age of Trump.” Schrecker has been active in the American Association of University Professors, AAUP, since the 1990s. I should note she has three degrees from Radcliffe Harvard and formerly taught there. She’s a graduate of Radcliffe 1960.

Ellen Schrecker, welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. As we look at these universities under attack, you’ve studied higher education for over half a century. Let’s talk about what was happening then and what’s happening today.

ELLEN SCHRECKER: OK. The main thing that happened then to universities was that about a hundred faculty members, most of them with tenure, were fired and blacklisted. That happened in every major institution of civil society within the United States. And although the universities pride themselves on academic freedom — whatever that means — they collaborated with the forces of repression through — that were actively imposing a climate of fear and self-censorship throughout American society.

Today, what’s happening is worse, so much worse that we have to really find a new phrase for it. I don’t know what it’ll be. But during the McCarthy period, it was attacking only individual professors and only about their sort of extracurricular political activities on the left, in the past and in the present, then present. Today, the repression that’s coming out of Washington, D.C., it attacks everything that happens on American campuses.

AMY GOODMAN: I’d like you to start off — we have a very young audience. We also have their parents and their grandparents around the world. And I’d like you to start off by talking about who McCarthy is. What do we mean by the McCarthyism of, for example, the 1950s?

ELLEN SCHRECKER: OK, that’s a very good way to start, because McCarthyism, unfortunately, is misnamed. It is not just the career of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who came in onto the stage of history in 1950 after the “ism” that he gave his name to had been really dominating American domestic politics since the late 1940s. ’47 is when the Truman administration imposed a loyalty test, an anti-communist loyalty test, on its employees.

So, if we wanted to name this phenomenon of political repression, anti-communist political repression — and I want to specify that it didn’t attack randomly people on the left, but very specifically people who had some kind of connection, usually in the past, with the communist movement, that during the 1930s and ’40s was the most dynamic force on the left, even though it was a very flawed, very flawed political group. It was nonetheless very influential on the left. And if we wanted to give that political repression of the 1940s and ’50s a name, it should have been Hooverism, after the FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, the movie Good Night and Good Luck, they showed real black-and-white footage of McCarthy, and test audiences thought he was too harsh, unrealistic, not realizing it was actual footage. And now you have Good Night and Good Luck on Broadway, George Clooney starring in it, and it is the financially most successful Broadway show we’ve seen, is going to be now for free on CNN in a few days. But the significance of that, that that — what people feel today was a cartoon character was, in fact, much harsher and sharper than people ever dreamed?

ELLEN SCHRECKER: Yeah, he was beyond the pale, because, like the current president, he had no guardrails, as it were.

AMY GOODMAN: Not to mention Roy Cohn, his sidekick in the hearings, who would later go on to mentor Donald Trump, until, at the very end of his life, Donald Trump rejected him when he was dying of AIDS.

ELLEN SCHRECKER: Exactly. So, there are lots of similarities with the fact that there’s this very aberrant character at the heart, or at the sort of public heart, of this repressive movement. But what we should have known in the '40s and ’50s, and should know now, is it's not just a one-man show. It has been this moment of trying to crack down on dissent, constitutional dissent, free speech, the ability to say what Israel is doing in Gaza is a terrible thing. That is something that has been building up for decades. And that was the same thing during McCarthyism. There was a kind of network of right-wing activists, similar to groups today, like the Heritage Society, that brought us the 2025 Project blueprint for Trump’s attack on the institutions of civil liberties and civil society, that has come to fruition since he entered the White House.

AMY GOODMAN: So, I mean, you speak as a Jewish author, active member of the American Association of University Professors. Would you say that the McCarthyism of yesteryear is the charges that President Trump, with his sidekick Elon Musk giving the “Heil Hitler” salute, charging antisemitism for what he’s doing?

ELLEN SCHRECKER: Antisemitism is a pretext. We know that. Trump has been all his life a racist, clearly befriending these fascist individuals and groups for years. And what we’re seeing is a kind of a melding of Trump’s own right-wing proclivities, reactionary proclivities, pro-fascist proclivities, with a long-term attempt within some pro-Zionist organizations to eliminate all support for Palestinian freedom and Palestinian liberation from American universities, in particular, but from within American society.

AMY GOODMAN: You have, earlier this month, a federal judge, Geoffrey Crawford, ordering the release of Columbia University graduate, Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi from a prison in Vermont. He was picked up by masked, hooded ICE agents at his naturalization interview in Vermont. He was beyond holding a green card. The judge writing in his ruling, quote, “Our nation has seen times like this before, especially during the Red Scare and Palmer Raids of 1919-1920” and during the McCarthy period of the 1950s. And I wanted to take it beyond that. You note that, you know, that we’re not just talking about individual professors anymore. We’re talking about current attacks being much broader. And you write that — this interesting paradox, quote, “despite higher education’s much larger footprint within American society, today the academy is in a much weaker position to resist political intervention.” Why is it weaker?

ELLEN SCHRECKER: It’s weaker for two reasons. One, because the state is stronger. The state does much more with regard to higher education than it did in the 1950s. You know, it supports most important basic scientific research. It regulates things on campus with regard to, shall we say, diversity, equity and inclusion, with trying to ensure that all Americans have a good shot at higher education. That was a push by the federal government. So, you can see that the government is much more involved. It funds student loans. Most smaller universities without huge endowments rely on students who have to get federal loans in order to pay tuitions. So, what he’s doing by withdrawing federal money from higher education is, essentially, threatening to destroy American higher education today.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to the clip of Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaking in March following the arrest of the Columbia graduate student, now graduated graduate student, albeit he was in jail in Louisiana when he got his diploma at Columbia, Mahmoud Khalil.

SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO: If you tell us, when you apply, “Hi. I’m trying to get into the United States on a student visa. I am a big supporter of Hamas, a murderous, barbaric group that kidnaps children, that rapes teenage girls, that takes hostages, that allows them to die in captivity, that returns more bodies than live hostages,” if you tell us that you are in favor of a group like this, and if you tell us when you apply for your visa, “And by the way, I intend to come to your country as a student and rile up all kinds of anti-Jewish student, antisemitic activities. I intend to shut down your universities,” if you told us all these things when you applied for a visa, we would deny your visa. I hope we would. If you actually end up doing that, once you’re in this country on such a visa, we will revoke it. And if you end up having a green card — not citizenship, but a green card — as a result of that visa while you’re here and those activities, we’re going to kick you out.

AMY GOODMAN: Of course, the Trump administration not proven any of this. And a number of students have been released from prison, with very angry judges talking about “Where are the grounds for these people to be imprisoned?” Mahmoud Khalil has been now imprisoned for three months as his little baby was born here in New York. If you can talk about what this leads to, these kind of harsh attacks, when it comes to speech and when it comes to universities? You were just addressing the deans at Columbia University. Some compare Harvard not fighting — Harvard fighting back against the Trump administration, and Columbia conceding, and the pressure it’s put on its students.

ELLEN SCHRECKER: Yeah, this has been a constant in the history of American higher education to collaborate with political repression. They, universities, do not fight back. They didn’t fight back during the McCarthy period. They’re not — were not fighting back, until this miracle. It really was a miracle, totally unexpected, of the president at Harvard saying, “No, I cannot go along with what you were asking.” And what they were —

AMY GOODMAN: The Jewish president at Harvard, right?

ELLEN SCHRECKER: He’s Jewish, right.

AMY GOODMAN: Alan Garber, who President Trump is accusing of antisemitism.

ELLEN SCHRECKER: Well, of course, we’re all antisemites, as long as we feel that maybe you shouldn’t be killing babies in Gaza every day.

But what we’re seeing is the beginning of a pushback against what Trump is doing, what his entire apparatus of hoodlums, I think, is trying to do to the universities. And that wonderful quote you had from Secretary of State Rubio, when he said, you know, paraphrasing these supposed terrorists, that they wanted to shut down the universities, he’s doing more to shut down the universities than probably anybody else in America at this moment.

AMY GOODMAN: Threatening to revoke the visas of all —

ELLEN SCHRECKER: Exactly.

AMY GOODMAN: — international students. What about the role of your organization, the AAUP, the American Association of University Professors?

ELLEN SCHRECKER: Right. We are a group that is over a hundred years old. And when we were founded, it was a period very much like today, where outsiders, politicians and especially very wealthy businesspeople on boards of trustees, were interfering with what faculty members were saying and doing with regard to — at that point, there was a lot of labor unrest and attempts to create unions. And university professors were sort of saying, “Well, look at the working conditions under which American workers are being oppressed. Let’s do something about industrial accidents and things like that.” Today, we’re seeing that, in every way, the federal government, state legislators interfering with the academic work of university professors. And that is what my organization is trying to do, is to protect the integrity and the educational value of what goes on on American campuses.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you hold out hope, in this last minute we have together?

ELLEN SCHRECKER: Yes, because, unfortunately, we have no model we can follow from McCarthyism, because there was no pushback, but today we’re seeing people marching to commencement at Harvard wearing labels saying, you know, “Enough is enough, President Trump. “We’re seeing huge crowds showing up to welcome Mohsen coming back from Vermont after having been picked up by ICE.

We’re seeing a growing movement within civil society, that has to be maintained, and has to be maintained for years. I mean, the damage that the Trump administration is doing is absolutely beyond the pale and has never, never been equaled in American life with regard to higher education. So, we’ve got to get out there in the trenches and even begin to think some more about: OK, if they’re not paying attention to the judges, if the Supreme Court folds — and let us pray that it does not — what do we have to do?

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there, Ellen Schrecker, author of Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America, No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities, also the author of The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom. We’ll link to your piece in The Nation headlined “Worse Than McCarthyism: Universities in the Age of Trump,” as well as Jelani Cobb’s piece in The New Yorker that extensively quotes you, Ellen Schrecker, at democracynow.org.

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Trump’s sweeping budget legislation has been described as the biggest Medicaid cut in U.S. history. House Republicans passed the bill early Thursday morning in a 215-214 vote. The legislation would trigger massive cuts to Medicare and Medicaid over the next 10 years, denying coverage to an estimated 7.6 million Americans, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Food assistance under the federal SNAP program would also see $300 billion in cuts, while adding billions in funding for Trump’s mass deportation agenda and giving the wealthiest Americans a tax break.

“The legislation is basically a mugging conducted by the 1% against the rest of us. It represents the single largest upward redistribution of wealth effectuated by any piece of legislation in our history,” says Chris Lehmann, D.C. bureau chief for The Nation.

Senate Republicans, who have voiced some concerns over the bill, will now have to pass their own version of the budget. With all Democratic senators opposed to the package, Republicans are working to use the reconciliation process to avoid a filibuster.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show looking at Trump’s sweeping budget bill that includes what’s been described as the biggest Medicaid cuts in U.S. history. On early Thursday morning, House Republicans passed the bill, giving massive tax breaks to the rich while slashing spending for Medicaid, Medicare, food assistance and subsidies for clean energy. The measure just eked through with a 215-to-214 vote that came after an all-night session and days of negotiations.

Food assistance under the federal SNAP program would also see $300 billion in cuts, while adding billions in funding for Trump’s border enforcement and mass deportation agenda.

House Speaker Mike Johnson praised the budget package, speaking after the vote.

SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: We look forward to the Senate’s timely consideration of this once-in-a-generation legislation. We stand ready to continue our work together to deliver on the One, Big, Beautiful Bill, as President Trump named it himself.

AMY GOODMAN: Ahead of the House vote, Democratic Congressmember Greg Casar of Texas confronted Republicans on the House Budget Committee on rising healthcare premiums for their constituents while giving billionaires more tax breaks.

REP. GREG CASAR: In this bill, they’re going to jack up the premiums on healthcare for the people that rely on the marketplace for their healthcare. And so, I will hand the mic over, yield my time to any of my Republican colleagues that want to address the amount of money that their tax-paying citizens are going to have to pay in increased premiums for their healthcare. … And what bothers me the most is that we want to hide it. Nobody wants here to talk about the fact that they are jacking up insurance costs on their own constituents while giving a billionaire a tax break. Nobody on the Republican side pushing this bill wants to have an in-person town hall and look their constituents in the face and explain to them why they want to hand Elon Musk another $25 billion contract while jacking up your health insurance costs, not just by hundreds, but by thousands of dollars.

AMY GOODMAN: Again, they’re the largest Medicaid cuts in U.S. history. The legislation would trigger $625 billion in Medicare cuts over the next 10 years.

Some Senate Republicans have voiced some concerns over the measure and will now have to pass their own version of the budget. With all Democratic senators opposed to the package, Republicans could resort to using the reconciliation process to avoid a filibuster.

For more, we go to Washington, D.C. We’re joined by Chris Lehmann, D.C. bureau chief for The Nation. His latest piece is headlined “Trump and Johnson’s Big Ugly Lie.”

Chris Lehmann, welcome back to Democracy Now! Lay out what’s in the legislation.

CHRIS LEHMANN: Thanks, Amy. Always a pleasure.

Yeah, I would say the legislation is basically a mugging conducted by the 1% against the rest of us. It represents the single largest upward redistribution of wealth effectuated by any piece of legislation in our history. The tax cuts work out to about $4 trillion, and the chief beneficiaries are at the upper end of the income spectrum. People earning $4 million or more, the 0.1%, will realize $389,000 gains in their after-tax income, whereas the lowest quintile of earners, who make $17,000 or less, will be on the hook for $1,000 and some change in their after-tax income, and that number will rise over the 10-year course of this package.

And the GOP has dishonestly peddled it as a, you know, necessary — the cuts in the legislation as necessary fiscal discipline. In point of fact, this package will increase the federal deficit by $3 trillion. And you saw instantly the bond markets swooned on the news that this legislation has passed. The futures markets today are sort of in freefall.

So, it is just an outlandish piece of legislation, you know, based on basic economic principles, and it is a massive giveaway to the wealthy. You mentioned, you know, the historic cuts to Medicaid, to SNAP, to food assistance. There’s also just, you know, crass and corrupt lobbying giveaways. There’s a provision in it that prohibits all states from regulating artificial intelligence. It’s a staggering work of theft from on high.

AMY GOODMAN: And explain the “on high.” Explain what the billionaires get in exchange for cutting Medicaid, triggering the Medicare cuts, cutting clean energy, cutting food assistance.

CHRIS LEHMANN: They get $2.5 trillion in tax cuts. And that is — that’s been the social contract, you know, behind the MAGA takeover of the GOP all this time. You know, the billionaires are more than happy to have Trump foment racial hatreds, you know, panic about the border, about DEI, what have you, go after universities, as we’re now seeing, all in exchange for this, for yet more obscene wealth. That, you know, as is crafted in this bill, is directly taking critically needed support and, you know, assistance from the middle class and the working class.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about the position of the Democratic Party in this. The party has faced widespread criticism, accused of failing to properly challenge Trump’s agenda. There’s a new piece —

CHRIS LEHMANN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — by The New — in The New Republic that says, quote, “House Republicans managed to pass their draconian budget bill, which promises to make massive cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and food assistance, early Thursday morning by a narrow one-vote margin that was only possible due the deaths of three Democrats in this current Congress.” It goes on to talk about, on Wednesday, Representative Gerry Connolly of [Virginia] passed away after battling esophageal cancer. He’s the third Democrat to die in office this year and the sixth in just over a year. In March, longtime Arizona Congressmember Raúl Grijalva passed away also after battling cancer, and Congressmember Sylvester Turner of Houston, Texas, died six days earlier. Can you talk about all of this?

CHRIS LEHMANN: Yes, this is, you know, an ongoing problem. And obviously, this is all in the shadow of new revelations about how the Biden White House basically concealed the actual cognitive decline of the president. You know, there is a huge gerontocracy problem in the Democratic Party, and where, you know, it is not an exaggeration, as the piece you quoted says, that if we did not lose these three House members, this disastrous bill might have been stopped.

And it’s also — you know, beyond the demographics, there is also just a basic failure of standing up for principle. You know, there was an earlier budget showdown that could have produced a government shutdown, and Democrats had leverage at that point to get concessions from Republicans in exchange for letting the budget go forward, and Chuck Schumer just folded like a cheap suit in the Senate and gave the Republicans everything they demanded. That’s the sort of longer-term background to this disastrous bill that passed yesterday. The Republicans know they can count on Democrats either to, you know, to put things bluntly, to die or to fold. And, you know, this is a real problem.

AMY GOODMAN: I just want to note, Heather Cox Richardson, in her newsletter, points out that we’re talking about “the single biggest increase in funding to —

CHRIS LEHMANN: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — “immigration enforcement in the history of the United States,” increasing ICE’s detention budget from $3.4 billion a year to $45 billion through September 2029, a staggering 365% increase on an annual basis that would permit ICE to detain at least 100,000 people at a time. Your final comment, Chris Lehmann, as we move on to talk about one of the people who’s in that detention system, Mahmoud Khalil?

CHRIS LEHMANN: Well, I think it’s, again, important to outline, in this case, that this boondoggle to the repressive and, you know, illegal ICE detention system comes on the back of another Democratic capitulation. The same Democratic Senate voted to endorse the Laken Riley Act, which erected this new system of detention and rendition that’s operating illegally and without accountability in our country, after, prior to that, the Democrats eagerly touted a Republican immigration reform that included many of these same draconian provisions. So, again, it’s a failure of effective resistance and moral leadership on the part of the Democrats. And yeah, it’s a disastrous amping up of this shadow, you know, fascist state.

AMY GOODMAN: And just to put an underscore on it, Heather Cox Richardson writes, “It increases ICE’s budget for transportation and removal operations by 500%, from the current $721 million to $14.4 billion. It also calls for [$46.5 billion] for construction of barriers at the border, including completing 701 miles of wall, 900 miles of river barriers, and 629 miles of secondary barriers, and replacement of 141 miles of vehicle and pedestrian barriers.” It calls for $45 billion for adult and family detention, enough to detain at least 100,000 people at a time.

Chris Lehmann, I want to thank you for being with us, D.C. bureau chief for The Nation. We’ll link to your piece, “Trump and Johnson’s Big Ugly Lie.”

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We go to Memphis for an update after jurors acquitted three former Memphis police officers of the murder of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black father who died after the officers brutally beat him during a traffic stop in January 2023. The group beating was caught on video, provoking widespread outrage and calls for police reform. The three officers still face sentencing after they were convicted of separate federal charges, along with two other officers who pleaded guilty to the state charges and will not stand trial. “A lot of us were shocked,” says Amber Sherman, of the Memphis community’s response. Sherman, a community organizer and member of Black Lives Matter Memphis, joined the family Thursday at a community vigil and protest. She warns this latest acquittal will “embolden” Memphis police as they continue to “do whatever they want.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

We end today’s show in Memphis, Tennessee, where the family of Tyre Nichols joined supporters to protest and grieve Thursday, after jurors Wednesday unanimously acquitted three former Memphis police officers of the murder of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black father who died after the officers brutally beat him during a traffic stop that was caught on video.

For more, we go to Memphis. We’re joined by Amber Sherman, community organizer, member of the official Black Lives Matter Memphis chapter and host of the podcast The Law According to Amber.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Amber. You were out there with the family yesterday as people held a memorial vigil and protest. Can you respond to the jury’s acquittal of the three officers? Not to say they won’t serve time in jail, because they were also federal charges that they faced, along with other officers.

AMBER SHERMAN: Yeah. Thank you for having me. I think that a lot of us were shocked. I thought they would at least be found guilty on a few charges, but, boy, did they prove me wrong. I was like, “OK, never mind then.” But I do feel like them being found guilty [sic] on all of the charges really does embolden the Memphis Police Department —

AMY GOODMAN: Acquitted of all the charges.

AMBER SHERMAN: — to feel like now they don’t even have to take their —

AMY GOODMAN: Acquitted of all the charges.

AMBER SHERMAN: Yeah, acquitted. Yeah. Really emboldens them to just feel like they can do whatever they want. And they can really just leave their body cameras on. It doesn’t even matter, because if you see it on camera, they’re still going to find you not guilty of the charges, and you’ll be acquitted.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you remind our audience what happened to Tyre when he was just stopped for a traffic stop?

AMBER SHERMAN: Yes. Tyre was stopped by the Scorpion Unit, which is a type of task force here in Memphis. The task force has since been disbanded, but there are similar task forces that exist still, so they’re still doing these types of stops, where they are targeting people in certain types of cars, in certain neighborhoods — specifically, Black neighborhoods, because they said that they want to target high-crime areas. But the area that he was in had only had one homicide in the entire year before. So, to me, it looks like they’re targeting Black people and Black neighborhoods.

And he was stopped by an officer. He was immediately yanked out of his car and yelled at. He was asking them, why are they were stopping him. They don’t tell him anything. They started hitting him. Their body cameras were still on at that point. And then, at some point, he is able to escape them from beating him and runs down the street towards his house. And then they find him on a corner at Castlegate and Ross, which is in Memphis, in East Memphis, and there’s a Skycam above him, which are these cameras that the police department used to surveil our neighborhoods, actually.

But this Skycam actually had AI technology that helped the camera to move around, so it actually moves as they’re beating him. And you can see from multiple angles that multiple officers are kicking him in the head, are hitting him in the body. They try to spray him with pepper spray but sprayed themselves, so then they get even more angrier and continue to hit him. And he is, at one point, just lifeless, laying there, just being hit. And they’re using all the excuses in the world about how, you know, this is their training, and he was resisting. But you can clearly see on video that he’s not.

AMY GOODMAN: I just want to say that the former officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith — were found not guilty of murder in the state trial, but in a separate federal case, they were found guilty of witness tampering and await sentencing for that conviction. And two others were also convicted on the federal charge and pleaded guilty to state charges, will avoid trial. But they are all possibly expected to serve time in prison. In this last minute that we have, Amber, the response of the family, what they’re calling for at this point?

AMBER SHERMAN: Well I just want to also add that Demetrius Haley was found guilty of excessive force, deliberate interference for medical intervention, and witness tampering — not just witness tampering. And he’s facing up to life in federal prison.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Amber Sherman, I want to thank you so much for being with us, community organizer, member of the official Black Lives Matter Memphis chapter, host of the podcast The Law According to Amber. We have 15 seconds. The message from his family?

AMBER SHERMAN: We want justice for Tyre. And that looks like abolishing the police.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much for being with us from Memphis, Tennessee — Memphis, Tennessee, where Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated April 4th, 1968.

Survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic priests are calling for Pope Leo XIV to institute a zero-tolerance policy and for the church to investigate his handling of prior sexual abuse allegations. “He needs to be transparent. He needs to be honest,” says Peter Isely, a survivor of sexual assault by a Catholic priest and a co-founder of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. “Wait and see,” says James V. Grimaldi, executive editor of National Catholic Reporter. “Don’t listen to what they say. Watch what they do.” We are also joined by Father Bryan Massingale, professor of theological and social ethics at Fordham University.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring our next guest into this conversation. He’s back in Rome, Italy: Peter Isely. He is a survivor of sexual assault by a Catholic priest as a 13-year-old boy growing up in Wisconsin. Peter is one of the founders and global affairs chief of SNAP, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. SNAP’s open letter in response to the new pope, quote, “highlights the grim reality underpinning the College of Cardinals — many who voted in this conclave actively shielded abusers, and many who will be appointed to the curia under this papacy bear similar stains,” they write.

Peter Isely, can you talk about your organization’s very grave concerns about Cardinal Prevost being elected pope?

PETER ISELY: Yeah, and you can imagine how difficult this is for me to be sitting here, for survivors to — what they’re experiencing today, especially when survivors from Peru and some in the United States who were raped and sexually assaulted by Augustinians, the order that Prevost was provincial of and then global — head of the global order, what it felt like to see him walk out on that balcony, knowing that your family, you, your life has permanently changed because of how he has managed or mismanaged sexual abuse cases. It’s hard not to be a part of the Leo fan club right now. I’m pretty confident I’m the most unpopular person probably in Rome right now, and certainly on this panel.

But here are the facts, and this is why we were in Rome launching Conclave Watch. People need to know what the records on sexual abuse and cover-up are of these cardinals. And we filed a _ Vos estis_ complaint. That’s the official mechanism that you’re supposed to use when a bishop has evidence of covering up sex crimes. And in that filing, there is plenty of evidence — now, I’m not saying he’s guilty, but we’re saying it reaches well beyond probable cause that he covered up sex crimes as Augustinian provincial and as head of the Augustinian Order and then as a bishop in Peru from 2014 to 2023.

And the worst is a case that he was directly involved in, three sisters who were sexually assaulted and raped by two priests in his diocese. They were, like, 6 and 7 years old. The statute of limitations in Peru for child sex crimes is four years. So, they didn’t go to the police by — you know, 9 years old, they didn’t go to the police. But they did it, and one of them admitted it. He admitted to the church that he committed these heinous, awful crimes against these girls. And what Prevost did with that information is that he didn’t launch an — give it to justice officials, say, in Peru to find out if there’s any possibility of prosecution. He took that criminal evidence, like they do all around the world, and he shipped it via diplomatic pouch over here to the Vatican over here. What are they doing with it? And that case was closed because of the civil statute in Peru. The man has sexually assaulted children. They were left in ministry. These victims had to go public. Imagine the courage of these three women, women that didn’t get to read the Gospel today or whatever, what happened over there, but these three women raped and sexually assaulted by two Peruvian priests. Prevost — I’m sorry, I hate saying this — I hate saying this —

AMY GOODMAN: I want to, Peter —

PETER ISELY: — the evidence is that he covered up these crimes.

AMY GOODMAN: Peter, I wanted to go to a clip —

PETER ISELY: Who’s sitting right now in the Augustinian headquarters, by the way?

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to a clip, by the way.

PETER ISELY: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: This recent scrutiny centering around Cardinal Robert Prevost’s alleged awareness and mishandling of accusations of sex abuse against two priests, when Prevost, now the pope, was the archbishop, as you described, in Peru. This is a clip of Ana María Quispe, a Peruvian woman, who you were talking about, who accused the two priests, Eleuterio Vásquez and Ricardo Yesquén, of sexual abuse. In an interview with the Peruvian media in 2023, she said the abuse started when she was 9 years old.

ANA MARÍA QUISPE: [translated] What happened to me was around 2007. At the time, the priests would invite us to celebrations, to go on missions, to pray the Rosary with him or to Mass. He would insist on having youth go on missions with him to rural regions in the mountains. After so much insistence, my parents agreed, because the priests and I were really close. When it was time to go to bed, he ended up sleeping with me. It was something I didn’t expect, and it was very uncomfortable. … In regards to Father Ricardo Yesquén, I attended a youth missionary group with him. … I was standing in line to greet him when he kissed me. He sat me on top of his legs, and he kissed me.

AMY GOODMAN: So, there is the clip of Ana María Quispe, the Peruvian woman accusing two priests of sexual abuse. If you can talk further, Peter, as you sit there in Rome, what your demands are at this point, and if you’ve ever spoken to the current pope, to Pope Leo XIV?

PETER ISELY: No, I’ve never spoken to him. I don’t know if any survivor has spoken to him. He hasn’t tweeted anything from survivors, as far as I know.

I mean, here’s what we wanted from him. Here’s what he needs to do. One, he needs to pass not a policy, a law, a canon law — that’s what governs the Catholic Church — a zero-tolerance law. And what that means is simple. Any cleric, any priest, known, determined — known, determined, like these priests were known and determined — to have committed acts of sexual abuse, violence, rape, assault against a child will be permanently removed from the Catholic priesthood. He can no longer be a priest. He can’t function as a priest. He can’t represent himself as a priest. That zero tolerance right now around the world. You can be a bishop, you can have priests — and they know of these priests — who have raped and sexually assaulted children, and you can stay in the ministry, you can transfer them to new assignments, and that’s perfectly legal under this church law.

Secondly, he needs to tell us how he has handled these cases. There needs to be an independent body, not hired by the church, not hired by him, that’s going to look into the abuse archives that he’s involved with, so when he was Augustinian provincial, when he was head of the Augustinian Order. Right now we’re in the Augustinian headquarters. Those files might be right here. They might be, like, three floors down from me. Those need to be reviewed, what cases did he handle, because every case of an Augustinian during that time of rape and sexual assault — and there were cases — went to him, he was responsible for. And in Peru, all that time in Peru, every case in his diocese, he was responsible for. That needs to be examined. He needs to be transparent. He needs to be honest. Let’s open the archives and see what he’s done. Even with the case, by the way, of this victim, her other two sisters then came forward with her. It’s not just her. It’s her and her two sisters, for God’s sake. Let’s see the report he sent to Rome that has led to the closing of this case.

And then, finally, the last job he had was head of the Dicastery of Bishops. All the reports of bishops that have covered up sex crimes, guess where they’re supposed to go. Guess where Vos estis is supposed to be instituted. Over there with him. So, he knows of all the — any reports of bishops that have covered up sex crimes, or cardinals. Those files are over there. So, he needs to open up those archives, because, believe me, we want to trust him.

Right now there is no indication, when it comes to this, that he can be trusted. I am the last person that wants to say this. Do you know how difficult this is for me to say, with all the praise and adulation and glory? I agree with many of the positions that the other two guests talked about. I agree with that. But just because I criticize Pope Leo, and just because we had the same problem with Francis covering up sex crimes, that does not make us JD Vance, that doesn’t make us conservatives, because, oh God, you know, we’re criticizing Pope Leo. And I’m sorry to get so worked up about this, but it is extraordinarily difficult to be in these conversations right now.

JAMES V. GRIMALDI: Can I respond, Amy?

AMY GOODMAN: Yes, James Grimaldi, editor of National Catholic Reporter, who’s sitting next to Peter Isely in the studio in Rome, if you could respond?

JAMES V. GRIMALDI: Yeah. First, I want to say that there is no media organization in the world that has done more to expose sexual abuse by priests than the National Catholic Reporter. That’s number one. We gave our database of abusers to SNAP and Bishop Accountability. That’s why they have a database. So I just wanted to make that point.

Second, I’m from Missouri, Amy. You’ve got to show me. And I think Peter’s a nice man, like Peter a lot. But he’s conflated a number of things. The cases that he’s talking about are horrific. They’re awful. Those priests should be banished from the Catholic Church. We agree on that. No question whatsoever. The question that I don’t have, the evidence that I don’t have — and when I met Peter the other night, I asked him to send it to me. And, in fact, I emailed him the next day, and I said, “Give me that evidence on Prevost,” because he was on our short list. We thought he could become the next pope. And I didn’t get a reply. Now, he’s here in Rome. I didn’t have his card. I sent it through their website. So, it could be that for whatever happened and a million things going on — and I’m running a team of seven people — but I’m still eager to see the evidence, because you’ve got to show me that his fingerprints are on a cover-up, and we don’t have that.

Third, I agree with a lot that he just said. And we don’t know if Pope Leo is going to agree or not. I hope he does, because I am a lifelong, as you know, Amy, after having exposed Jack Abramoff, the corrupt lobbyist — I’m all in favor of transparency and openness. And Francis made some steps in that direction. Did he go far enough? No. Could Pope Leo go further? Yes. You know, I’m with Peter. Let’s go downstairs and look for the archives. I love archives. If those archives are here, they should open them up. I want to see exactly what happened. So, all of the things he’s talking about — and the canon law change, which he mentioned to me the other night, I think that’s a great idea. We have no evidence yet that he isn’t going to do that.

And I agree with our priest friend that we had on a minute ago. You know, something he said 13 years ago, how do we know it hasn’t changed? I mean, people’s minds change. As you know, Amy, as you know very well, Amy Coney Barrett allegedly told Senator Susan Collins she would not overturn Roe v. Wade because she believed in stare decisis. How did that work out? Well, people change their minds. And we don’t know what’s going to happen with Pope Leo. So, I would say wait and see. Don’t listen to what they say. Watch what they do.

AMY GOODMAN: So, I’m going to give you right there, Peter —

PETER ISELY: Let me respond.

AMY GOODMAN: — the last 30 seconds, and then to Father Bryan Massingale for a final comment here. But what I want to do is have the two of you back on as you review the evidence, because this is obviously an ongoing conversation, Peter.

PETER ISELY: Did you hear the victim talking? They did an open letter. Do you know what guts it took to put their names on a letter that they released to the public with their names on it? They’re the ones that said they went to Prevost. Let’s see the report Prevost sent. I am talking and believing the victims. Their accounts are completely consistent. There are two —

JAMES V. GRIMALDI: I believe the victims, too.

PETER ISELY: Please let me finish, sir, OK? And you never sent me the email.

JAMES V. GRIMALDI: I did.

PETER ISELY: OK, fine. OK, let me finish, please. And the thing is, please respect the fact, whether you disagree with me or not, that I am a survivor of rape and sexual assault by a priest in the Catholic Church. And what I’m thinking about is that young lady in Peru and her sisters and what they are going through right now, seeing the praise and adulation of this man. He covered up those crimes in Peru. There’s plenty of evidence for an investigation.

He did it in Chicago. This is in court records. He put two priests in residences, one next to a high school, pedophile priest, one next to an elementary school, pedophile priest. He didn’t even tell the parents of those children or the principal of that school, “I’ve got a pedophile priest like 1,000 feet away from your school.” OK? Didn’t do any of that. So, that’s not the care of children.

And I’ll tell you, finally, he was out on that balcony. Did you hear one word to victims of sexual crimes and violence in the Catholic Church? All about peace. Peace is about ending violence. And so, the violence he can end — I don’t know what he can do about the Ukraine and anything else, but he can end the sexual violence in the church, pass said zero-tolerance now law. He knows what it is. It’s been drafted. Pass it. And let’s see the archives. There’s plenty of evidence. Maybe you can ask him. I mean, you seem to be good friends with him. Let’s go get those archives.

JAMES V. GRIMALDI: I’ve never — I’ve never met him. I want to see your evidence. JGrimaldi —

PETER ISELY: I’ve said it. Go up — go to — go —

JAMES V. GRIMALDI: I’m going to give you my email, Peter.

PETER ISELY: You said you did that before. Go to —

JAMES V. GRIMALDI: JGrimaldi@ncronline.org.

PETER ISELY: OK. OK, great, fine.

JAMES V. GRIMALDI: JGrimaldi@ncronline.org.

PETER ISELY: I know NCR. [inaudible]

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there, but we’re going to —

PETER ISELY: OK, let’s — OK, all right.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there, but we’re going to continue this conversation, because it’s clearly —

PETER ISELY: Please.

AMY GOODMAN: — an absolutely critical one. I want to thank Peter Isely, as the two of you also pat each other on the back there. You’re clearly both interested in the investigation of this and getting to the bottom of it.

PETER ISELY: James, please. OK?

AMY GOODMAN: Peter Isely is the survivor of sexual assault by a Catholic priest when he was growing up in Wisconsin, and the founder, one of the founders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. And I also want to thank James Grimaldi, executive editor of the National Catholic Reporter. We have a date to put the two of you back on the show. But I want to get a final comment from our guest here in New York. You may not be in Rome, but you have a lot to say about this. As we look at the future of the new pope, Reverend Bryan Massingale, what do you want to see?

FATHER BRYAN MASSINGALE: I guess I want to see a couple things. I want the pope to be a voice for the voiceless. What we see around the world and in our own country is rising intolerance, the scapegoating of the migrant and the immigrant. We are seeing the erasure of trans people from our public lives. We’re seeing the revision of our histories, when we try to edit Harriet Tubman out of the Underground Railroad, all in the name of DEI. And this is only in this country. We know that populist nationalisms are increasing around the world. We need this pope to be a voice for the voiceless.

We also need the pope to be a moral conscience for the world. There are so few leaders of global — global leaders of moral integrity. And I was pleased to see that he was taking on JD Vance. But we need him to step into that void of moral and ethical leadership that we have in our world right now.

And we also need the pope to be a prophet of hope in these uncertain times. We haven’t talked about climate change. And I think one of the things that being from Peru — and he sees that climate change is threatening the existence of entire island nations around the world. We’re seeing people in our own country that are wrestling with growing uncertainty, and we see how that uncertainty is being weaponized by public leaders. We need someone who can be an articulate voice of hope.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much for being with us, Father Bryan Massingale, professor of theological and social ethics at Fordham University here in New York, recent article for the monthly Catholic magazine America headlined “Pope Francis and the future of Catholic moral theology.” We will link to that.

NOW READ: Someone finally put spoiled child Trump in his place

Donald Trump has raised nearly a billion dollars from his various cryptocurrency schemes, says researcher Molly White. “He is really allowing for bribery and the types of corruption that we’ve never seen in the American presidency,” White says. She lays out how the Trump family profits from cryptocurrency while directly influencing policy and regulations, encouraging the transfer of wealth to the industry despite its “enormous risk of fraud and collapse.”democracynow.org

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Senators Elizabeth Warren and Jeff Merkley are calling for a federal investigation into the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture, after a fund backed by Abu Dhabi announced it would make a $2 billion investment in crypto exchange Binance using a Trump-branded cryptocoin. The deal could generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the Trump family.

In their letter, Senators Warren and Merkley wrote, quote, “The deal, if completed, would represent a staggering conflict of interest, one that may violate the Constitution and open our government to a startling degree of foreign influence and the potential for a quid pro quo that could endanger national security,” unquote.

Senator Warren also released this video last week blasting the deal.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: The United States is getting ready to bless Donald Trump’s latest grift. A shady Abu Dhabi investment firm just announced it’s going to make a $2 billion business deal with a foreign crypto company called Binance. So, here’s the kicker: Binance and the foreign investment firm are going to use Donald Trump’s stablecoin to finance their transaction, essentially giving Trump a cut of that $2 billion deal. Boy, looks like corruption, smells like corruption. So, yeah, the Senate is going to put a stop to it, right? Wrong. Right now the Senate is getting ready to greenlight the grift by passing the so-called GENIUS Act next week. This is a bill that would make it even easier for the president and his family to profit off their own stablecoin and oversee their own financial company.

AMY GOODMAN: President Trump is headed to the Gulf next week.

In related news, last night, on Monday, President Trump spoke at a crypto and AI innovators’ dinner to raise money for a pro-Trump super PAC. Tickets were one-and-a-half million dollars a plate. The event was held at the president’s golf club in Virginia. The co-host of the dinner was David Sacks, the White House AI and crypto czar. Sacks is a South African-born tech investor who was part of the so-called PayPal Mafia, founding PayPal with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.

On May 22nd, Trump is also hosting a private gala dinner for the top 220 investors in his meme coin. The dinner will also be held at the Trump National Golf Club. The promotion also offers an ultra-exclusive VIP reception with the president and a tour of the White House for the top 25 $TRUMP meme coin investors. The anti-corruption group CREW, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, called the promotion, quote, “one of the most blatant and appalling instances of selling access to the presidency we’ve ever seen,” they said.

We’re joined now by Molly White, an independent cryptocurrency researcher who runs the Citation Needed newsletter. She recently wrote an article headlined “Trump’s newest grift: Building a cryptocurrency empire while destroying its regulators.”

Molly, welcome to Democracy Now! If you can start off, for folks who aren’t following cryptocurrency that carefully, explain what cryptocurrency is.

MOLLY WHITE: Cryptocurrency is a digital asset. So, it’s an entirely digital form of speculation, essentially, that allows people to speculate on the value of tokens that are, you know, things like bitcoin or Ethereum, and it’s entirely digital. There is no physical representation. There is no physical asset or service backing the tokens.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And in your recent piece, Molly, you wrote that “The scope of the Trump family’s cryptocurrency conflicts illustrates a degree of corruption that makes the emoluments concerns of Trump’s first term seem quaint by comparison.” Could you explain?

MOLLY WHITE: Yeah. So, Trump’s crypto ventures are growing, seemingly by the week. It seems like every week something new is announced, whether it’s his World Liberty Financial crypto platform or his $TRUMP meme coin or rumors of a new crypto game that his backers are working on. And so, he is really allowing for bribery and the types of corruption that we’ve never seen in the American presidency. You know, he’s allowing people to send him money. He is profiting directly from the cryptocurrency industry, while he is simultaneous influencing policy, legislation, calling off regulators who previously oversaw the crypto industry, in ways that are benefiting him and his family very directly.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And given the fact that cryptocurrency has become sort of the favored money-laundering method of criminals, drug dealers, anybody who wants to hide their money, what is the impact of the growing size of the crypto industry in terms of the financial system?

MOLLY WHITE: Well, it’s definitely concerning. I mean, there is this major potential for criminal activity using cryptocurrencies. We’ve seen it dramatically increase for use in money laundering, as you mention, terrorist financing. Ransomware is primarily these days done with cryptocurrency. And there’s very little in the way of regulations or laws that crack down on that type of activity.

And under the Trump administration, we’ve actually seen what few regulations were in place be pared back. The Securities and Exchange Commission, which previously was, essentially, the primary regulator of the cryptocurrency industry, has been called off the beat. We’ve seen cases against cryptocurrency companies dismissed with prejudice, investigations of crypto companies dropped. We’ve seen the cryptocurrency investigations teams at the SEC and the Department of Justice dismantled. And so, under the Trump administration, I think we are seeing dramatic expansion of the potential for criminal activity within cryptocurrency, as well as the, you know, complete reduction in consumer protections that would allow those who choose to get involved with cryptocurrency to do so without the fear that they are going to be scammed or taken advantage of.

AMY GOODMAN: Molly, how exactly does Trump and his family profit from these crypto ventures? How much money are we talking about? And explain. Trump has a crypto coin. Melania has one. Explain how this works.

MOLLY WHITE: Well, Trump has multiple crypto ventures that are directly enriching him. So, you mentioned there’s the $TRUMP meme coin, which is the token that is themed after him, essentially, and is being currently used as a ticket to this private dinner at his golf course. Melania has a token of her own. And the Trumps make money off of those tokens, both in terms of the trading that’s happening, as well as facilitating the liquidity for those types of tokens.

Then there’s the World Liberty Financial platform, which is a yet-to-be-released crypto platform that is nevertheless selling these World Liberty Financial tokens to interested buyers. Trump makes 75% of the protocol revenues from that project, and he owns a 60% stake in the company. He and his family sort of maintained the illusion that there was an arm’s-length relationship between the project, despite it being entirely themed after Trump, prior to his election and inauguration, but after he was inaugurated, they sort of gave up that facade and obtained a majority stake in the company.

And then, Trump has sort of an endless list of additional crypto ventures. He has his NFT projects. He has sold crypto-themed sneakers. You know, there has been reporting that he is working on a crypto game. His Trump Media & Technology Group, which is the company that is behind the Truth Social platform that he controls, is also getting into crypto with a partnership with Crypto.com to launch crypto ETFs, exchange-traded funds. And there’s also reporting that they are considering launching their own token. So, the list really goes on.

And so far, I think he has raised close to a billion dollars, or he has profited in close to a billion dollars from his combined ventures. That number is only continuing to increase, as there are deals like this stablecoin being used by the United Arab Emirates Investment Fund, and as, you know, multiple new ventures are being launched as we go on.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, of course, the Trump administration has claimed that all of Trump’s investments are in a blind trust, that basically his sons run the company, not him.

MOLLY WHITE: Right, that is the claim, although he’s made varying claims. He’s even claimed not to profit from crypto at all, which is plainly untrue. But I think that, you know, frankly, it is not fair to say that he is divested from crypto ventures when it is controlled by his sons. His sons are profiting, and ultimately he is profiting. You know, he should not be making policy decisions or influencing policy in ways that benefit his family quite, quite plainly. And I don’t think that the claims that he has divested are accurate whatsoever.

AMY GOODMAN: Molly White, can you talk about the latest push by the Senate Democrats? Tell us more about the legislation that they want to change on cryptocurrency pending in Congress. What did the so-called GENIUS Act, a bill backed by the crypto industry, call for?

MOLLY WHITE: So, the GENIUS Act is primarily intended to regulate stablecoins, which are a category of crypto assets that are intended to maintain a peg to some other form of asset. So, we often see dollar stablecoins, which are crypto tokens that are intended to be worth $1 a piece. Those are assets like USDC or Trump’s USD1 stablecoin, which was recently launched. And the GENIUS Act, you know, seeks to install some amount of legislation that would regulate those types of assets.

And this is something that we’ve seen the crypto industry pushing for for quite some time, even prior to the Trump administration. But Trump’s own crypto ventures, including launching his own stablecoin, have recently stalled that legislation, with a number of Senate Democrats speaking up to oppose this bill, as well as those in the House, signaling that, you know, the Trump family financial interests are a major concern for them. The crypto industry has also pushed for a number of changes to this bill that would benefit the industry. And we’re now starting to see Democrats in Congress saying that this bill does not go far enough to prevent national security concerns or even terrorist financing using these stablecoins, which have been used to transfer massive amounts of funds. They are sort of the bedrock of the crypto industry, almost like the poker chips at the casino. Stablecoins are a major venue through which value is transferred in the crypto world. And so, this type of legislation is extremely important to get right.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Do we have any sense of who in the United States does this investing in crypto coins? How widespread is it? Or is there a profile of typical people who are buying the coins?

MOLLY WHITE: Well, there are everyday people who are involved in crypto speculation, but we also see major venture capital firms and investment firms getting involved in the crypto world, as well, including a number that have a significant presence in Washington. Andreessen Horowitz, for example, is one of the largest technology venture capital firms. They have significant investments in the cryptocurrency world, and a number of Andreessen Horowitz employees have been installed in various positions at the White House. Marc Andreessen himself was involved in selecting members of the Trump administration, and they were very heavily involved in political campaigning. Then there are figures like David Sacks, who is the AI and crypto czar at the White House. He runs an investment firm that also has crypto investments, some of which he’s not divested from.

So, there are multiple profiles of crypto investors, many of them institutional, but also everyday people who have bought the story that cryptocurrency is a way to get ahead financially, that crypto investments can potentially provide high returns and are worth the enormous risk and volatility that crypto brings with it, and, you know, now the enormous risk of fraud and collapse throughout the crypto industry, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Molly White, we want to thank you so much for being with us, software engineer, independent cryptocurrency researcher, running the Citation Needed newsletter. We’ll link to your recent piece, “Trump’s newest grift: Building a cryptocurrency empire while destroying its regulators.”

An alliance between the far right and Silicon Valley oligarchs has given rise to a form of “end times fascism,” says journalist Naomi Klein, who details in a recent essay co-authored with Astra Taylor how many wealthy elites are preparing for the end of the world even as they contribute to growing inequality, political instability and the climate crisis. Klein says that while billionaires dream of escaping to bunkered enclaves or even to space, President Donald Trump and other right-wing leaders are turning their countries into militarized fortress states to keep out immigrants from abroad and ramp up authoritarian control domestically.

“There’s always an apocalyptic quality to fascism, but fascism of the 1930s and ’40s had a horizon” for a utopian future, says Klein. Today, by contrast, “we’re up against people who are actively betting against the future — not just actively betting against it, but fueling the fires that are burning this world.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We spend the rest of the hour with award-winning journalist and author Naomi Klein. She has a major new piece out, co-authored with Astra Taylor, for The Guardian newspaper. It’s headlined “The rise of end times fascism.” It looks at the apocalyptic fervor of the far right.

In it, they write, quote, “[T]he most powerful people in the world are preparing for the end of the world, an end they themselves are frenetically accelerating. That is not so far away from the more mass-market vision of fortressed nations that has gripped the [hard] right globally, from Italy to Israel, Australia to the United States: in a time of ceaseless peril, openly supremacist movements in these countries are positioning their relatively wealthy states as armed bunkers,” Naomi Klein writes.

She is also professor of climate justice at the University of British Columbia, founding co-director of the UBC Centre for Climate Justice. Her latest book, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World.

Naomi, welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. If you can start off by talking about your piece and what exactly you mean by talking about the end times, fascism?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, it’s very good to be with you, Amy.

This isn’t the most cheerful piece I’ve ever written, with Astra Taylor, a very close collaborator, founder of the Debt Collective. And we were trying to kind of map what is similar and what is different about the type of far-right politics that we’re seeing today. And I should say, the piece is not only grim. It also looks at what this can mean for a response to this particular form of fascism, because we can’t fight it if we don’t understand it. So, I think a lot of very good scholarship attempting to understand authoritarianism today, whether it’s Trump or figures like Duterte or Modi, have looked at similarities between these far-right figures and, say, Mussolini or Hitler, and have taken a kind of a checklist approach of looking at what is similar to the past, right? And I think there’s a lot of value in that. But the risk of it is that it doesn’t look at what is new and what is particular to our time.

Fascism always is an attempt by the right to resolve a crisis of its own era. Right? So, in the 1930s, they were attempting to resolve, you know, in Germany, the humiliations of the First World War, the impacts of the Great Depression, and to propose a unity in the face of that for the in-group. But our moment is different, and one of the things that makes it different — I mean, if you think about fascism in the 1930s, this is before the atomic bomb. It’s before they understood climate change. And we are in a moment where our elites, whether they admit it or not, do understand that our economic model — and I’ve written books about this and talked about it with you in the past — is at war with life on Earth, right? And they are barreling down this road of more and more extraction of fossil fuels, of all kinds of — you know, basically, anything they can extract from this Earth and turn into energy and money, particularly now with AI, which is a energy and resource hog — water, LNG, critical minerals, all of it.

So, we’re trying to understand how this is informing the kind of fascism that we’re seeing, and also we’re trying to understand what unites this kind of strange Frankenstein coalition that Trump represents, where he’s bringing together these — you know, the richest people in the world who have ever existed with many working-class people, so what binds the vision, right?

And what we cope with in this piece, or what we propose in this piece, is that they all have given up on this world. Like, they all have bought into a kind of apocalyptic fever — right? — whether it’s Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and their investments in outer space and sort of writing off this planet, whether AI, which is willing to sacrifice this animate world in order to build an artificial world, or whether it’s the more populist MAGA vision of the fortress nation-state — right? — which is thinking, “OK, we know more and more people are going to be coming. We know that disaster is on the horizon.” I’ve listened to a lot of Steve Bannon for — you know, when I was writing Doppelganger, and it’s all very survivalist, right? You know, all of the commercials, pretty much, are selling, you know, gold, because the economy is going to collapse, you know, ready-to-eat meals for 90 days, because you never know what’s going to happen. So, it sees the nation and the in-group as being inside the bunker, and then it’s exiling the out-group to all of these lawless territories that you’ve been covering on the show. So, it’s not the same vision, but what it shares is this apocalyptic fever.

And then, of course, all of it is following a similar structure, like narrative structure, to the biblical Rapture. And, of course, you have people who believe in that within the Trump coalition, who are, you know, Christian Zionists, like Mike Huckabee and Pete Hegseth, who believe that the actual end times is coming, and they think it’s all going to go down in Israel. And all of the horror that you report on so well and so committedly on the show, these are all good signs if you believe in the Rapture, right? Because it means that the end is coming, and the faithful are going to be lifted up to a golden city in the sky. So, you know, what we’re looking at is like the religious version of that story, the the fundamentalist religious version of that story, where you literally believe you’re going to be saved and taken up to heaven, but also the secular vision, where your wealth protects you, or your citizenship protects you, and you get your own version of that golden, bunkered city.

AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned Gaza, and you just came from the Jewish Voice for Peace conference in Baltimore, where several thousand people gathered from around the country. Our latest headline, the Israeli military calling up tens of thousands of reservists as Israel’s security cabinet unanimously approved plans this weekend to expand its assault on Gaza, where Israel has already killed over 52,000 Palestinians — and that’s by far an undercount — in the last 18, 19 months. Israel has killed more than 2,400 Palestinians just since it shattered the ceasefire in March. This comes as Israel’s devastating blockade in food aid has entered its third month. Palestinian health officials say 57 Palestinians have already starved to death. According to UNICEF, more than 9,000 children have been admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition so far this year. And aid groups, like Norwegian Refugee Council, blasting a new Israeli proposal to take control in distribution and put U.S. security contractors in charge. If you can talk, as you so often do, about what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank and what the centrality of Israel in President Trump and the current U.S. government — although it was also the past, President Biden’s worldview and approach to foreign policy?

NAOMI KLEIN: So, I don’t think there is a single answer to understanding what the driving forces are. And this is what we’re trying to get at, is that there’s a kind of an overlap of these different apocalyptic worldviews. Some of them are religious, and some of them are secular, right? So, I think that people who subscribe to this, like, literalist version of the Rapture believe that all of this is good news, in the sense that, according to the story that they believe in, that the Israelites have to return to Greater Israel. Those are the preconditions for the return of the Messiah. They have to rebuild the Third Temple. So you have this convergence of interests between the religious extremists and the Netanyahu government, who are absolutely committed to rebuilding the Third Temple. They really want to do it. They want to destroy Al-Aqsa. This is why so much attention is focused on it.

But then, you know, does Trump believe that? I don’t think Trump believes that. I mean, what he views for Gaza is he sees resources. He sees money. He sees a private, you know, resort.

AMY GOODMAN: Resort.

NAOMI KLEIN: Exactly. But this is something I’ve been saying from the beginning. I think the interests have been fairly consistent in terms of what the end goal is, which is a depopulation of Gaza, pushing Palestinians out, whether through death or whether through forced exile, whether through ethnic cleansing. And under the Biden administration, there was a denial that that was what was going on. And under the Trump administration, it’s all out in the open. So, you know, this is what is going on.

Now, what the reason for that is, I think, differs. But this is what — part of what we’re getting at in the piece, Astra and I, is that there is a confluence of interests in terms of what Israel represents. Some of the supporters of the Trump administration in the tech industry are talking about wanting freedom cities, for instance, these privatized, corporate cities. And they talk about this as tech Zionism. They have a lot of admiration for the idea that Israel was created, they say, you know, from a book, Theodor Herzl’s books. And they said, “Well, why can’t we start our own country, our own private countries? Why do we have to — you know, why do we have to abide by the rules of the nation-state?”

So, I think part of the support for Israel isn’t just our classic understandings either of Jewish Zionism or Christian Zionism, although that’s absolutely going on. It’s also this idea of a very technologically advanced startup country, right? Israel has marketed itself that way. And a lot of these tech companies want to do that in San Francisco. They want to push everybody out who doesn’t agree with them, who’s poor, who have more needs, and create their kind of corporate, privatized utopia. So, you know, I’m not saying this is a coherent agenda. I’m saying that there’s a lot of overlapping stories that follow a similar structure and share similar goals, if that makes sense.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, yes, I mean, the overall issue, obviously, is hard to make sense of.

NAOMI KLEIN: Mm-hmm, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: And most Trump’s supporters are neither wealthy nor are they Christian Zionists. So, why are they backing this whole approach?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, it’s not clear the extent to which they actively back it, but I think that they see a kinship in the ethnostate — right? — because a lot of Trump supporters are becoming increasingly Christian nationalist about the United States. And this has been carefully fostered by figures like Steve Bannon. And so, when they look at Israel, they see a country that is openly an ethnostate that is fortressing itself in a sea of its enemies, you know, and they want to do something similar. And they’re sharing technologies. They’re sharing, you know, legal precedents, tools. So, there’s a — you know, there’s a kinship. And, you know, we’re seeing this now with India with its attacks on Kashmir, following us, you know, using similar techniques that, you know, Israel has used in Gaza. So, there is a kind of a solidarity of the ethnostates. And they are sharing — you know, they’re even trading trinkets of golden pagers and swapping chainsaws. You know, this is something that we — I think, you know, when you’re inside the crucible of it here in the United States under Trump, it’s hard to see the extent to which this is an international project on the right, and they are influencing one another.

AMY GOODMAN: And what does unite them, you know, this whole fortress mentality, is this hatred of immigrants. You have —

NAOMI KLEIN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — President Trump just saying he doesn’t even know — he’s not a lawyer, so he doesn’t know if he has to uphold the Constitution, he said.

NAOMI KLEIN: Right. I mean, this is what I’m trying to get at about the awareness that we are in an age of consequences, that when you don’t act in the face of the climate crisis for decades, when scientists have been warning you, that more and more of the world becomes uninhabitable, and, lo and behold, people move to try to find safety in the face of wars, in the face of economic deprivation and in the face of ecological disasters.

And so, that fortressing of the nation-state — and this is what I think, you know, Israel’s come to represent, just as a very small nation that is extremely fortressed — right? — whether it’s with the high-tech walls, the Iron Dome. Trump says now, “I want not an Iron Dome, but a golden dome.” Right? That —

AMY GOODMAN: Here.

NAOMI KLEIN: Here. That all of this is, whether it’s stated explicitly or not —

AMY GOODMAN: And a military parade that’ll cost tens of millions —

NAOMI KLEIN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — of dollars, even as he slices and dices the government, on his birthday, in June.

NAOMI KLEIN: Right. So the pattern is protecting the in-group and exiling and cleansing the out-groups. Right? And so, that, I think, is — you know, if there is support among the MAGA base for Israel, it’s less out of a love for Israel than more out of an identification, like they are doing what we want to do here.

AMY GOODMAN: You write many things in your piece, and I just want to go to one of them. You say — in talking about Musk’s apocalyptic vision, you talk about, and also detailing the end times fascism, this whole issue of the rise of the city state, the corporate city state. I think this is a new concept for many. They’re not going to know what you’re talking about.

NAOMI KLEIN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: In southern Texas, Starbase, just this group of people, who are mainly workers at SpaceX, have just voted to make a city right there?

NAOMI KLEIN: Mm-hmm, yeah. And we’ve had sort of — I mean, the idea of a company town is not entirely new, right? And Disney had Celebration, Florida, and there are lineages to this, right? Colonial lineages to this. You know, I live in Canada, which started as the Hudson’s Bay Company, right? So it was a company before it was a country. So there is some precedent for this.

But I think what this is — I’ve been following this out of the corner of my eye, Amy, because this is where libertarians have been going for a while. There was an — Peter Thiel has been obsessed with this idea. It’s increasingly being called exit, so exiting the nation and just starting your own country, where you can set your own tax level, you can make your own regulations.

AMY GOODMAN: Or not.

NAOMI KLEIN: Or not. And countries — and these little corporate countries will compete with one another to try to attract capital, right? So, in a way, it’s an extension of the free trade zone — right? — where this is, in a way, like a denationalized country within a country. But Trump started to float this in 2023, the idea that he would create 10 freedom cities, on the campaign trail. I don’t think his base much knew what he was talking about. But now you have all these lobbyists who fully intend to take him up on it. And we’re starting to see the beginning of this with this SpaceX city.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you also write about El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, the notorious prison, CECOT, where so many hundreds of people have been sent from the United States, and at the same time, in the last 24 hours, President Trump saying he wants to reopen the notorious Alcatraz —

NAOMI KLEIN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — an island in San Francisco. If you can talk about the prison as a model for what Trump wants to put forward, and particularly in relation, as we see motivating so much, to immigrants?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, this is an incredibly bleak vision. So, repression is always a huge part of any kind of fascist project, right? You need to contain the out-group. You need to disappear the out-group. So this part of it is not new. But I think what is so worrying to me is that Trump was elected promising all kinds of things to his base, right? He promised to eliminate inflation. He promised to bring these great jobs home. He’s not delivering on any of that. So the sadistic part of his project is really all he has to offer, right?

I think one of the most chilling things I’ve ever seen in the United States was Trump sharing that video at his hundred-day rally of just pure sadism, of just looking at prisoners, as entertainment, being shaved, being shackled, being paraded. And he’s not delivering on the price of eggs. And he’s not delivering on the jobs, by the way, because he’s throwing all in— he’s going all in on AI. So the jobs that are coming back seem to be mainly for robots. It’s not actually for his base. And so, this scales up the need for the sadism and these spectacles, right? And I think that that’s what something like Alcatraz represents. He’s a TV producer, first and foremost, right? He’s producing spectacles. And the less he has to offer economically, tangibly, materially, the more he leans on the sadism.

AMY GOODMAN: You write, “The governing ideology of the far right … has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. … Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them.” What would that movement look like, or what do you see is being formed right now?

NAOMI KLEIN: You know, what we’re doing in this piece by laying out the bleakness of the vision — and when I say “bleakness,” you know, I think it’s beyond something we’ve seen before, because there’s always an apocalyptic quality to fascism, but fascism of the 1930s and '40s had a horizon. Like, after the apocalypse, people were being promised a future, a pastoral, peaceful little piece of land where they could live out their lives, you know? Even though Trump talks about a golden age, there really isn't a future that the base believes in, you know? And this is what I’ve learned by consuming far too much MAGA media, Amy. They envision a future of endless war, right? And this is why they’re bunkering down. This is why they’re buying ready-to-eat meals to last. This is why they’re buying gold and crypto. They think the whole thing is going down. So —

AMY GOODMAN: And why Elon Musk is trying to have so many children, at least 14 at this point. But he’s actually explicitly texted it, saying, “We’ve got to do this much faster,” as he proposed to one of the women he has children with, saying, “We’ve got to start using surrogates.”

NAOMI KLEIN: So, they don’t believe in the future, is the bottom line. And that is — you know, I think I’ve been in a lot of progressive spaces in recent months where we’ve talked about building these very broad coalitions, including with people who we don’t entirely disagree with. I’ve never encountered a potential coalition more broad than the idea of: How about if we believe in this world? How about if we believe in the future? Because we’re up against people who are actively betting against the future, right? Not just actively betting against it —

AMY GOODMAN: Twenty seconds.

NAOMI KLEIN: — but fueling the fires that are burning this world, actively fueling it. So, I think that if we have the courage, really, to look at the bleakness of what they believe in, which is an apocalyptic future, then we have our work cut out for us of being the people who actually believe in this realm, in this world, in the beauty of creation and of each other.

AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein, I want to thank you for being with us, award-winning journalist, author, columnist. We’ll link to your piece with Astra Taylor, “The rise of end times fascism.” I’m Amy Goodman. This is Democracy Now!

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