Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz responds to Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, when the president repeatedly touted his tariffs as saving the country money and boosting the economy. Stiglitz says Trump’s “lies” about tariffs can’t erase the truth about how they have raised costs for most U.S. residents. “It is estimated the average family is paying somewhere between $1,000 and $1,700 in extra money because of the tariffs,” says Stiglitz. “His policies have failed.”

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

AMY GOODMAN: “Streets of Minneapolis” by Bruce Springsteen. Later in the broadcast, we will speak with Aliya Rahman. She was ripped out of her car, her windshield ”the passenger glass broken by immigration agents as they cut her seatbelt. A U.S. citizen who was then invited to the State of the Union by Congressmember Ilhan Omar. She was removed from the gallery. We will ask her if she was also arrested. That’s coming up.

This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. During his State of the Union, President Trump repeatedly hailed his economic record over the past year. He also openly criticized the Supreme Court again for striking down his global tariffs in a decision that’s having major implications on the global economy. Less than half, four of the nine Supreme Court justices, attended the speech. This is part of what Trump said.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Everything was working well. Countries that were ripping us off for decades are now paying us hundreds of billions of dollars. They were ripping us so badly, you all know that. Everybody knows it. Even the Democrats know it, they just don’t want to say it. And yet these countries are now happy and so are we. We made deals. The deals are all done and they’re happy. They’re not making money like they used to but we’re making a lot of money. There was no inflation, tremendous growth. And the big story was how Donald Trump called the economy correctly and 22 Nobel Prize winners in economics didn’t. They got it totally wrong. They got it really wrong. And then just four days ago, an unfortunate ruling from the United States Supreme Court, it just came down. It came down.

PEOPLE: [applause]

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Very unfortunate ruling.

PEOPLE: [cheers and applause]

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But the good news is that almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made. Right, Scott? Knowing that the legal power that I as president have to make a new deal could be far worse for them. And therefore, they will continue to work along the same successful path that we had negotiated before the Supreme Court’s unfortunate involvement.

So despite the disappointing ruling, these powerful country-saving—it’s saving our country, the kind of money we’re taking in—peace-protecting—many of the wars I settled was because of the threat of tariffs, I wouldn’t have been able to settle them without—will remain in place under fully approved and tested alternative legal statutes, and they have been tested for a long time—they’re a little more complex but they’re actually probably better—leading to a solution that will be even stronger than before.

Congressional action will not be necessary. It’s already time-tested and approved. And as time goes by, I believe the tariffs, paid for by foreign countries, will like in the past substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love.

PEOPLE: [applause]

AMY GOODMAN: We are joined now by Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist, Columbia University professor, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. Professor Stiglitz is also currently the chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute. His latest book just out in paperback this week, The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society.

Professor Stiglitz, welcome back to Democracy Now! Your response? You were among the signatories, the economists who have signed a letter against the tariffs. Talk about the president’s State of the Union and his argument for tariffs and against the Supreme Court. Two of his own appointees ruled against him.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, the speech was characteristic of Trump's lies, misleading statements.
I was with a group of a large number of Nobel Prize winners who predicted that he would be bad for the economy and we were right. The tariffs are paid by Americans. They’re not paid for by the foreigners. He says they didn’t have any effect on inflation. We saw inflation was going down, and if we compare where inflation would have been with where we are today, it is estimated the average family is paying somewhere between $1,000 and $1,700 in extra money because of the tariffs.

The irony is he said it was going to bring back manufacturing jobs. Manufacturing jobs are down in the United States in 2025 when they were up under President Biden. He doesn’t talk about that. In fact, last year was one of the slowest growth in jobs ever in recent memory, about a quarter of what it was under President Biden. And interestingly, most or more than 100% of the jobs that were created were in the healthcare sector, nothing to do with his tariffs at all.

AMY GOODMAN: Trump said in the past, “We have the most people working in history.” What is the state of unemployment, of livable employment, the overall economy?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, when the economy is ”more people in the country? Yes, there are going to be more people working. That’s true. The fact is that labor force participation has not gone up. The unemployment rate has gone up a little bit, not a lot. But what is striking is how weak the job market is. As I said before, we have not created very many jobs, less than a quarter of what we had created under President Biden. And anybody with friends trying to get jobs knows what a difficult labor market today’s labor market is.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to President Trump speaking last night.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Now the same people in this chamber who voted for those disasters suddenly use the word “affordability,” a word they just used it, somebody gave it to them knowing full well that they caused and created the increased prices that all of our citizens had to endure. You caused that problem. You caused that problem.

AMY GOODMAN: “Affordability,” Professor Stiglitz. We are speaking to you here in New York. Of course the new mayor Zohran Mamdani sent the message to people all over the country, especially those who are considering elected office or to diehard politicians, senators, congressmembers, that affordability was the word, was the issue people are most concerned about. What about President Trump mocking it?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: I think he is mocking the American people when he mocks the issue of affordability. The reason people worry about affordability is things are not affordable. And the other way of putting it is that their real incomes adjusted for inflation are down. Now, one of the striking things about what President Trump has done, he talked about this tax cut, the biggest tax cut in history. He was wrong about that. As a percentage of GDP, it doesn’t even rank near the top.

But where it does rank at the top is that it was the most regressive tax cut. That is to say the benefits went to the millionaires, the billionaires, the corporations, and those at the bottom paid the price. They paid the price with almost a $1 trillion cut in Medicaid. That was why the Democrats had insisted on the government shutdown. They said, “You can’t do that! That’s not right!” That you would be giving a tax cut for billionaires and asking the poorest Americans not to have adequate healthcare in a country where healthcare has been so bad, so bad that life expectancy even before the pandemic was on the down.

AMY GOODMAN: Your final comments, Professor Stiglitz, coming off of what’s considered one of the longest State of the Unions, an assessment of this country, in modern history?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, long speeches like that reminds me of Castro and other demagogues who just loves ”they get the platform and they just talk and talk and talk. But I think the striking thing is that in spite of the tariffs that were supposed to bring back manufacturing jobs, manufacturing jobs are actually down. And in spite of the tariffs that were supposed to eliminate the huge trade deficit in goods, the trade deficit in goods is actually up. So his policies have failed even in the areas where he—in the objectives that he set forth. So, yes, his speech was filled with misleading statements, with lies. We’ve come to expect that. But in the core aspect of his agenda, the numbers show that he has dramatically failed to do what he promised.

AMY GOODMAN: Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist, Columbia University professor, and former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. Professor Stiglitz is also currently the chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute. His new book just out in paperback this week, The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society.

British police released former Prince Andrew on Thursday after 11 hours in custody, with his shocking arrest earlier in the day making him the first senior British royal to be arrested in nearly 400 years. Police are probing his connections to the deceased sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein and whether he shared classified government information with him while serving as a U.K. trade representative from 2001 to 2011. King Charles’ brother, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor after being stripped of his royal title, is the most high-profile figure in the U.K. to be implicated in a widening scandal over ties to Epstein, who died in a New York jail in 2019 awaiting trial on sex trafficking. Authorities did not reference sexual abuse allegations against Mountbatten-Windsor or Epstein’s sex trafficking case; Mountbatten-Windsor settled a lawsuit with Epstein survivor Virginia Roberts Giuffre in 2022 and has denied all wrongdoing.

Investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr says this week’s arrest feels like a “rupture” in British society because the royals are seen as “sacrosanct” and rarely subjected to such treatment. “And in America, what are we seeing? We’re seeing this sort of culture of complete impunity, where it appears the law is not equal, where there are people who are above it.”

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 begin today’s show in London following the arrest of former Prince Andrew on Thursday. He was held in police custody for 11 hours before being released in the latest fallout from the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Andrew is the brother of King Charles and the son of the late Queen Elizabeth. The former prince is the first senior member of the royal family to be arrested in almost 400 years.

Police are investigating whether he committed misconduct in public office by sharing confidential government documents with Jeffrey Epstein while serving as U.K. trade envoy, a breach of the Official Secrets Act. King Charles has said he will give his “full and wholehearted support” to the investigation, saying “the law must take its course.” Andrew’s ties to Epstein have been known for years.

Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who died last year in an apparent suicide, said she was forced to have sex with the prince three times beginning when she was 17. On Thursday, Virginia’s brother Sky Roberts and his wife Amanda responded to the arrest of the former prince.

SKY ROBERTS: Moving forward, we don’t know but we we are hopeful. I think we’re very hopeful that this is the start of the domino effect. This is where the house of cards starts falling. And kudos to the U.K. for taking the first step. For saying, you know what? We are going to arrest somebody who is held to one of the highest esteems out there, somebody who was a former prince. I mean, this hasn’t been before, and so to know what we should expect, it’s really naive to say that we do. But we won’t stop. Virginia said it so clearly in her statements and I will say it again here today: We won’t stop until justice is served.

AMANDA ROBERTS: We are trailing too far behind in justice, especially when we are sitting on the mountains of information that we have. Whether this administration likes it or not, it is sitting at your doorstep. You do not have a choice now, OK? The world is looking at us to do the right thing here. And if they can’t do the right thing, they should resign.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Amanda Roberts and her husband Sky Roberts, the brother of Virginia Roberts Giuffre. We go now to London where we are joined by Carole Cadwalladr, award-winning investigative journalist whose Substack is How to Survive the Broligarchy. She gained international recognition for her exposé on the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal in 2018. Carole is also the co-founder of an independent news outlet called The Nerve launched with five former Guardian journalists. Carole, welcome back to Democracy Now!

First, this news of the last 24 hours that the former Prince Andrew, the brother of the king, was arrested on his 66th birthday. The picture of him as he was released after 11 hours, now under investigation with his homes being raided, is startling. It’s stunning. To say the least, a deer caught in headlights. Explain the significance of this moment for British society when a senior royal has not been arrested in, what, over 400 years.

CAROLE CADWALLADR: Hi Amy. Thanks so much for having me back. Yeah, it feels like a really significant moment in Britain. And almost a rupture, because the royals have been sacrosanct in Britain. They are treated with such reverence and respect by the British media. I think in all honesty, we didn’t see this coming because it just hasn’t happened before. So it was definitely a sort of incredible moment in Britain. That image that you refer to, that is splashed across every single newspaper in Britain this morning, across the tabloids. I think it is sort of indelible now, that photo. It is going to be a sort of a moment in time, I think.

But I think the thing that I would say is that this isn’t just an incredible moment in Britain. It is an even more incredible moment in America. Because we are the old country, we are the country with a monarchy, with absolute rule that you had to have a revolution to get away from. And yet here we are, arresting an only very recently former prince. And in America, what are we seeing? We are seeing this sort of culture of complete impunity where it appears the law is not equal, where there are people who are above it. So I think it is less a moment of reckoning for Britain, because we are doing the right thing. I mean, I think we are proud of it. It shows that we are equal before the law. I think in America, it is hugely embarrassing, it’s significant, and it should be a wake-up call.

AMY GOODMAN: Interestingly, the former prince, Andrew, was not arrested over assaulting this teenager, assaulting Virginia Giuffre. In her book Nobody’s Girl and when she was alive, she talked about how he knew she was underage because someone said to him, “Do you know how old she is? What’s your guess?” And he said, “17.” But he has been arrested for passing on information that could financially benefit Jeffrey Epstein. The same is the case with Peter Mandelson, who is the former U.K. ambassador to Washington, D.C. Very close to the prime minister, Starmer, leading to questions in British society, the possibility of the toppling of Starmer for not having Mandelson investigated properly. But he, too, was a trade envoy for Britain and he, too, now that these emails have come out, is being investigated for passing on financial information, something that really increased Epstein’s power over so many as he networked both bringing in underage girls and women to be assaulted in the United States or in the U.S. Virgin Islands, but also just creating this network of people that gained financially from knowing Epstein.

CAROLE CADWALLADR: Sorry, Amy, you are absolutely completely right there. The tragedy of it is the thing I think to really hang onto in this moment. As you say, the police did not arrest and question Prince Andrew for the alleged crimes which Virginia Giuffre retold in that book. I mean, it’s heartrending, really, because what if they had? What if she had been believed? What if there had been accountability while she was still alive? So I think the debt that we owe to Virginia Giuffre, her courage, her strength in telling this story, it is why we are here now. And it’s just a terrible, terrible indictment that it wasn’t because a woman’s word was sufficient for this investigation to take place; It was what on the surface of it are lesser, less significant crimes that we are now having sort of the wheels of justice turning.

AMY GOODMAN: Interestingly, as you are talking, Carole, we are showing that famous, famous photograph of Andrew, the man formerly known as Prince, with his arm around Virginia Giuffre standing next to Ghislaine Maxwell. I think it was in Ghislaine Maxwell’s apartment in London when she was first assaulted by the former prince. And you see a flash in the window reflected beyond them because Epstein is taking this picture on Virginia’s own camera. She asked for it—incredibly, prophetically—and this is what has taken him down.

You also have, here in the United States, Les Wexner, who is the former head of Victoria’s Secret, Limited, L Brands, being questioned at his Ohio mansion by the House Oversight Committee. Interestingly, no Republican went for that questioning even though when they put out the video yesterday I think there was a picture emblazoned across the video—”GOP oversight.” I want to go to the clip. You can hear Wexner’s lawyer, as he is being questioned by the congressmembers, saying, “I’ll effing kill you if you answer another question in more than five words.”

LES WEXNER: It was just regularly done.

MICHAEL LEVY: I will [bleeping] kill you if you answer another question with more than five words, OK?

LES WEXNER: [laughs]

MICHAEL LEVY: Answer the question. OK.

PERSON: A discrete question on a different topic.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, amazing that we can hear this over the mic, the lawyer warning him. But this goes to a bigger point and it goes to the word, part of the title of your Substack, the Broligarchy. On the one hand you have Andrew being arrested, and in this country the man that bankrolled him, possibly to the tune of billions of dollars, how he had his mansion in New York, how he had his island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and his mansions now being investigated, the Zorro Ranch in New Mexico, and using Ohio, the mention of Les Wexner. He could possibly maybe have had even this huge sex trafficking network that has led now to a sex trafficking investigation in as far as Latvia, and the former prime minister of Norway being investigated, two investigations in France being opened. But this, Les Wexner hearing this and having the U.S. Attorney General saying “There are no investigations, the case is closed,” even though they haven’t released another 3 million pages, and President Trump saying, “See? I’ve been exonerated.”

CAROLE CADWALLADR: Amy, you are so completely right. I think that if you don’t look at this story about Epstein and see that it is part of something much, much bigger, if you don’t connect it to the political moment that America is in and the absence of inquiry and leadership and actual accountability in any sense around this story—I wrote a piece and I said, “It’s the dog that doesn’t bark.” And if it doesn’t bark now, it is not going to bark when the midterm elections come and what many people I think see is going to be a sort of authoritarian assault on them. I think you don’t want to look back and look back at this moment and see that there is this moment in which Congress didn’t act, in which the press didn’t summon the necessary sort of fire and fury, and realize that, actually, it’s a bellwether, it’s a sign, it’s this culture of impunity.

And so I think that’s my sort of message from here in Britain, in this old class-ridden society that, as I say, you had to have a revolution to get away from. We are actually able in this moment to show that there is accountability, to show that people are equal before the law, and you are not. You no longer can. America is no longer the land of the free. Your constitution is breaking down in real time. And I think Epstein is such a symbol of this. And I think in exactly the same way that these women were not believed, that it took these files to come out for suddenly people to go, oh, actually, it turns out that it was not only true that it went to a far, far, far bigger scandal and story than we realized. It feels like a parallel moment in that you’re not actually believing what they are telling you now, what the story is telling you now. You are still in complete denial over it.

I am speaking here, as I say, from this vantage point in London and saying this should be the moment when you realize that—you know this thing, “The call is coming from inside the house”? That actually you really need to step up now. And if you cannot realize that this huge, vast, money laundering, international sex trafficking operation that involves every single institution in your country—it involves banks, it involves people who are part of the government, it involves people who are part of the press. It’s everywhere. And I know it must feel kind of overwhelming because it is so pervasive, but I think really the thing which is missing I suppose is this sort of leadership in being able to signal this and call it out and to demand that the steps are taken now.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, we just have 30 seconds, but you just republished “The US Coup: one year on.” Explain why.

CAROLE CADWALLADR: Because, well, a year ago I published this article in which I put what I thought should have been the headline on the front pages of The New York Times which was, “It’s a Coup.” And I did that because historians of authoritarianism—Tim Snyder, Ruth Ben-Ghiat—they were calling it out. They were saying that the overturning of the rule of law and this sort of blitzkrieg of executive orders that Trump was doing, they said, “This is a coup.”

The thing which, the vantage point that I came from in my work of looking at the way that data is used, it was the assault by DOGE, the illegal assault by DOGE on the U.S. Treasury in which they illegally captured and data harvested the personal data of the entire U.S. population. Then they went to do that across the U.S. government. Now in the age in which we live, knowledge is power and data is knowledge, and that power was being concentrated in, as I said, this totally illegal data gathering operation. That for me is the foundation of a surveillance state. That is what we can see now coming into being. That is what is happening in Minnesota.

And I think it’s really important to mark these landmarks, that we are a year on from that moment and nothing has got better, everything has got worse. This is now consolidating and you’re now in the final stretch. You now have—it is months now, not years, in terms of the midterm elections, really. Is that going to be a performative election in which it is going to look like democracy as it is in Hungary, as it is in Turkey? Or do you have a chance now to save your country? I think it is really, really uncertain. There is still time, but you have to recognize the moment that you’re in, and I think there’s a lot of people out there who still aren’t.

AMY GOODMAN: Carole Cadwalladr, I want to thank you for being with us, award-winning investigative journalist. We will link to your Substack, How to Survive the Broligarchy:https://broligarchy.substack.com/. Gained international recognition for her exposé on the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal in 2018. Co-founder of independent news outlet The Nerve, launched with five former Guardian journalists.

As President Trump suggests the federal government should “nationalize” and take over the elections process from the states, we speak with Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes. He is the former county recorder for Maricopa County, Arizona, and oversaw elections there in 2020. The Justice Department has sued Arizona and over 20 other states for their full voter registration lists. “No means no,” Fontes says in response to the Trump administration’s encroachment on state authority. “We should not be handing over any of our personal identifying information to the president. Not only should we not be doing it, but it’s against the law for me to fulfill the request from the Department of Justice.”

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

AMY GOODMAN: President Trump doubled down on his calls to “nationalize” elections in the United States, as he continues to falsely claim he won the 2020 election over President Biden. On Monday, Trump appeared on a podcast hosted by Dan Bongino, who recently resigned as FBI deputy director.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The Republicans should say we want to take over. We should take over the voting, the voting in at least — many — 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.

AMY GOODMAN: Under the Constitution, U.S. elections are governed by states and administered by county and municipal officials in thousands of precincts. Trump was asked about his call to nationalize elections Tuesday.

KAITLAN COLLINS: What exactly did you mean when you said that you should nationalize elections? And which 15 states are you talking about?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I want to see elections be honest. And if a state can’t run an election, I think the people behind me should do something about it, because, you know, if you think about it, a state is an agent for the federal government in elections. I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t do them anyway. But when you see some of these states about how horribly they run their elections, what a disgrace it is, I think the federal government — when you see crooked elections — and we had plenty of them — and, by the way, we had them last time, but go to 2020 and look at the facts that are coming out — rigged, crooked elections. If we have areas — take a look at Detroit. Take a look at Pennsylvania. Take a look at Philadelphia. You go take a look at Atlanta. Look at some of the places that — horrible corruption on elections. And the federal government should not allow that. The federal government should get involved. These are agents of the federal government to count the votes. If they can’t count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over.

KAITLAN COLLINS: But the Constitution says that it should be states that administer elections.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Go ahead.

AMY GOODMAN: Trump’s remarks come days after the FBI raided an election facility in Fulton County, Georgia, and seized truckloads of ballots and documents, something like 700 boxes, from the 2020 election. U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was present at the raid and later used her cellphone to let President Trump speak to the FBI agents, a move that has alarmed former Justice Department officials.

This all comes as Republicans continue to face major electoral losses. On Tuesday, Democrat Taylor Rehmet won a Texas state Senate seat, receiving 57% of the vote in a district that Trump had won by 17 percentage points in 2024. Trump has publicly expressed fear he’ll be impeached again if Democrats win back control of the House in November.

To look more at President Trump’s attacks on the nation’s voting system, we go to Phoenix, Arizona, where we’re joined by Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s secretary of state. He is the former county recorder for Maricopa County, Arizona. He oversaw the elections there in 2020. The Justice Department has sued Arizona and over 20 other states for their full voter registration lists.

Secretary Adrian Fontes, thanks so much for joining us. If you can start off by just responding to President Trump saying he wants to federalize, to nationalize the elections, and what exactly that means?

ADRIAN FONTES: Well, what it means is that you, as an American, if you are comfortable right now in the face of this rhetoric, then you are with the regime. It’s really that simple. This is the moment where the American public should be exercising its power under the First Amendment to stand and be counted. What we have right now is sort of a “welcome to the Third World” doormat, and we’re walking right over it as if nothing is going on. And so, very clearly, my call is not what my reaction is. It ought to be what your reaction is as an American. Again, if you’re comfortable, you’re with the White House.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about what it means that Arizona has refused to hand over the voter rolls. It’s very interesting. I was just watching Minnesota Governor Walz, who, you know, was responding to Pam Bondi saying maybe they would pull out, you know, end the surge, if Minnesota would give over the voter rolls. I want to go right now to Governor Walz.

GOV. TIM WALZ: Look, I think everybody understands what the last request was, totally unrelated to anything on the voter files. This is again, as the attorney general said, Donald Trump telling everybody that the election was rigged, who started all this nightmare for America — has nothing to do with it.

AMY GOODMAN: So, he believes that, ultimately, this isn’t even about immigration, what’s happening in Minnesota and the killing of two U.S. citizens there by immigration agents, that this is about getting control of the voter rolls. I mean, Pam Bondi specifically said she wants those voter rolls. A number of states — what, about a dozen? — have said they’ll hand them over. But Arizona, your state, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, says no. What does that mean?

ADRIAN FONTES: Well, no means no. And what’s happening in Wisconsin with that extortion letter — “We’ll take our gang off the streets if you hand us, you know, this thing that we value” — speaks again to what I said earlier. Look, if they were comfortable with their policies and they were excited about facing the public, they would love to have an election. They would love to have the states just running things the way they did. And the clip earlier, where Donald Trump said, “Oh, 2020 was corrupt, but 2024 was OK,” you know, it just speaks to the notion that he understands very, very clearly that there are consequences to leadership when facing the power of the American people. And that power regularly gets exercised through the normal process of elections.

Elections are the predictable, normal — I’ve likened them to a golden thread that runs through the fabric of our society. It binds everything together. And what he’s trying to do is pull that golden thread out and disintegrate the entire fabric of our society and throw us into chaos, unpredictability. And that’s bad for business. It’s bad for science. It’s bad for the arts. It’s bad for innovation. It’s bad for, you know, entrepreneurs. It’s bad for everyone.

This is a moment right now when, like here in Arizona, we should not be handing over any of our personal identifying information to the president. Not only should we not be doing it, but it’s against the law for me to fulfill the request from the Department of Justice. But let me make one thing very, very clear here, as well: The Department of Justice has never asked the state of Arizona, through my office or any other means that I’m aware of, for the regularly available voter list, that is available through a public records request. What they’ve asked for is all of the personal identifying information that we are charged by law to keep confidential, under penalty of felony conviction. OK? We’re talking about mothers’ last names, date and month of birth, part or whole of your Social Security number, tribal ID numbers. These are the things that we are charged to keep confidential, and the Department of Justice is asking for it. And I’m just saying no. So, to your question: What does no mean? No means no.

AMY GOODMAN: You oversaw the 2020 election in Maricopa County, another extremely important county, you know, another very, very important county in voting, in national elections, also targeted by a conspiracy and misinformation campaign to say that the national election was fraudulent. What’s your reaction to this latest step by the Trump administration to seize ballots in Georgia? And six years later, how has that turmoil from 2020 impacted voters and politics in Arizona?

ADRIAN FONTES: Well, let’s just be clear: The turmoil in 2020 was not turmoil as it pertains to the administration of the election. The 2020 election was run by regular U.S. citizens like you, me and the viewers of this program. It’s just folks who show up and do this work every couple years, whenever they’re called upon, because Americans value good, solid, clean, fair and accessible elections, so we just do that work. The turmoil is caused by those folks who are out in the parking lot of our offices, at our warehouse with their long rifles, including the Q Shaman and Alex Jones and those types. That’s where the turmoil came from, the folks who wanted to disrupt the election system.

And let me be really clear about something: I was on that ballot in 2020 with Donald Trump, and I lost my reelection bid, just like Donald Trump did, in a clean election, a free and fair election. Now, since I’ve become secretary of state after that, we’ve made sure to maintain the same kind of integrity, the same processes, for the most part, just improving some access for voters across the state.

What really bothers me here is that so many Americans are just depending on somebody else to make sure that things go well. They’re depending on somebody else to do the job. We, as Americans, individually, every single one of us, have not just the right, but the duty, to stand up when things like this happen. And so, when we don’t have outrage, when we don’t actually move that outrage into action, we’re essentially complicit with what is happening. And so, I’m doing everything that I can in my office to not only maintain the integrity and the lawful course of the actions of the secretary of state, but I’m also calling on American citizens to be lawful and peaceful and assert our rights and our power. Remember, if they weren’t afraid of our power, they wouldn’t be trying to squelch it and keep us from using it.

AMY GOODMAN: Secretary Fontes, I wanted to read from the Arizona Mirror in 2020. “Trump himself has repeatedly fanned the flames, alleging without evidence that Dominion machines deleted 2.7 million votes for him and tweeting … 'Now it is learned that the horrendous Dominion Voting System was used in Arizona (and big in Nevada). No wonder the result was a very close loss!'” And again, you were formerly the recorder for Maricopa County through 2021.

And I wanted to go to this other issue. These two are connected. Atlantic magazine recently published an article headlined ”MAGA Thinks Maduro Will Prove Trump Won in 2020.” The article quotes MyPillow founder Mike Lindell saying, quote, “I’m hoping now that Maduro will actually come clean and tell us everything about the machines and how they steal the elections,” unquote. Some have speculated Trump could pardon Maduro in exchange for him stating Venezuela interfered in the 2020 election, even though no evidence of that exists. Again, that, I was reading from The Atlantic.

Since you were really at the heart of it then — and Fox had to pay something like over $750 million, three-quarters of a billion dollars, for libeling Dominion Systems. But can you comment on all of this and the presence of — this is such a complicated issue, but the presence of Tulsi Gabbard, saying she was there in Georgia because she’s interested in foreign interference in the election, sort of stringing this whole thing together?

ADRIAN FONTES: You know, I’m reminded of some of those scenes we see in sitcoms sometimes, where there’s a big board with a red thread that just kind of goes from here to there in conspiracy theories. But this time, there’s a little ketchup splattered on the wall, as well.

The bottom line is this: The elections in America have been free and fair since their inception. There have been minor issues here and there that get worked out through the courts. But it is in the courts, by the way, where that settlement that you mentioned happened. It is under oath and through the regular process of law and procedure that we end up with the just results. And in that case, the just results were someone was held accountable for the lies.

In the world of politics, the courts will give great deference, because they want politicians to be able to share ideas. And so, the lies that are being spread about our elections get to go a little bit further, except when they get into the courts and when you have actual accountability. Remember, after the 2020 election, there were like 60 or 61 cases, and not a single one showed any actual evidence of wrongdoing on the part of elections officials. And being in Maricopa County, boy, let me tell you — and Maricopa, by the way, at the time and still is the second-largest voting jurisdiction in the United States of America. We’re talking about two-and-a-half million voters in the metro Phoenix area — no small potatoes. And it was a tough task. But I had a great team in 2020, and we did an amazing job.

So, kudos to the folks on the ground, kudos to the folks in the polling places, kudos to everyone who knows that they can stand on their integrity, they can stand on actual history, and we can put all of the conspiracy theories aside, except that the greatest threat to American elections and our republic is the idea that Donald Trump is still lying about the 2020 election. Everything else is just a symptom of that illness, and we need to figure out a way to get past that. We, the American public, have to stand up to this president. We have to stand up to our own president, as was charged by our founders, to make sure that, in our discomfort, we exercise our power and we move forward as a nation, so that we can get past this, and we can go back to being the folks who can innovate, who can create, who can just hang out and love one another once in a while, without every single day having to worry about the grievance of the resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

AMY GOODMAN: Adrian Fontes, I want to thank you for being with us, secretary of state for Arizona, elected in 2022. Previously, he was the Maricopa County recorder, who oversaw the 2020 elections.

Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna has called for Congress to investigate associates of Jeffrey Epstein named in the files and for the full release of the remaining documents. This comes as Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the review of Epstein files is over and that no further prosecutions are expected. Blanche, who was formerly President Trump’s personal lawyer, told Fox News that “it isn’t a crime to party with Mr. Epstein.”

Meanwhile, Epstein survivors have criticized the Department of Justice for failing to redact personal information, including some of their identities, as well as email addresses and even nude photos. “They were cavalier, at best, when it comes to the survivors, and they took great lengths to protect some of the rich and powerful people who actually committed the crimes and morally heinous acts,” Khanna tells Democracy Now!

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

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Fallout continues to grow over the Justice Department’s release of more than 3 million pages of files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. On Wednesday, Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna called for Congress to investigate associates of Epstein named in the files.

REP. RO KHANNA: Mr. Speaker, Thomas Massie and my Epstein Transparency Act led to millions of files being released that have shocked the conscience of the nation. Today I call for Congress to haul in front of the Oversight Committee every single person who emailed about going to Epstein’s island. They need to answer some basic questions. Who raped these underage girls from working-class families? What did they see? What did they know? What did they participate in? The American people are frustrated with the rich and powerful getting a different set of justice. There cannot be two tiers of justice in America. And I will not rest until the people who committed these heinous crimes and this heinous behavior are held accountable.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Congressman Ro Khanna has also called for the Department of Justice to release more files. More than two-and-a-half million pages remain unreleased. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has said the department’s review of the Epstein files is over and that no further prosecutions are expected. He told Fox News, quote, “It isn’t a crime to party with Mr. Epstein.”

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, survivors of Jeffrey Epstein have criticized the DOJ for failing to redact personal information, including some of their identities, as well as email addresses, and there was a release of nude photos. In a statement, one group of survivors said, quote, “As survivors, we should never be the ones named, scrutinized, and retraumatized, while Epstein’s enablers continue to benefit from secrecy,” they said.

We go now to Capitol Hill, where we’re joined by Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna, co-sponsor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

Congressmember Khanna, you’re about to meet with the DOJ and the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche along with Congressmember Massie. You’re calling for a continued investigation into the files that were released but were redacted and more files that — well, according to Blanche, they’re done with releasing files. So, can you explain your response to what has been released? And who was protected in the release of these files?

REP. RO KHANNA: Well, what already has been released really is quite disgusting. You have some of the most powerful elites in America, in technology, in finance, in real estate, in politics, emailing Jeffrey Epstein, asking to go to his island. And many, many of these people owe the American people an explanation, and many of them should be investigated about who was being raped on that island, what they knew, what they did, what they saw.

But there are also over 3 million documents where there have been excessive redactions, one of them an email where you have someone saying to Jeffrey Epstein that he enjoyed his time with a young girl, and the name of that person who emailed Epstein is redacted. And there’s no explanation for that redaction. The redactions are supposed to cover very classified information or cover information that would compromise survivors. The redactions should not be protecting people who actually engaged in criminal behavior or heinous behavior. And Massie and I plan to review the unredacted files — Blanche has said that members of Congress can do that — and to ask what the explanation was for the redactions. And the plan is to get rid of the excessive redactions.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Congressman Khanna, what do you make of the fact, of course, there have been these redactions that actually compromise potential investigation to people who were complicit, and at the same time, as we mentioned, The Wall Street Journal investigation found the Department of Justice failed to redact the full names of 43 victims, including minors, and 40 photos were published of young girls, women, naked and in some cases with their faces visible?

REP. RO KHANNA: It’s appalling. It shows there are two tiers of justice in America. The rich and powerful get to play by one set of rules. So, they were very, very careful, Pam Bondi on down, to say that we want to make sure these rich and powerful people aren’t overexposed, and let’s really go through the files so that there are not leaks that compromise them. In fact, some of the documents that compromise Donald Trump, where they had tips about Donald Trump, were quickly pulled down. On the other hand, the review that they had one-third of the U.S. attorneys do of all of these files, obviously they did not stress the importance of protecting the victims. How do I know this? Because there are survivors’ lawyers who were never consulted, were never brought into the process. There was never any effort to have an independent master review the documents. And so, they were cavalier, at best, when it comes to the survivors, and they took great lengths to protect some of the rich and powerful people who actually committed the crimes and morally heinous acts.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Congressman Khanna, what’s known, in fact, about the complaints against, as you said, the most rich and powerful people in the world, which includes, at the very top, President Trump?

REP. RO KHANNA: Well, we know a lot just from what was released. I mean, we know that these people were asking to go to Epstein’s island. We know that there were underage girls on that island from working-class families that were being raped. We know that there were underage girls and young girls who were being trafficked. We know that many of the country’s elite had no problem corresponding with Epstein well after he was convicted of pedophilia and no problem asking to go to Epstein’s island or Epstein’s parties well after he was convicted of pedophilia.

And I am so offended by Deputy Attorney General Blanche saying, “Oh, this is just about men who are playboys who are going to parties.” This is about men who knew that Epstein was abusing and raping young girls, saying, “I want to show up to parties where these young girls are being paraded, or where these young girls are being raped.”

And this is the American elite? I mean, the question we have to ask ourselves as a nation is: How have we produced an elite that is so callow, that is so immature, that is so venal, that has so little scruples, and that has such impunity from the rule of law? What have we done wrong in this country that that is our elite?

AMY GOODMAN: The law you co-sponsored, Congressman Khanna, specifically talked about the document from Alex Acosta when he was U.S. attorney in Florida that named co-conspirators. Can you explain — and it said it had to be released. Can you explain what was released and what wasn’t, and what names we know from that time? If that had been taken seriously, the women who talked about being raped and sexually abused, and the girls, back in 2007, might we not have seen something like a thousand girls and women who were brutalized since?

REP. RO KHANNA: We would have, and we would have seen those women saved, if the FBI had acted in 1996, when Maria Farmer initially launched a complaint. Maria Farmer was called a liar. But now it’s come out that the FBI knew of that complaint in 1996 and sat on it. This could have prevented thousands of women, thousands of underage girls being raped and abused.

What came out this time on 2007 is that there were 32-plus counts against Epstein. Almost all were dropped, other than two counts. We were not given the explanation for why those counts were dropped. That was redacted and withheld. And we were not given the explanation for why some of the co-conspirators were not charged or who these co-conspirators are. So, obviously, the Justice Department still is protecting the co-conspirators, and they are protecting their own faulty analysis for dropping all of these charges against Epstein.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Congressman Khanna, could you talk about some of the people who have agreed to testify in this congressional investigation, which includes now former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who will testify later this month?

REP. RO KHANNA: I’m glad President Clinton and Secretary Clinton have agreed to testify — they should — to a congressional subpoena. But that also means that Donald Trump needs to testify. That means people like Bill Gates who are in these files needs to — need to come before Congress and testify. That means all the real estate folks, finance folks, technology folks who have emails to Epstein saying, “When can I come to the island?” need to come to Congress and testify and answer questions. What did they know about what was going on on Epstein’s island? Did they ever participate in raping underage girls? Did they see underage girls being raped? Did they see underage girls being paraded naked at these parties? They can’t just hide behind X or Twitter or some softball interview. They need to answer these questions under oath.

AMY GOODMAN: What exactly does it mean to say you’re calling for a continued investigation? And when are you going to meet with Todd Blanche? Some might say he’s doing his job, maybe not as the number two in the Justice Department, but as the former personal attorney for President Trump.

REP. RO KHANNA: Well, we’ve requested the meeting. He said on television he’s open to meeting. Our teams are working it out. They have been responsive to our request. The goal is to see what other documents need to be released. The goal is to see what investigation needs to be undertaken with the documents that have been released. And then, of course, there’s Congress that can continue the investigation. On the Oversight Committee, where I sit, Robert Garcia, our ranking member, has done a terrific job about that. And the next administration can make sure that there is accountability and the full release. But it’s important to realize that this scandal has already had extraordinary reverberations. It may bring down the British government. I mean, Keir Starmer is being asked about this in the House of Commons. You had Paul Weiss’s chair resign over this. And you’re having suddenly a #MeToo movement again of people being confronted with the enormously depraved things that took place in Epstein’s island.

We speak with Mother Jones voting rights correspondent Ari Berman about the shocking FBI raid on an elections hub in Fulton County, Georgia. Federal agents were seeking records related to the 2020 presidential election, which President Donald Trump continues to falsely claim he won despite his loss to Joe Biden that year. During his efforts to overturn the election results, Trump pressured local officials to “find” him an additional 11,780 votes. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was on the scene Friday despite having no domestic law enforcement authority. The raid comes amid an ongoing federal probe into the 2020 election.

“The fact that they seized 700 boxes of ballots was incredibly disturbing and sets a chilling precedent for how Trump might try to interfere in the 2026 election,” says Berman, who ties the raid in Georgia to the administration’s pressure on Minnesota to hand over voter rolls. “This is now a multifront, concerted effort to try to interfere in the midterm elections.”

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 the FBI raid of an election office in Georgia’s Fulton County last week seeking computers and ballots related to the 2020 election. The raid came as President Trump continues to falsely claim his defeat in the 2020 election was a result of widespread voting fraud.

For more, we go to Ari Berman, voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones magazine, his most recent piece headlined “From Minnesota to Georgia, Trump’s Plans to Interfere in the Midterms Are Becoming More Dangerous.”

Ari, talk about the significance of the Trump administration going after the Blackest county election office in Georgia, and then Pam Bondi saying maybe they’ll pull out the agents in Minnesota if they hand over voting rolls.

ARI BERMAN: Yeah, we’re seeing, Amy, a dramatic escalation of the administration’s tactics to try to interfere in the 2026 midterm elections. The FBI raid in Fulton County represented the full weaponization of Trump’s conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. The fact that they seized 700 boxes of ballots was incredibly disturbing and sets a chilling precedent for how Trump might try to interfere in the 2026 election, to do similar kind of things to challenge election results he doesn’t like. If he’s challenging a result from six years ago, you can imagine how they’re going to try to challenge the result of the upcoming election, should Trump’s party lose.

And then, in Minnesota, you have ICE basically terrorizing a blue state and a blue city, and the attorney general of the United States essentially extorting that place to hand over voter rolls to the Department of Justice. So, what I really want your listeners to understand is that this is now a multifront, concerted effort to try to interfere in the midterm elections, that’s taking place in a number of different ways, from Georgia to Minnesota and beyond.

AMY GOODMAN: What happens to the computers and the data they took out of the Georgia election office?

ARI BERMAN: Well, that’s a very good question. It’s one of the many unanswered questions about this raid in Fulton County. The FBI now has it. Who are they going to share it with? What are they going to do? Who’s going to supervise this process? All of these records were under seal, and now they’re in the hands of the Trump administration.

And one of the biggest unanswered questions is why Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, was there, because she is prohibited by law from participating in domestic law enforcement activity. So, that’s a giant red flag right there. Tulsi Gabbard shouldn’t have been anywhere near that operation, anywhere near those ballots.

And it seems to me like they’re setting up to do something crazy, like saying, “Now we have the proof. We have the ballots. Now we know Venezuela interfered in the election, or Iran interfered in the election.” And this is as much about, as I said, the 2020 election as it is about the next election. So, they’re going to lie — continue lying about the 2020 election, so then they can lie about the next election and try to interfere in a lot of different ways.

AMY GOODMAN: And then, can you talk about the voting rolls of Minnesota?

ARI BERMAN: Yeah, so, what the Justice Department is trying to do is they’re trying to get the voter rolls not just of Minnesota, but of 24 states overall. And they want this data so they can have the first-ever national database of all registered voters in the country. And that has a lot of problems with it. There’s privacy problems. You’re talking about sensitive information like driver’s license, Social Security numbers, party history. There’s security risks. It’s a lot easier to hack one —

AMY GOODMAN: Fifteen seconds, Ari.

ARI BERMAN: It’s a lot easier to hack a massive database. But ultimately, what they want to do is they want to lie about voter fraud, remove people from the rolls and challenge election outcomes. And the attempt to take voter rolls is just a larger part of Trump’s scheme to try to rig the midterms.

AMY GOODMAN: Trump supports states’ rights, except when it comes to voting rights. Ari Berman, voting rights correspondent —

ARI BERMAN: Yeah, exactly. He supports states’ rights, except when he’s trying to take over.

AMY GOODMAN: — for Mother Jones magazine. We’ll link to your article.

We speak to Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis about the United States under Donald Trump and its attempts to reshape the post-World War II international consensus. “Trump has all his work done for him by placid European centrists who went along with the policy of trashing international law and creating the circumstances for him to create his private company and say, 'Right, I'm taking over the world,’” laments Varoufakis as he draws a connection between Trump’s pay-to-play diplomacy and the mercantalist policies of European colonial powers. Varoufakis comments on plans for the reoccupation of Gaza by the U.S.-led “Board of Peace,” which signed its founding charter this week; Trump’s designs on the Danish territory of Greenland; and European leaders’ ineffectual, largely symbolic resistance to Trump’s assertion of U.S. supremacy on the world stage.

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

NERMEEN SHAIKH: President Trump hosted an elaborate signing ceremony today in Davos for his so-called Board of Peace. Over 20 countries have joined, but that number is expected to increase. Many critics fear the board could undermine the United Nations. Trump will serve as chairman indefinitely. Each permanent seat has a price tag of a billion dollars, which Trump will control. Trump initially proposed the board to oversee Gaza, but said he now envisions a much broader vision.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Once this board is completely formed, we can do pretty much whatever we want to do. And we’ll do it in conjunction with the United Nations. You know, I’ve always said, the United Nations has got tremendous potential — has not used it, but there’s tremendous potential in the United Nations. You know, on the eight wars that I ended, I never spoke to the United Nations about any of them. And you would think that I should have. You would think they could have done those eight wars, but they couldn’t have. And they tried, I guess, in some of them, but they didn’t try hard enough.

This is for the world. As everyone can see today, the first steps toward a brighter day for the Middle East and a much safer future for the world are unfolding right before your very eyes, because I’m calling the world a region. The world is a region. We’re going to have peace in the world. And, boy, would that be a great legacy for all of us. Everybody in this room is a star, or you wouldn’t be here. There’s a reason that you’re here. And you’re all stars.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: The charter makes no mention of Gaza.

Countries that have joined the board so far include many right-wing or authoritarian governments, including Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Egypt, Indonesia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Hungary is the only European country to sign on. France, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom have all said they will not join.

Trump has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin to join the Board of Peace. The Israeli press reports Netanyahu opted not to fly to Switzerland, out of fear that he would be arrested for war crimes. During the Board of Peace ceremony, Trump also suggested a settlement on the Ukraine war is, quote, “coming very soon.”

Also at today’s signing ceremony, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner unveiled the board’s new $25 billion “master plan” for a new Gaza.

JARED KUSHNER: So, we did a master plan. We brought in — I thank you — Yakir Gabay, who’s one of the most successful real estate developers and brilliant people I know. He’s volunteered to do this not for profit, really because of his heart. He wants to do this. And we’ve developed ways to redevelop Gaza.

Gaza, as President Trump’s been saying, has amazing potential. And this is for the people of Gaza. We’ve developed it into zones. In the beginning, we were toying with the idea of saying, “Let’s build a free zone, and then we have a Hamas zone.” And then we said, “You know what? Let’s just plan for plan for catastrophic success.” We — Hamas signed a deal to demilitarize. That is what we are going to enforce.

People ask us what our plan B is. We do not have a plan B. We have a plan. We signed an agreement. We are all committed to making that agreement work. There’s a master plan. We’ll be doing it in phasing. In the Middle East, they build cities like this in — you know, 2-3 million people, they build this in three years. And so, stuff like this is very doable, if we make it happen.

Rafah, we’ll start with. This will show a lot of workforce housing. We think this could be done in two, three years. We’ve already started removing the rubble and doing some of the demolition. And then, New Gaza. It could be a hope. It could be a destination, have a lot of industry, and really be a place that the people there can thrive.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s former — that is former White House adviser, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Meanwhile, President Trump has backed down on his threats to take Greenland from Denmark and to impose tariffs on European allies who oppose his plans — at least for now. After a dramatic day at the World Economic Forum in Davos Wednesday, Trump announced the “framework of a future deal” had been reached for Greenland and the entire Arctic region. During his speech, Trump repeatedly referred to Iceland, instead of Greenland.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Iceland, that I can tell you, I mean, our stock market took the first dip yesterday because of Iceland. So Iceland has already cost us a lot of money. But that dip is peanuts compared to what it’s gone up.

AMY GOODMAN: Trump’s comment came after he met with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Details of the framework have not been made public. Trump said the deal would involve the United States getting mineral rights and for Greenland to be used for Trump’s proposed “Golden Dome” missile defense system. Rutte was asked about the deal by journalist Fareed Zakaria.

FAREED ZAKARIA: Does all of this give you a sense that the United States and the current administration is truly committed to the support of Ukraine and to the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine?

MARK RUTTE: Yes. And when it comes to the Arctic, President Trump, in his first term, already said we should spend more time and more energy on the Arctic and to defend the Arctic against the Russians and the Chinese, because the sea lanes are opening up. Greenland, yes. Not only Greenland, it is the whole Arctic, seven nations in NATO, one outside NATO, Russia. And these seven have to defend themselves against Russia and China.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Athens, Greece, where we’re joined by Yanis Varoufakis, former finance minister of Greece, author of several books, including Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism.

Yanis, welcome back to Democracy Now! When we got in touch with you yesterday, the top news was President Trump backing off saying he would invade Greenland, and also dropping the tariffs. But a lot has happened in the ensuing minutes, or, I should say, hours, as it so happens every day now, this fire hose of news. Just as we are broadcasting, President Trump has held a charter signing ceremony for the so-called Board of Peace. While the Board of Peace he referred to was initially for Gaza, he now says it’s the region — it will deal with the region of the world. He said, yes, “The world is a region.” And he was surrounded by everyone from the head of Argentina, Milei, had Belarus sign, Morocco, Saudi Arabia. The European community, meanwhile, is meeting in Brussels, the 27 nations. It’s very interesting to note. Is he having this gathering in Davos to take away from this image of the European community, fiercely critical of what he has done just alone in these last few days, imposing the sanctions, saying he would invade Greenland, what he called Iceland, and then taking it all back?

YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Well, what we see is the geopolitical version of Steve Bannon’s infamous policy or tactic of flooding the zone. He abducts Maduro from Venezuela. Before we have a chance to think about it, he talks about Greenland. Then he threatens military action in Greenland. Then he takes it all back. Then he abandons the Board of Peace. Then he brings it back and, you know, proposes it as a substitute for the United Nations.

I think that, you know, it’s very easy to dismiss this as a toddler on LSD, but I think that behind this tactic, we have the Steve Bannon strategy of making the rest of us, the rest of the world, you know, sink into a black hole of uncertainty, while he’s getting on with the business of enriching himself, a ruling class of tech lords around him, and solidifying his power and keeping his divided MAGA movement somehow pacified.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Yanis, already before today’s developments, you had called the Board of Peace, quote, “one of the most despicable developments” in your lifetime. So, if you could explain what your sense is now, given that we know more about the contours of this board, in particular the fact that the charter itself made no mention of Gaza, though it was supposed to be a Board of Peace for Gaza?

YANIS VAROUFAKIS: When I first heard about the board of Gaza, months ago, it made me think that, you know, this is something that Philip K. Dick would invent — part of science fiction — if he was on really bad drugs. The reason why it is a monstrous idea is because — think about it — what he initially proposed — and this is still going on — is that a private company, headed by him for life, will annex the occupied land of Gaza. And interestingly, the Europeans, they went along with that, because they thought it was only about Gaza. But it wasn’t. They were wrong. It was much bigger than that. It was all about, as we now see, replacing the international order that came out of 1945, the carnage of the Second World War, the Holocaust and so on.

Look, the United Nations, undoubtedly, has proven itself particularly weak. He said so, didn’t he? We heard him say, “Oh, they haven’t sorted out any wars.” Well, there’s a reason for that: because people like him keep vetoing any serious peace proposal at the level of the Security Council.

But the whole point of what he’s doing is essentially to create an unholy alliance of big business. This is — you know, this is what the tech lords, you know, Peter Thiel, various members of this cabal that were with him during his inauguration, the second inauguration — this is a new ideology, the ideology of corporations resembling, if you want, if you want to go back centuries ago, the Dutch East India Company or the British East India Company. That monstrous — how shall I put it? — nightmare is now coming back, in very flimsy terms, with a charter which is not worth the paper it’s written on. But this is the whole intention. This is where we’re being pushed.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Yanis, let’s just talk about who is on this, the executive committee of this board. It includes, of course, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as well as the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Now, the French President Emmanuel Macron refused to join, warning that it could undermine the United Nations. But Trump will not only serve as the board’s chair indefinitely, he will also have veto power over all the board’s decisions. I mean, what do you think that means, especially in light of critics, like yourself, saying that this might actually be an organization that supersedes the United Nations, or, in fact, makes the U.N. entirely redundant?

YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Well, this is not a matter of interpretation. I mean, it’s what Trump wants. It’s what he says he wants to do. He says, “OK, well, maybe we can keep the United Nations as a rubber stamp.” You know, after all, he did push through his proposal of this Board of Peace for Gaza through the Security Council, with the complicity of the French and the British, who are now realizing that this is not just about, you know, Brown people in the developing world. It’s not just about the Palestinians, whom they themselves condemned to genocide. It’s about them, as well. So, they’re beginning to understand that they’re getting their comeuppance.

But, you know, when President Macron, for instance — you mentioned that — says, “Oh, but, you know, your Board of Peace is going to undermine the United Nations,” no, where were — where was President Macron when Israel was, effectively, wiping the floor clean with the Charter of the United Nations, with the decisions of International Court of Justice ordering Israel to withdraw from Occupied Territories? The answer is, people like President Macron and Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain and Friedrich Merz, the chancellor of Germany, were aiding and abetting this trashing of the United Nations. So, in a sense, Trump has all his work done for him by placid European centrists who went along with the policy of trashing international law and creating the circumstances for him to create his private company and say — right? — “I’m taking over the world.”

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Yanis, but what about this fact of a billion dollars? Each member will pay a billion dollars to join. Now, this is unprecedented as far as international organizations go. Which international organizations require payment from member states?

AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, Trump will all —

YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Well, it’s not unprecedented.

AMY GOODMAN: — will be in charge of that money.

YANIS VAROUFAKIS: It’s not at all unprecedented. It’s how capitalism made its first fluttering moves. Remember the East India Company, both the Dutch version and the British version? How did it happen? In the case of the British East India Company, while Shakespeare was writing a play somewhere in London, businessmen got together, and they chipped in the equivalent of a billion pounds or dollars, or whatever, each to create that company. And that company, in the end — let us not forget that — was the first colonizer. They had 200,000 soldiers under their command. They took over East India. They took over Indonesia. And it was only later that states came and effectively nationalized colonialism.

So, we are going back many centuries. It’s not — maybe it’s unprecedented given the narrative that we have been led to believe falsely, that it’s now permanent, over the last 60, 70 years. But, essentially, Trump is, with the complicity of the Europeans, at least in terms of their deeds, if not their words, is trying to maintain American hegemony, the hegemony of a very tiny ruling class of the United States, not of the people of the United States, over the world.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s very interesting that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was heckled at the World Economic Forum dinner earlier this week, with the European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde walking out. Lutnick had written in an opinion piece in the Financial Times earlier this week, saying, “We’re not going to Davos to uphold the status quo. We’re going to confront it head-on. … We are here at Davos to make one thing crystal clear: With President Trump, capitalism has a new sheriff in town.” Yanis Varoufakis?

YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Well, it is interesting, isn’t it? What he said to them was, “We’re not here to join your multilateral global order, which we Americans created in the first place, and you became beneficiaries of that. We’re here to bury it.”

You know, Christine Lagarde walked out. But where did she walk towards? Back to Frankfurt, to the European Central Bank, which is steadfastly refusing to do anything in order to challenge the hegemony of the U.S. dollar. Because, you know, here in Europe, we have manufactured a European Union and a monetary union, for decades now, in a manner that it was always subservient to the United States, always acquiescent towards the dollar zone, towards the authority of the Federal Reserve. Never, never did the Europeans try to create — it’s not that they tried and failed. They never wanted to create a sustainable, independent Europe. And now they are running around like headless chicken, bleeding around, you know, in apoplexy, but without a plan. There is no European plan, for instance, for Ukraine.

There is no — what happened when, you know, President Trump ordered the Marines to go into Venezuela and abduct Maduro, whatever one thinks about Maduro? Did they protest the violation of international law? No, because they, again, like in the case of the Board of Peace in Gaza, they thought that this is for Brown people, you know, for people in the developing world. So, this is — you know, as a European, I am far more cross with our own leaders here, who, you know, now protest. But it’s too late.

AMY GOODMAN: Very interesting to see Jared Kushner giving, center stage, a PowerPoint presentation on what they would do with Gaza — you know, no Palestinians included here — and President Trump himself saying today, describing Gaza as a “beautiful piece of property,” said he is a “real estate person at heart.” As we begin to wrap up, your comments on what this means for Israel and Gaza, and Netanyahu not coming to stand with his friend, President Trump, in Davos, concerned that he could be arrested for war crimes when he comes into Switzerland?

YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Well, that’s the only silver lining, that something keeps him up at night. He’s a war criminal, and he should be kept up at night.

But just to answer your question directly, what this Board of Peace plan for Gaza is is the completion of the genocide. This is the logical limit of what Israel has been doing, to treat Gaza as a piece of real estate. Palestinians don’t exist. They can only exist as servants, as in the same way that under South African apartheid, the Blacks were tolerated only to the extent that they didn’t choose where to live, that they were confined in Bantustans, and they were beaten up the moment they asserted their right to exist and to breathe as human beings.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And finally, Yanis, if you could talk about the latest with respect to Trump’s comments on Greenland, withdrawing his threat to impose tariffs on Europe, and what the latest is about these talks that he says the framework of an agreement that’s been reached with NATO on Greenland’s status?

YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Well, it seems to me that he’s retreated slightly, from a tactical perspective, from saying, “Greenland is going to be mine,” like Alaska was sold by Russia to the United States. Now he’s shifting to saying, “I’m going to have freehold. I’m going to have something along the lines of Guantánamo Bay,” a permanent freehold or leasehold with Denmark. But, of course, you know, we will probably have to revisit this conversation tomorrow or the day after, because this is not a settled agreement.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you very much for being with us. We’re going to end with the comments of the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney addressing world leaders at Davos.

PRIME MINISTER MARK CARNEY: Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons.

AMY GOODMAN: Yanis Varoufakis, we just have 30 seconds. Your response, as he talks about the great disruption at this point?

YANIS VAROUFAKIS: A brilliant speech, a very good diagnosis of where we are, and a terrible recipe for what we should be doing.

AMY GOODMAN: Yanis Varoufakis, we thank you so much for being with us, a former finance minister of Greece. Most recent book is titled Raise Your Soul: A Personal History of Resistance. And we will have you back on to talk about that book, co-founder of Progressive International.

“They didn’t ask very many questions.” Independent journalist and U.S. military veteran Laura Jedeed recounts how she was hired as a deportation officer by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a six-minute interview at a job fair in Texas, despite never signing any paperwork, not having completed a background check, likely failing a drug test, and publicly sharing her opposition to the Trump administration and its anti-immigrant crackdown. “It seems like the answer to the question, 'Who are they hiring?' is: They don’t know.”

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

AMY GOODMAN: What happens when ICE hires agents with minimal screening, then sends them into the streets masked and armed? We look now at the agency’s hiring practices as it surges agents to Minneapolis and other cities.

We begin with an independent journalist who applied for an ICE job and was offered it without even a background check. Laura Jedeed wrote about her experience in a piece published Tuesday by Slate magazine headlined “You’ve Heard About Who ICE Is Recruiting. The Truth Is Far Worse. I’m the Proof.” — was the headline.

She begins her piece, “The plan was never to become an ICE agent. The plan, when I went to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Career Expo in Texas last August, was to learn what it was like to apply to be an ICE agent. Who wouldn’t be curious?” she said.

Laura Jedeed joins us now from Portland, Oregon.

Laura, would you take it from there? Explain what exactly you did, what this fair was, and then how you applied to work for ICE, and what happened.

LAURA JEDEED: Absolutely. So, the hiring event, basically, you brought your résumé in, you handed it over. They were going to do an interview, and they were promising on-the-spot hiring, to where you could, in fact, walk out with your $50,000 bonus that day, possibly.

I went in. I handed in my résumé, which was a — I did a skills-based résumé. I’m a veteran. I served two tours in Afghanistan. So, on the surface, the résumé looked pretty good. Had a very brief interview, took all of six minutes. They didn’t ask very many questions. And then I left, assuming I would never hear back, because I’m a very googleable person. I have an unusual name. I’m the only Laura Jedeed on the internet. And I make no secret of how I feel about ICE and Trump and all of it.

So I was not expecting several days later to receive a tentative offer. I missed it in my inbox, and it sunk to the bottom, which means that I never filled out the paperwork they requested. I never accepted the tentative offer. I never filled out my background check paperwork. I never signed the affidavit saying I committed no domestic violence crimes. None of it.

A few weeks later, I got a message from Labcorp saying that ICE wanted me to do a drug test, and I went ahead and did that. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t pass. I had partaken in legal cannabis six days before the test. But why not waste some of their money, right? And then, nine days after that, I decided I wanted to — you know, I was curious. Had they processed the drug test yet?

So I logged on to the ICE hiring portal. And what I found was that not only did the drug test not seem to be relevant, I had been — I was listed as having joined ICE as of three days earlier. I had listed that I had accepted the offer. They had offered me a final position as a deportation officer. My background check was listed as completed three days in the future from when I was looking at it. So, it seems like the answer to the question, “Who are they hiring?” is: They don’t know.

AMY GOODMAN: Wow. You write in the piece, “At first glance, my résumé has enough to tantalize a recruiter for America’s Gestapo-in-waiting.” You’re likening ICE to the Gestapo?

LAURA JEDEED: Absolutely, and I don’t think that’s in any way hyperbole. We have armed, masked thugs on our street right now who are brutalizing, detaining and murdering people with apparent impunity, a carte blanche, a license to kill from our government. And they can’t even keep track of who’s behind the masks. I don’t believe for a second they’re keeping track of who’s a U.S. citizen, who needs to be deported, where these people even are. These disappearances, where people vanish into the system, is it on purpose, or are they really that sloppy with paperwork? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. This constitutes a national emergency. We have unknown, armed thugs in masks who are terrorizing citizens.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you have served in the military. You deployed twice. Can you talk about what that experience taught you? And also, you did do an interview with an agent, and I’m wondering if you could tell us what that agent said to you and where that went.

LAURA JEDEED: Absolutely. So, I joined the military right out of high school. I really believed in the whole “war on terror” thing. I really thought we were going over to spread freedom and democracy, and what have you. And when I got there, it became very evident very quickly that that was not the case, and that we were doing very — it was a bad war, and we should not have been there —

AMY GOODMAN: Where were you?

LAURA JEDEED: — telling people what to do. I was in eastern Afghanistan for the first deployment, western Afghanistan for the second. So, I did not see combat, but as a military intelligence collector, I saw plenty of the decisions that got people killed on both sides that didn’t need to happen.

So I came back very disillusioned, like a lot of people, and actually like the ICE agent that I spoke to, which, by the way, this interview wasn’t actually part of the hiring process. It was an optional step to see if I wanted to join up. But he told me that he was — also joined right out of high school. He also deployed. And when he got back, he also got out as soon as he could. He didn’t want anything to do with the military. But he had a lot of trouble assimilating, as a lot of veterans do. And so, about six months later, he decided to go for law enforcement, and the rest is history. He’s been an ICE agent, he said, for about a decade. He likes the work. He feels like he’s getting instant results.

And this is very sad to me and also emblematic of a problem we have, where we use this language of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction and freedom and democracy at the barrel of a gun. We did this overseas, and it’s come home in every conceivable way.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about your concerns about them not doing a background check. I mean, what does this mean for people who are documented to — well, wife beaters, people who kill women?

LAURA JEDEED: Yeah, I mean, it’s very funny that they hired a lefty journalist with a profile on AntifaWatch. That’s hilarious. But what’s not funny is they didn’t make me sign a domestic violence waiver. So, how many people with domestic violence convictions are running around with guns in our cities terrorizing people? How many people who have been committed of sex crimes or crimes against children are in charge of detention centers where there’s no oversight, where people won’t be missed and won’t be believed? The horror, it just — it boggles the mind how bad this really is.

AMY GOODMAN: And you were hired to be a deportation officer. What exactly is that? Where would you serve?

LAURA JEDEED: Yeah, so, yes, deportation officer. Basically, the agent was very keen on letting me know that I wouldn’t be given a badge and a gun right away. I wouldn’t be out in the street messing people up. I would probably have to push paperwork for about six months before I got there. And when I expressed that that was fine with me, with my analyst background, he — actually, the atmosphere changed. He was like, “No, listen, we want everyone on the street with guns eventually.” And I had to reassure him that that was also fine. It seems like the focus is very much getting people out on the street with guns, and the focus of the people applying, apparently, is to get out on the street as quickly as possible to brutalize people.

AMY GOODMAN: I’ll just end by asking you — you said you signed up to fight the war on terror, and you served twice in Afghanistan. You call what’s happening here in the United States “the war on terror come home.”

LAURA JEDEED: Yes, this is — it is very sad. It is not surprising, but it is very sad. This is a national emergency. This is a state emergency. And frankly, it’s past time that governors called up the National Guard to protect the citizens, who elected them to keep them safe from the people actually terrorizing us in the streets.

AMY GOODMAN: Laura Jedeed, I want to thank you for being with us, freelance journalist who writes regularly on her Substack at FirewalledMedia.com. We’ll link to your new piece for Slate, which is headlined “You’ve Heard About Who ICE Is Recruiting. The Truth Is Far Worse. I’m the Proof.” We’ll link to it at democracynow.org.

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.

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.”

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

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.

We speak with former Labor Secretary Robert Reich about his new memoir, Coming Up Short, which tells his life story alongside the growth of inequality in America. Reich was born in 1946 as part of the baby-boom generation that enjoyed unprecedented levels of prosperity and social mobility in the decades after World War II. But he says those conditions were squandered as wealth concentration grew worse, labor unions were gutted and wages stagnated — helping to give rise to Donald Trump’s brand of authoritarianism. “We allowed big money to take over,” says Reich. “We, the baby boomers, although we did a lot of good things, we took for granted what we were given. … And Donald Trump is kind of the essence of what you do when you take your eyes off the prize.”

Transcript

AMY GOODMAN: Your whole life, as you’re a labor historian, is also about democracy. And I’m wondering if you can talk now, as we talk about firings, not only the threatened one at the Federal Reserve and the BLS, CDC, EPA, the gutting of regulations, etc., about the baby boomers? And this goes to your book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America. You were born in 1946. And we’ll look at the trajectory of what’s changed in this country. 1946. Who is your birth cohort? Who else was born in 1946?

ROBERT REICH: Well, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Donald Trump, Dolly Parton, Cher. I mean, there are a lot of people born in 1946. But I think the point, certainly in the book, is that 1946 is the baby boom. That’s when the war was over. My father came home, and who was there, but my mother. And that was replicated all over America. That’s where the baby boom came from.

And the boomers inherited from what has been known as and come to be known as “the greatest generation,” my parents’ generation, because they went through the Depression and a war, and they sacrificed to make America really a better place. They fought the Axis powers. They fought the Nazis. They created an America that had the largest middle class that the world had ever seen.

Now, what did we, the baby boomers, do with that? I think, quite honestly, we did a lot of good things. I don’t want to tar with too broad a brush, but the fact of the matter is that by the late 1970s, the median wage in the United States stagnated. Adjusted for inflation, most Americans really didn’t see any improvement, even though they were working hard, even though they were playing by the rules, even though they were doing everything they were told to do. The social contract had been, if you do that, you will do better, and your children will do better. If companies do better, the employees of those companies will do better. Amy, that’s all — that all started to come apart.

And I think that what we are living with now, Donald Trump, is, in many respects, the consequence and the final sort of result of those years in which we took democracy for granted. We allowed big money to take over. We allowed all of that wealth and income to go to the top and to big corporations and — who monopolized the economy. We allowed labor unions to basically be busted by big corporations, to the point where, well, only 6% of American workers are now unionized. In other words, we, the baby boomers, although we did a lot of good things, we took for granted what we were given, the democracy, the institutions of our democracy. And Donald Trump is kind of the essence of what you do when you take your eyes off the prize.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re also describing a lot of bullying by more powerful entities and people. And that goes to your title, Coming Up Short, as you reference or joke about yourself. And you talk about growing up and what it meant to be bullied and who protected you.

ROBERT REICH: Well, I was — yes, there’s a double entendre there, obviously. And I am very short. And like many kids, I was bullied in school. But because I was very short, you know, a full head shorter than most of my peers, I was bullied in a way that made me really not want to go to school and on the bus and in the playground and, you know, in the boys’ room. And I didn’t know the word “humiliated,” but I certainly was humiliated. I felt powerless and vulnerable.

And then, years later, I learned that one of the older boys who had protected me, named Mickey Schwerner, Michael Schwerner, had, in 1964, gone to Mississippi to register voters and the real bullies of America. The Ku Klux Klan murdered Mickey and two other civil rights workers. And I think, Amy, that was the beginning of a fundamental change in my views of the world. I began to see bullying all over. It wasn’t just the schoolyard toughs bullying me. It was employers bullying employees, men bullying women, the stronger bullying the weaker, white supremacists bullying Black people. It was a — I was beginning to see that inside America there was so much bullying. And then, as inequality of income and wealth and political power began widening, that bullying intensified, until we got — Donald Trump is the bully of bullies. He is the bully-in-chief. He doesn’t know how to act other than bullying. That’s what we have now.

AMY GOODMAN: I just want to point out, it might surprise people, but it was 60 years ago this week that the bodies of Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman, two white voting rights activists and a Black voting rights activist, were found in a dam in Mississippi. Juan?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, Secretary Reich, I’d like to go back to this issue that you raised about the failure of the baby boomers and the golden era of the 1950s and '60s. Wasn't that due in large part, as well, to the fact that capitalism after World War II was faced now with the competition and the growth of national liberation movements and socialist countries around the world, so that Europe and the United States had to essentially engage in a social contract with their own working classes to prevent the further spread of socialism and communist ideas in the West, and that, in effect, it was the competition with a different type of economic system that paved the way for some of the improved lives of the European and American workers?

ROBERT REICH: Undoubtedly, Juan. That is absolutely right. But the interesting thing is that in the United States, we did not go nearly as far as the other rich countries, as Europe eventually did, as most — as Japan, as Australia, in terms of providing universal healthcare, access to higher education, access to free education, the kind of social safety nets that you find in other rich countries. We don’t even have paid sick leave, paid family and medical leave. We don’t have labor unions. I mean, again, 6% of our working people in the private sector are unionized. So, we — the American worker has been treated to the most harshest form of capitalism in the world.

And I think that, you know, that bullying I’m referring to, when Donald Trump comes along and says, in 2016, “I’m your savior,” or “I’m going to be” — you know, “I’m going to be your spokesperson,” what he’s really saying is, “I’m going to be your bully. I’m going to bully others, because you have been bullied.” And it was obviously a false promise, because he gives big tax cuts to the wealthy. He deregulates and gets rid of protections that working people need. But his rhetoric, his attitude is one as, you know, this swagger, as if he is — you know, he is the bully’s bully. He’s going to — he’s going to help working people really put down the coastal elites, the deep state, all of these, even immigrants. So, these are all bogeymen that he is creating to cover up from the fact that he is not dealing with the real sources of what has happened, the big money coming from big corporations and wealthy people that has infected and really forced our entire economy to be rigged in exactly the way that a lot of people suspect it’s been.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I also wanted — in terms of bullying, I wanted to ask you about how Trump has been using his tariff wars to — really, not so much in economic terms, but in political terms, the way he has attempted to use tariffs to force countries to change their policies. For instance, his recent announcement of 40% tariff increase on Brazilian imports, even though Brazil does not have a trade surplus with the United States — it’s the other way around — and yet he is linking these tariffs to that country’s legal system’s treatment of the former President Jair Bolsonaro. And I’m wondering your thoughts on this, using tariffs as a club, as a political club, against other nations.

ROBERT REICH: Well, it’s an entire abuse of power, once again. Remember, the power to tariff, to impose customs, to change the rules of trade, is Congress’s power under the Constitution, Article I, Section 8. Trump has usurped that power, creating this kind of false emergency about balance of payments of trade debts. And then, not only does he usurp that congressional power, but then he uses this fake power to do things that, really, he has no right to do.

You mentioned imposing a huge tariff punishing Brazil for its treatment of Bolsonaro, punishing Lula in Brazil for treating Bolsonaro as exactly Trump was treated and as Bolsonaro should have been treated. I mean, just like Trump, he rejected the outcome of an election, and he led people to attack the government. But even in Canada, what Trump is saying, “You, Canadians, you should not — I am going to raise my tariffs on you, because you are potentially supporting, you’ve said publicly, a Palestinian state.”

Well, what in the world right does the president of the United States have to intrude on the politics of Brazil or the politics of Canada? And even if the president of the United States thought he had that right, he doesn’t have a right to do it through tariffs. And even if he thought he had a right to do it through tariffs, he doesn’t have a right to do it through tariffs that basically violate Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, take that authority away from — away from Congress. You see, this is abuse piled on abuse piled on abuse.

AMY GOODMAN: Robert Reich, I want to thank you so much for being with us. Congratulations on the publication of your memoir, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America. Robert Reich, the former U.S. secretary of labor and a longtime professor of labor history at the University of California, Berkeley. Thank you so much.

ROBERT REICH: Thank you, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. Next up, 80 years ago today, the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb in the world on Hiroshima. We’ll speak to reporter Greg Mitchell. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: “Flesh Shapes the Day” by Tom Morello, performing during the Democracy Now! 20th anniversary in 2016. We’ll be celebrating our 30th anniversary next February.

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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