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AMY GOODMAN: “Criminal” by Stew Stewart from the soundtrack of the new documentary Criminal, which we’ll talk about in a minute.

This year, President Trump signed two executive orders that aim to eliminate so-called cashless bail, and threatened to cut federal funding to Washington, D.C., and other jurisdictions that keep the policy in place. Cashless bail, a system in which people accused of minor offenses are released from jail while awaiting trial without having to pay a specific cash amount, because they can’t afford it.

Next month, Texans will vote on Prop 3, which would amend the state’s Constitution to allow judges to deny bail to people charged with certain felonies. This comes as at least 15 people have died in the Harris County Jail in Houston, Texas, this year, including just two this month. Most people in jail have yet to go to trial but cannot afford to pay bail for their release.

Now a new animated musical documentary short film called Criminal is drawing attention to the crisis. This is the trailer.

STEW STEWART: More than 9,000 people dwell
in this waterfront property.
Its impressive facade might compel
or inspire those with the dough to peek in and inquire.
Who wants a condo with a wonderful view
right here in downtown Houston?
Follow me, I’ll show you.
Upon closer inspection, let me lift the veil
on the third-largest hell in America,
the Harris County Jail.

ALEC KARAKATSANIS: One thing that a lot of people don’t
appreciate about Harris County Jail
is that it looks very beautiful from the outside.
It’s overlooking the bayou
and the water in downtown Houston.
There’s all of these windows.
One thing people don’t understand
is that these windows are fake.

STEW STEWART: Windows without a view,
a metaphor too perfectly sad to be true.

ALEC KARAKATSANIS: That, in a nutshell, really captures the facade,
the veneer of what we call justice.

STEW STEWART: Criminal justice.
It’s criminal, criminal, my crime.
Time to open up your Harris County windows.

AMY GOODMAN: The trailer for Criminal. And this is a clip from the new film, which features Alec Karakatsanis, author of Copaganda, who we’ll hear from in a minute. This clip begins with a call from a Harris County Jail prisoner.

MALE 5: I have as of today,
been incarcerated for over 13 months.
My next court date is not until the last week of July.
That’s six months of dry sitting in jail
for a so-called crime I never committed.
Now I’m ready to become a felon just to get outta jail
or at least get this train moving.
That’s one year already wasted.

STEW STEWART: But most of us don’t go to trial.

ALEC KARAKATSANIS: The money bail system
The money bail system
The money bail system is built to coerce guilty pleas.
In Harris County, Texas, in misdemeanor cases,
if you’re too poor to afford a couple hundred dollars
to get out of jail,
you plead guilty 84% of the time
and you do so in about 3.2 days.

STEW STEWART: It’s too expensive to be innocent.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s a clip from the animated musical documentary short film Criminal, which was published this month on The New Yorker magazine website.

Democracy Now!’s Nermeen Shaikh and I recently spoke to three people involved with the film.

Stew Stewart, Tony Award winner, singer-songwriter, behind the critically acclaimed Broadway musical Passing Strange, his music and lyrics are featured in Criminal. He’s a professor of the practice of musical theater writing at Harvard.

Krish Gundu is executive director of the Texas Jail Project.

And Alec Karakatsanis is the founder of the Civil Rights Corps and author of Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News.

We began by asking Alec about his comment in the film that, quote, “There is no presumption of innocence in practice in the American legal system if you’re poor.” This was his response.

ALEC KARAKATSANIS: Every single night, and right now as we’re talking, there are hundreds of thousands of human beings in jail cells all over this country solely because their families lack cash to pay for their pretrial release. The United States and the Philippines are the only two countries in the world that have a for-profit, commercial money bail industry, which means that in the vast majority of cases all over the country every single day, the reason that children are separated from their parents, the reason people are taken away from their homes and jobs and schools and churches and communities, is not that anyone has determined that they’re a danger to the community or anyone has made a reasoned decision based on evidence that they should be jailed, but because they lack access to cash.

And what this ends up doing is it ends up creating millions of coerced guilty pleas every single year all across the country, just because people are so desperate to get out, because they’re deprived of their medication, there’s no one to take care of their pets, they don’t know where their children are. All of these, these horrific things are happening to people in this country solely because they lack access to pay for pretrial money bail. And this is unconstitutional, and it’s the work that we’ve devoted ourselves to over the last decade at Civil Rights Corps.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Krish, could you speak about your work? You are co-founder and executive director of the Texas Jail Project, and you’re featured in this documentary, as well. If you could talk specifically about what you know of what happens at Harris County Jail?

KRISHNAVENI GUNDU: So, Harris County Jail is the largest warehouse of people with mental illness in the state of Texas. Every time I say that, I find it so hard to believe, but that is what we have decided to do as a society, is to invest in punitive solutions to public health issues. So, today, if you look at the Harris County Jail dashboard, out of the 8,763 people that are being held in jail, 78% are tagged as psychiatric — 78%. So we’re the largest warehouse of people with serious mental illness in the state of Texas, not a state hospital, not any kind of psych facility, but a county jail, where the pretrial detention percentage is 67.8%. So, what we’re essentially doing is we’re locking people up for their illness. We have criminalized mental illness. We’ve criminalized homelessness. We’ve criminalized reproductive rights.

And so, the jail has become the emergency room of our community. And as a result, what you see are all these horrific deaths in our jail. So, this year we’ve had — this calendar year, we have had 15 reported deaths — 15. Out of that, at least six were people who had cycled through both the mental health and the jail system for years and years and years and never received the appropriate level of care that they needed. And also, the people who died in our jail disproportionately are people with serious mental illness and medical issues, and so they can’t advocate for their medical needs, which is why they end up in sort of horrific tragedies.

And I’ll give you one quick example of one of the deaths this year. Young man, 39 years old, he struggled with severe schizophrenia, and he died of a completely treatable throat infection, just a simple strep throat infection, because he was not able to advocate for himself. And when we got his records and his autopsy report, his medical records and autopsy report, it turned out that he had starved to death because his throat closed up. So, those are the kind of deaths that we’re seeing in our jail.

AMY GOODMAN: Stew, I wanted to ask you about your collaboration with Thomas Curtis. He was incarcerated for 11 years. How does his experience affect the visual language of the piece, this very unusual collaboration between, you know, a regular documentary exposing the Harris County Jail and it almost being a kind of really profound music video?

STEW STEWART: Well, it’s actually far more unusual than you could even imagine, because when Heidi and I were creating the music, we never saw a single frame of what Thomas was doing. And that seems shocking to a lot of people, but I actually think the fact that we were working independently meant that we were investing deeply in the music and doing our best to serve the truth of the film, and we weren’t worried about serving an image. And Thomas didn’t have to necessarily worry about serving the music. He was just doing his thing. We were doing ours. And there were no conversations. There literally were no conversations. We just — both parties just did what they do, and you see the result.

AMY GOODMAN: Had you known about the Harris County Jail system before you wrote this musical piece? It opens with you describing this Harris County Jail in downtown Houston that looks like a high-rise with windows. And as you sing about it — 

STEW STEWART: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — there are no windows, actually. Those are not windows.

STEW STEWART: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, turning the — turning the facts into lyrics was, you know, incredibly challenging and worrisome sometimes. But the thing is, I come from Los Angeles, so I grew up in Daryl Gates’s, you know, LAPD. You know, I was bailing friends out of jail by pawning my guitar amps while I was still in high school. So, I grew up with this. So, that part, I was familiar with. From a Los — from the police state that Los Angeles was that I grew up in, I was very familiar with this. I was not familiar with Houston specifically, but the feeling of what was going on was absolutely something I was completely familiar with, and still am.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to another clip from Criminal that looks at the conditions at the Harris County Jail during COVID-19 pandemic.

STEW STEWART: And then COVID hit.

KRISHNAVENI GUNDU: Some of these men filed a civil lawsuit
just to get mops and brooms.

MALE 7: Yeah, after four weeks of sweeping with newspaper
and mopping our pod with our towels,
yeah, we got 26 in the cell.
And often the food is tossed in there,
through or under the door.
And sometimes the guards count wrong
or other prisoners even take more of the money
before everyone gets theirs.

MALE 8: I spent seven days in quarantine,
which meant solitary confinement.
I was supposed to get out an hour once a day,
but with 26 cells all in a row,
if the guards changed shifts before they got to my cell,
sometimes they missed me
and I’d be in there for 36 hours straight.
It was hell.
Sometimes they’d have me go alone for more than a day
with no food, no lounge time.
Two prisoners died while I was in there.

AMY GOODMAN: Harris County Jail issued this statement in response to the film. “Harris County implemented aggressive health measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in the jail in spite of the crowded conditions. As a result, the jail’s COVID-19 mortality rate was far below the mortality rates reported in other major U.S. jails. In fact, the overall mortality rate for the Harris County Jail has consistently ranked below the state and national jail average, including in 2022.” Krish Gundu, can you respond to this?

KRISHNAVENI GUNDU: I think the national mortality rate, that whole conversation, is a distraction. It is a distraction from what is actually happening in our jails. It has been happening since way before COVID and has been happening through COVID and post-COVID.

If you look at the kind of deaths that happen in our jail — and I don’t know if you caught this earlier — the number of people who are dying in our jail, there’s a disproportionate number of them who have serious mental illness and disabilities. These are people who cannot advocate for themselves. And so, instead of just looking at the numbers, we need to look at the stories.

And I’ll tell you a real quick story — two stories, if you have time for it. One, a young man, 39 years old, who died in our jail, he had severe schizophrenia, and he died of a perfectly treatable throat infection. He had a strep throat infection, which was easily treatable. But because he couldn’t advocate for himself because of his schizophrenia, nobody knew that he was sick, and he died. And when we found the autopsy report in the medical records, we found that he had actually starved to death because his throat had closed up. So, that’s the kind of death that’s happening.

The other one that I want to share with you is this person who was arrested on criminal trespass, the kind of charge that they should not be holding people in jail anymore. And he was arrested in acute psychiatric crisis. He should have been sent to the hospital. But instead, they kept him in a single cell, in a padded cell, used multiple restraints on him. And he still managed to kill himself by repeatedly hitting his head on the metal grate in the floor, over and over again, while the jail staff watched. And the jail was never found noncompliant.

And the point I’m trying to make with that is that that would not happen in a psych facility or in a hospital. But those are the kind of people that we are willing to book in our jail and let and watch them die, and then talk about mortality rates. It doesn’t matter if the mortality rate is lower. What matters is the kind of deaths that we are seeing, which are completely preventable. These people should have never been confined and booked into our jail, the kind of people that we’re seeing who are dying.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Krish Gundu, if you could talk about, you know, the extent to which Harris County Jail is representative of what’s happening in other county jails across Texas?

KRISHNAVENI GUNDU: So, the Harris County Jail is very representative of what’s happening across the county jail system. In fact, the state has multiple times — you know, the Texas Association of Counties, the Legislature, all the state regulatory agencies, they all casually throw out this fact that the Texas county jail system is the largest warehouse of people with mental illness in the state of Texas. This is an accepted documented fact at this point. And Harris County Jail happens to be the largest of that. In fact, the top three out of the top five populations of people with mental illness are county jails in Texas. So, what you see in Harris County is happening across the state. We had — we had several people dying of water intoxication in Dallas and Fort Worth, and dehydration and starvation. I mean, these are not things that would happen in regular psych hospitals. But we have — the state has pushed its mental health crisis into the jails, and so we are beginning to see all these horrific, horrific deaths across the state in county jails.

AMY GOODMAN: And this is another clip from Criminal.

STEW STEWART: George Floyd spent 10 months
in the Harris County Jail before he left Texas
and went north to Minneapolis
in search of a better life.

ALEC KARAKATSANIS: One sad fact
of our modern American punishment system
is that you can spend 10 months
in the Harris County Jail like George Floyd did,
a place of unspeakable horror.
And you can think to yourself, I need to go somewhere
where I’m gonna find a different way of life.
I’m gonna go somewhere where the same
injustices don’t plague every single day of my existence.
And yet there’s nowhere you can go in this country
where these problems don’t exist,
because there is not a single city or state in this country
where the criminal punishment bureaucracy is functioning
in a way that promotes well-being and safety
and flourishing of people in communities.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that clip, we hear the music of Stew and Heidi, and Alec Karakatsanis, who is the author of the book Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News. So, if you can move, Alec, from the Harris County Jail and this story of George Floyd spending 10 months there before he was finally released and went on to the Twin Cities, and talk about what’s happening in this country, and in light of the militarization of cities in this country, the number of people we may see increase in jail, not able to get out simply because they don’t have bail money? Talk about the significance of all of this, what what you call “copaganda” has to do with this.

ALEC KARAKATSANIS: I think we have to put all of this into context, right? So, the United States right now is putting Black people in jail cells at six times the rate of South Africa at the height of apartheid. We are putting all human beings in jail at about six times the rate of other comparable countries and six times the rate of our own steady historical average from the time of the founding up until about 1980. So, when you have that kind of massive bureaucratic system, it’s actually quite difficult to transition 10 million human beings every single year into this kind of punishment bureaucracy system. It takes an enormous amount of effort. It takes public defenders and prosecutors and judges and probation officers and parole officers and police officers and prison guards, etc., etc.

But also it provides an incredible opportunity for profit. There are multibillion-dollar industries at every single stage along that system, from the production of the metal chains and the jails and the hand — and the sort of Tasers and the guns, but also the software and the facial recognition algorithms and all of the sort of things that police and technology that the prosecutors have to use, etc., etc. So, every single one of these — look at Harris County Jail, for example. There’s a multibillion-dollar prison and jail telecom industry. So, there’s all of these interests that have an incentive to keep expanding the punishment bureaucracy.

And in addition, when you have this kind of metastasized system, you have to tell the public a certain story about what it’s doing, because no society in the recorded history of the modern world has ever tried to take so many people who live in it and lock them up. And this is a story that needs to be told in a really persuasive way, because most people, when they just first encounter this, they think, “How is this possible? How is it possible that a country that has really beautiful messages, you know, inscribed on its marble monuments, and it has all this commitment to liberty and due process — how is that reconciled with the greatest incarceration machine that the world has ever seen?”

Well, this is where copaganda comes in. It’s a series of mythologies that are created to tell people that the real purpose of the system is not profit, it’s not control, but it’s actually safety and even justice. So, a lot of people use the term “criminal justice system.” I don’t use that term. I call it the “punishment bureaucracy,” because I think the “criminal justice system” is another sort of term of copaganda. It’s designed to make us think that what’s happening here has either the purpose or the effect of doing justice.

And so, I think what copaganda really does is three main things. First, it narrows our conception of safety and threat, so it has us really, really worried about only a very narrow range of the harms that happen in our society, particularly harms that the police associate with poor people, unhoused people, people of color, particularly Black people, immigrants and strangers — right? — so has us really, really worried about the person next to us at Walgreens or the person that we walk down the street and see from afar — right? — when, in fact, most interpersonal harm in our society is committed by people who know each other. Most physical and sexual violence is perpetrated by people who have a relationship with each other. And so, copaganda has us really afraid of all those things, but ignoring the far larger harms in our society, like wage theft, which is about $50 billion a year. That’s like five times all property crime combined. And yet the news media focuses on a tiny amount of shoplifting, even if shoplifting is actually down. It also ignores air pollution. Millions of criminal acts of air and water pollution kill 100,000 people a year. That’s five times all homicide combined. But we’re taught to really not focus on that and to narrow our conception of safety and threat.

And the second thing copaganda does is, once it’s narrowed our conception of threat, it tells us that those threats from those marginalized people are constantly increasing and increasing and increasing. So people think crime is up every year, even though it’s been going down and we have historic lows.

And the final thing that copaganda does, that I really focus on in the book, is it tells us that the solution to all of those fears is more and more and more and more investment in the bureaucracy of punishment and police prosecution, prison sentences. And this is kind of like a modern flat-Earther mythology. It’s completely contrary to all of the evidence. What the evidence shows is the amount of interpersonal harm in any given society is largely determined by root structural causes, like levels of inequality and poverty and access to healthcare and housing, levels of loneliness and isolation versus community connection, toxic masculinity, exposure to toxins like lead in children.

And that’s what copaganda does — right? — is it focuses on the wrong problems and the wrong solutions to those problems, to create a culture of fear that turns people against the most vulnerable people in society, so that the people who own and control things in our society can develop the tools of surveillance and punishment and repression that can preserve distributions of wealth and power in a society.

AMY GOODMAN: _Criminal is a short animated musical documentary featuring the musician Stew Stewart, who wrote the music with Heidi Rodewald; Krish Gundu, executive director of the Texas Jail Project; and Alec Karakatsanis, founder of the Civil Rights Corps and author of Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News. You can watch Criminal on The New Yorker magazine website and YouTube channel.

That does it for our show. Democracy Now!‘s Nermeen Shaikh is speaking Saturday in St. Louis. You can check it out at democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report.

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.

Next up, a new documentary called Criminal, drawing attention to the Harris County Jail in Houston, Texas, where at least 15 people have already died this year. Back in 20 seconds.

AMY GOODMAN: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in Israel today as the Trump administration piles pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the fragile Gaza ceasefire deal. A parade of top Trump officials held meetings with Netanyahu in Israel all week, starting with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, then Vice President JD Vance.

Just before broadcast, Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a news conference at Kiryat Gat in southern Israel, a newly opened international central command, surrounded by military troops, on what is his latest visit to oversee the implementation of the Gaza deal. Despite Israel’s repeated ceasefire violations, Rubio praised the truce, saying, quote, “A lot of good progress is being made on a number of fronts,” referring to Trump’s 20-point so-called peace plan for Gaza.

When asked whether UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, will be involved in humanitarian efforts in Gaza, Rubio responded, “No,” and referred to the agency as a “subsidiary of Hamas.” Rubio’s remarks came after a ruling by the International Court of Justice this week saying Israel has not, quote, “substantiated its allegations that a significant part of UNRWA’s employees are members of Hamas,” unquote.

Rubio was also questioned about escalating Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank, including against U.S. citizens. This is Rubio responding.

REPORTER: There’s been a series of settler attacks against a village full of American citizens in the West Bank called Turmus Aya. I was just wondering if you had seen any of the videos of these attacks.

SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO: I’m aware of the incidents, and I’ve seen — I mean, not recently. I’ve seen them, some of the ones that have been posted, some of the things on social media. Our embassy has worked on that topic and has expressed the U.S. opinion to the government. Obviously, the safety and security of Americans anywhere in the world is something that will be important to us. So, now, we’ve — we’ve expressed our position directly to the Israelis.

AMY GOODMAN: As the Israeli Knesset Thursday voted to annex the occupied West Bank, in his news conference in Kiryat Gat, Rubio called the move, quote, “a threat to the peace process.”

President Trump has also rejected Israel’s plans to annex the occupied West Bank, saying in a recent interview with Time magazine, “It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened,” Trump said. He spoke on Thursday,

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The West Bank is — don’t worry about the West Bank. Israel’s not going to do anything with the West Bank, OK? Don’t worry about it. Is that your question? They’re not going to do anything with the West Bank. Don’t worry about it. Israel’s doing very well. They’re not going to do anything with it.

AMY GOODMAN: Trump’s remarks came as Vice President JD Vance said he’s personally insulted by the annexation vote, which came during his visit to Israel.

VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE: It was a very stupid political stunt, and I personally take some insult to it. The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel. The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel. That will continue to be our policy. And if people want to take symbolic votes, they can do that, but we certainly weren’t happy about it.

AMY GOODMAN: This all comes as the United Nations is urging Israel to open the Rafah crossing to allow urgently needed humanitarian aid into Gaza. Over 40 aid groups, including Oxfam and the Norwegian Refugee Council, have published an open letter accusing Israel of arbitrarily rejecting aid deliveries into Gaza.

In a minute, we’ll be joined by Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, who’s just returned from a trip to the occupied West Bank. This is a clip of his visit.

JAN EGELAND: This is the Ras Ein al-Auja Bedouin community here on the West Bank. It’s in Area C. Israel has control in this area. But the Bedouins have been here now for more than 50 years. This settlement, which is an outpost in the distance behind us, that’s new.

AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Amman, Jordan, to speak with Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Jan, thanks so much for being with us. If you can start off by talking about that trip you just took, two-day visit to the West Bank, which you say is, quote, “being intentionally and brutally carved up”? Explain, as people focus on Gaza, what’s happening in the West Bank.

JAN EGELAND: No, indeed. I mean, I was there three years ago, the last time. I’ve been there now for more than 30 years altogether. And I was shocked to see how many new illegal settlements are strategically put on all hilltops in large parts of the countryside in the West Bank, at the same time as the thugs, the violent settler gangs from these settlements, attack every single day Palestinian rural communities, very vulnerable Bedouin communities, torch their houses, torch their mosque, their school, steal their livestock and divert their water. So, you see how the place is annexed and the occupation deepens — because this is occupied land — every single day now. And it’s changing as we speak.

After the 7th of October two years ago, when Hamas did this atrocities, horrific atrocities in Israel, I think the settler movement felt they had a free hand to do whatever they wanted on the West Bank, and it happened in the shadows of the war in Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: And what do you make of the vote in the Knesset around the annexation of the West Bank? You just heard Vice President Vance saying he took it as a personal insult, and Trump saying it’s not going to happen. But it happened. The vote happened.

JAN EGELAND: Yeah, it did happen. And, of course, ministers in the Israeli Cabinet are very outspoken on their ambition to annex formally the West Bank. And we’re very glad that President Trump, Vice President Vance, Secretary Rubio all say it will not happen, there will be no formal annexation of the occupied land on the West Bank.

In reality, a lot of things are happening on the ground. I mean, every single day, Palestinian houses are demolished. Every single day, the communities are attacked. Every single day, people are beaten up, thousands of olive trees are uprooted. I mean, it’s happening as we speak. And I would encourage, really, U.S. and European and other decision-makers to take a tour with us and see what’s happening in the West Bank, because the injustice is just enormous.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to the U.N. humanitarian affairs office saying it’s documented 71 attacks on the occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property in just one week. Among the victims is a 55-year-old woman who was hospitalized with a brain hemorrhage after she was beaten unconscious by a masked Israeli settler wielding a club.

AFAF ABU ALIA: [translated] We were picking olives. Then a vehicle passed by. It kept on going by. Then a woman started screaming, “Settlers!” And we didn’t see them. They were hiding between the olive trees. She told me, “Settlers! Settlers!” Then, me, my sister-in-law, my brother-in-law and my son ran away from the area. …

I was looking around, and I saw around 20 settlers. And they started beating me on my head. I fell to the ground, and I couldn’t feel anything. They continued beating me. I didn’t see anyone. And then two people came and carried me.

AMY GOODMAN: Independent journalist Jasper Nathaniel, who filmed Sunday’s violence against Palestinian olive farmers in the occupied West Bank village of Turmus Aya, compared the Israeli settlers’ attack to a lynch mob. Jasper Nathaniel and a group of Palestinians were then chased by a swarm of Israeli settlers carrying stones and clubs. Jasper Nathaniel is a U.S. citizen. Also with him, a Palestinian man, Yasser, get into a car as settlers then try to smash the back window.

JASPER NATHANIEL: Press! Press! American press! American press! Press!

They’re literally right behind us. He’s right here. He’s about to smash our window. There he is. Here he is. Get ready. There it is. Are the doors locked?

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Jasper Nathaniel, the American journalist. Jan Egeland, if you can respond? I mean, so far this year, there were over 750 Israeli settler attacks, which is a 13% increase over last year. What are you calling for now at the Norwegian Refugee Council?

JAN EGELAND: We’re calling for international law to be exerted on the West Bank. I mean, the occupation has to be lifted. It has now been there in place since 1967. I would urge the Western governments and NATO countries, who are so outspoken — rightly — against the Russian occupation of Ukraine. We support Ukrainian war against the occupier. Why is this tolerated when it happens on Palestinian land? It is occupation. So there has to be action.

We’re humanitarian workers on the ground. We’re there every day trying to defend these people, but we’re unarmed. We cannot really fight these settler mafias, that are well, well armed and who work without — with impunity.

Every time I met the — I met these people who had these hair-raising stories, the Palestinians, I ask them, “But why don’t you go to the Israeli occupation forces, to the police, to the army, Israeli army?” And they say, “We do that all the time. And they laugh at us, or they take down the report, and then they come back and say, ‘We investigated, and we found there to be no stealing of 1,000 sheep’” — which is now clearly in the hands of the settlers. And then, if you come with false accusation, you will be imprisoned. So they feel there is impunity for the settlers. And that’s one of the things I think the allies of Israel should be able to change.

AMY GOODMAN: And I wanted to end with the last question to Marco Rubio today in his press conference in southern Israel. He was asked about the video of attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank and also the attacks and killings of Palestinian Americans. He said, “We’ve expressed our position to the Israeli authorities. We care about Americans everywhere.” So, let’s turn to this father of a 16-year-old American, Palestinian American, Mohammed Zaher Ibrahim, demanding the U.S. government free his son from an Israeli prison.

ZAHER IBRAHIM: Anybody that’s in the U.S. government, their duty is to bring home any American citizen. And you know Israel’s prison is one of the worst prisons in the world — weight loss, scabies. They only get 10 minutes a day outside, so the rest are in the cell, crowded cell. A cell that fits eight people, they have 16 in there, so…

From day one, they said, “We’re working on it.” And, you know, then you go to one month, two months, three months. We’re at eight months. He missed about half of last year’s school. He’s missing this year of school. There’s no progress, you know. So, I think the U.S. government, either do something or admit you can’t do nothing.

AMY GOODMAN: So, final question about the number of Palestinians who are imprisoned right now. This, an American father appealing for his American son, who just turned 16 in Israeli prison, to be released — in an Israeli prison. Your response, Jan Egeland?

JAN EGELAND: Well, I would say that these are people in the thousands that have been under — in detention, with no law, no sentences, no trial, for a very long time. This is administrative detention very often, and some liken it to hostage taking. They should be released, really, or put before a trial of law and then to be proven to be criminals; if not, release them.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you very much for being with us, Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, just returned from a two-day visit to the occupied West Bank.

Next up, we look at the growing fissures within the Republican Party with a former Republican political operative. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Sweet Honey in the Rock performing “Down by the Riverside” years ago in our firehouse studio.

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

NERMEEN SHAIKH: The final debate of New York City’s closely watched mayoral race took place Wednesday night. Democratic socialist state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani is the Democratic nominee. If he wins, he would become the city’s first Muslim mayor. He faced off with Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa and independent candidate and former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in disgrace in 2021. This is part of one exchange, starting with Sliwa.

CURTIS SLIWA: My adversaries have decided to bump chests with President Trump to prove who’s more macho. You can’t beat Trump. He holds most of the cards. He’s already cut federal funding for Medicaid, for the SNAP program, and is threatening to cut funds for NYCHA. So, if you’re all of a sudden going to get adversarial, you’re going to lose. And who gets hurt? The people of New York City. With Trump, it’s always the art of the deal.

ERROL LOUIS: And Mr. Cuomo?

ANDREW CUOMO: Yeah, the difference on this question is I’ve actually lived it, and I’ve done it with President Trump over many years, through the most difficult situation that this country has gone through: COVID plus. You’re wrong. You’re going to have to confront President Trump. He is hyperaggressive, and he is going to overstep his bounds, and you are going to have to confront him. And you can beat him. I confronted him, and I have beaten him. He was going to quarantine New York during COVID, and I stopped him. He was going to cut aid to federal programs, and I stopped him.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: We first just heard from the Republican candidate for mayor, and then we heard from Donald Trump’s puppet himself, Andrew Cuomo. You could turn on TV any day of the week, and you will hear Donald Trump share that his pick for mayor is Andrew Cuomo. And he wants Andrew Cuomo to be the mayor, not because it will be good for New Yorkers, but because it will be good for him.

Look, Donald Trump ran on three promises: He ran on creating the single largest deportation force in American history, he ran on going after his political enemies, and he ran on lowering the cost of living. If he wants to talk to me about the third piece of that agenda, I will always be ready and willing. But if he wants to talk about how to pursue the first and second piece of that agenda at the expense of New Yorkers, I will fight him every single step of the way.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Zohran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa at last night’s mayoral debate. Later in the debate, Mamdani confronted Cuomo about his record.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: Mr. Cuomo, in 2021, 13 different women who worked in your administration credibly accused you of sexual harassment. Since then, you have spent more than $20 million in taxpayer funds to defend yourself, all while describing these allegations as entirely political. You have even gone so far as to legally go after these women. One of those women, Charlotte Bennett, is here in the audience this evening. You sought to access her private gynecological records. She cannot speak up for herself because you lodged a defamation case against her. I, however, can speak. What do you say to the 13 women that you sexually harassed?

ANDREW CUOMO: If you — if you want to be in government, then you have to be serious and mature. There were allegations of sexual harassment. They were then — went to five district attorneys, fully litigated for four years. The cases were dropped, right? You know that is a fact. So, everything you just stated, you just said, was a misstatement, which we’re accustomed to from — 

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: Everything that I stated was a misstatement?

ANDREW CUOMO: Yes, because the cases — the cases were dropped. That’s what happened.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Andrew Cuomo answering Zohran Mamdani. This is another excerpt from the debate. This begins with former Governor Cuomo.

ANDREW CUOMO: There is a tension between the city and the state. The city is arguing for its budgets. The state is saying no. And the city has been getting screwed by the state. And that has to change, and the city has to be doing better.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: We just had a former governor say in his own words that the city has been getting screwed by the state. Who was leading the state? It was you.

ANDREW CUOMO: Governor Hochul.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: You were leading the state for 10 years —

ANDREW CUOMO: Governor Hochul.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: — screwing the city.

ANDREW CUOMO: No.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: You cut homelessness funding.

ANDREW CUOMO: You, as a legislator —

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: You cut funding for the MTA.

ANDREW CUOMO: You, as a legislator —

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: You did all of these things, my friend.

ERROL LOUIS: Guys, guys, guys, all right.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: That’s you.

ANDREW CUOMO: That’s the past four years.

ERROL LOUIS: Guys, guys, stop, stop, stop.

ANDREW CUOMO: It’s the past four years.

AMY GOODMAN: All of this comes as early voting is set to begin Saturday, ahead of the November 4th mayoral election.

In the final weeks, there’s been growing pressure for Republican Curtis Sliwa to drop out. On Wednesday, Sliwa abruptly quit his job at WABC Radio during a live interview on the station, complaining that billionaire owner John Catsimatidis was backing Cuomo, along with other billionaires who have claimed they would leave New York if taxed too highly under Mamdani. Catsimatidis owns Gristedes and D’Agostino’s, the grocery chains.

For more, we’re joined by journalist Ross Barkan, who is following all of this very closely. He’s a columnist for New York Magazine, wrote a book on Cuomo titled The Prince: Andrew Cuomo, Coronavirus and the Fall of New York. His most recent book, Fascism or Genocide: How a Decade of Political Disorder Broke American Politics.

Ross, welcome back to Democracy Now! Talk about the significance of this last debate, and also, you know, the significance of this race for the country, with a democratic socialist in the lead.

ROSS BARKAN: I’d say that the race is more significant than the debate. The debate was very interesting, but I don’t think it will change all that much. I mean, time is running out for the race dynamics to shift. Zohran Mamdani holds a significant lead. Andrew Cuomo is in second. Curtis Sliwa, the Republican, is in third. He’s not dropping out. Early voting is coming up very soon.

I expect Mamdani to win. It’s not guaranteed. Nothing is guaranteed in life, but he’s got a great shot. And for the country and for New York City, it’s quite significant. I mean, this is the first time an unabashedly left-wing socialist politician will get to hold a major executive office. Bernie Sanders was the mayor of Burlington, Vermont. Burlington, Vermont, is the size of a few neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Zohran Mamdani is going to run one of the great and massive and important cities in the world, and all eyes are going to be on him. He’s going to be controlling the largest police department in America, the largest education department. And he will be a leader. Whether he chooses to be a national figure or not, he is one. And so, much will be riding on next year and beyond, assuming he wins in a few weeks.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Ross, you mentioned that, of course, New York City has the largest police department in the U.S. And yesterday, during the debate, Zohran confirmed that he’s asked Eric Adams appointee Jessica Tisch to stay on as the New York Police Department’s commissioner. If you could talk about the importance of him having done that?

ROSS BARKAN: Well, it’s a fascinating choice. It has — brings great promise and peril, as well. So, Jessica Tisch is popular with the city’s business and finance elite. She’s popular with lot of media members and editorial boards. She’s someone who’s had success in battling corruption in the police department. She was appointed last year after Eric Adams was indicted. And she is someone who has never walked the beat. She’s Harvard-educated. She’s a billionaire. And she’s politically a moderate. She does not share Zohran Mamdani’s politics.

But for him, having a commissioner like that can ease some of the fears among the many voters and donors who are wary of a 34-year-old socialist running the city, and it might allow him to maneuver on the rest of his agenda. He ran on an affordability agenda. He wants to deliver on a rent freeze, on free buses, on a massive child care expansion. And having Tisch there, though she’s handling police, could be a way for him to maneuver with those other policy aims, because she will have at least placated momentarily some of his opponents.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Ross, you mentioned, of course, he has run entirely on an agenda of affordability, which includes a rent freeze. But this issue came up last night, too: the Rent Guidelines Board. How does that work? Who appoints its members? And how could it make it absolutely impossible for Zohran to go ahead with any kind of rent freeze?

ROSS BARKAN: So, the Rent Guidelines Board determines the rent increases, or lack thereof, of the city’s rent-stabilized units, of which there are a lot. There’s roughly a million or so, at least a million tenants in rent-stabilized units. And the mayor appoints the members of the board. They do serve terms. There’s talk of Eric Adams trying to stack the board as he leaves, to make it harder for Mamdani in his first year to fill vacancies.

But ultimately, it’s a bit like the Supreme Court, where you get the appointments. And you don’t need the confirmation of any Senate or any body like that, and it’s very easy for a mayor to shape a board. Bill de Blasio got three rent freezes out of his Rent Guidelines Board. Eric Adams has hiked the rent on rent-stabilized apartments every single year as mayor. Michael Bloomberg hiked the rent quite dramatically. So, a mayor has a lot of power to do this. Of all of his campaign promises, this is one that, in four years, is quite deliverable.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to last night’s debate. This is Zohran Mamdani.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: You will hear from Andrew Cuomo about his experience, as if the issue is that we don’t know about it. The issue is that we have all experienced your experience. The issue is that we experienced you taking a $5 million book deal while you sent seniors to their deaths in nursing homes. The issue — 

ERROL LOUIS: OK, all right, all right, all right —

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: — is that we experienced you cutting funding for the MTA —

ERROL LOUIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

ANDREW CUOMO: Yeah.

ERROL LOUIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: — to send money to upstate ski resorts.

ERROL LOUIS: Yeah, yeah.

ANDREW CUOMO: Yeah.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: The issue is that we saw — 

ANDREW CUOMO: Whatever experience —

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: — you give $959 million in tax breaks to Elon Musk.

ERROL LOUIS: We’re going to — we’re going to — 

ANDREW CUOMO: The only — 

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: The issue is your experience.

ANDREW CUOMO: No, the only thing — the issue is — the issue is you have no experience.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: That’s what I [inaudible] about you.

ANDREW CUOMO: You’ve accomplished nothing. You haven’t proposed a bill on anything. And you still haven’t said if you’ll close Rikers in 2027.

ERROL LOUIS: Candidate — candidate, stop, stop, stop, stop.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani. Comment on that, Ross Barkan. But also, your latest book is called Fascism or Genocide: How a Decade of Political Disorder Broke American Politics. You’re not addressing directly the Mamdani candidacy, but what does his ascendancy say about the fracture within the Democratic Party nationally?

ROSS BARKAN: It is the sort of campaign that a few years ago would have been considered quite far-fetched, because Mamdani is pro-Palestine, and openly pro-Palestine, and that was taboo in the Democratic Party until, you know, maybe a year ago, maybe even less. And you saw — I write a lot about the “uncommitted” movement last year that challenged Joe Biden, and the unrest, the DNC. And Mamdani is a continuation of that, and he is an apotheosis, in some ways. You have a movement that was quite small and marginalized and had very few supporters at all, and now you have the possible future mayor of New York City who’s not afraid to say “Free Palestine” or support BDS or criticize Netanyahu, and has even called for Netanyahu’s arrest. So, that is significant.

Andrew Cuomo is an Israel hawk. He’s always been one. So, Mamdani and Cuomo are completely on opposite sides on this issue. And Mamdani won a dramatic primary victory. He won by a lot. And if the polls are to be believed, and I think they are — if anything, it might be undercounting Mamdani’s vote, especially his youth supporters — he’s going to win again. So, that’s a very big deal for the pro-Palestine side in this fight.

AMY GOODMAN: And it’s been remarkable that the two leading Democratic national figures, Hakeem Jeffries — right? — represents the Democrats in the House of Representatives — and Chuck Schumer, have not endorsed Mamdani. Of course, he’s gotten a lot of national endorsements, from senators and congressmembers, as well. But Hakeem Jeffries has not yet?

ROSS BARKAN: No, they have not. Even the governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, who’s a centrist and very pro-Israel and has openly said she disagrees with Mamdani, has endorsed him. So, it’s not clear at this point what the calculus truly is, other than maybe they feel by endorsing Mamdani, they could hurt Democrats in swing districts. It seems like they’re overthinking it a bit. They’re certainly both very pro-Israel. You know, Schumer and Jeffries both, one would character as Israel hawks. So, Mamdani’s politics make them uncomfortable. They’re both from New York City, from Brooklyn, so they are ground zero for all this. But I think there are a lot of rank-and-file Democrats who are wondering why the leaders of the party can’t endorse the Democratic nominee. Certainly if Mamdani wins by a significant margin, they do look weak.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We want to go to another topic now, Ross. You have a new article for New York Magazine headlined “Trump Is Courting Catastrophe in Venezuela.” And we want to ask you about this latest news we had in headlines. The Pentagon confirmed Wednesday that the U.S. launched strikes against two vessels in the Pacific off the coast of Colombia, killing five people, and claimed without evidence that the boats were carrying drugs. This follows seven strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean before. So, if you could comment on that?

ROSS BARKAN: It’s quite dangerous and quite disturbing, and it runs counter to the image that Trump now is trying to propagate as being a peace president for working towards a ceasefire, achieving one, a tentative one at least, a peace agreement in the Middle East between Hamas and Israel, which I actually think Trump deserves some praise for. I have said that.

But Venezuela here, you have a situation where the United States seems fairly committed to attempting regime change. And whatever — you know, however horrific Maduro is — and I do believe he’s a dictator who has really immiserated his people — the idea that you can go into Venezuela, take out the government and peacefully initiate any kind of regime change is an absolute fantasy. I mean, this would be like Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya, but in some ways a lot worse. I mean, you have organized militaries and paramilitaries, and the country’s politics are quite complex.

And you have Trump and Rubio and a lot of these, you know, MAGA types just playing with fire in a very real way. And it is dangerous. And we are, I fear, sleepwalking towards catastrophe. I hope Trump pulls back like with Iran — he did not push it further. But you don’t know. And that’s the concerning thing now. You’re killing people extrajudiciously, and you’re talking about throwing out a leader of a country. We did that in Libya. We did it in Iraq. It did not end well. And this will not end well.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there. And, of course, he’s also attacking Colombian boats and killing Colombians, as well. Ross Barkan, journalist, author and columnist for New York Magazine. His latest book, Fascism or Genocide: How a Decade of Political Disorder Broke American Politics. That does it for our show. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh, for Democracy Now!

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

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Secretary of State Marco Rubio is heading to Israel today, following on the heels of Vice President JD Vance’s visit. Vance was in Israel to discuss the future of Gaza and implementing the next steps of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire.

During Vance’s visit, Israel’s Knesset advanced legislation to annex the occupied West Bank. Earlier today, Vance said he was, quote, “personally insulted” by the annexation vote.

VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE: It was a very stupid political stunt, and I personally take some insult to it. The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel. The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel. That will continue to be our policy. And if people want to take symbolic votes, they can do that, but we certainly weren’t happy about it.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Robert Malley, former U.S. senior Middle East official under Presidents Clinton, Obama and Biden, co-author of the new book, Tomorrow Is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine. He wrote the book with Hussein Agha, who has been a negotiator on behalf of the Palestinians. Robert Malley is a lecturer at Yale University, the former president of the International Crisis Group.

Thanks so much for being with us. Can you start off by just assessing where this ceasefire is now? What is the first stage? We just are seeing a parade of U.S. officials. Vance was there, following up on Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. And now you have, of course, Rubio arriving in Israel.

ROBERT MALLEY: Yeah, I think some in the Israeli press are calling this “Bibi-sitting.”

So, listen, there’s parts of this plan that are, you know, terrible. And I could spend hours trying to eviscerate the plan in terms of its sort of neocolonial aspects of deciding everything for Palestinians, without Palestinians having a voice, and allowing Israel to remain in Gaza and to decide when and how it will withdraw. So, again, there’s so much to be said against it.

That said, so far, it appears to have ended the slaughter, much of the slaughter, most of the slaughter, and allowed, as we just heard, some humanitarian assistance to come in, and the hostages and Palestinian captives were released. So, that’s something that President Trump’s predecessor had not been able to achieve.

The next phase is, you know, we’ll see. There’s many reasons to be skeptical, to be pessimistic. The plan is vague, ambiguous. Again, it gives a lot of the keys to Israel to decide what and if it will do anything. But one step at a time. I think it’s at least good to see that the guns have fallen mostly quiet for now.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, the U.S. officials who’ve been there this week, and Rubio en route now, are ostensibly there to discuss the implementation of the second phase of Trump’s 20-point ceasefire plan. So, if you could talk about, so, prospects for the second phase, which include establishing a transitional government in Gaza, deploying an international stabilization force, the disarmament of Hamas and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza? There have been no dates set yet for any of this, but now these discussions will be underway. Is that correct?

ROBERT MALLEY: I mean, that’s the American plan. And again, it seemed to — that’s what they want to do. They want to — and they seem — you know, the Trump administration seems to be extremely focused. We mentioned how many of the senior officials are there.

But each of these phases that you mentioned are full of obstacles. I mean, is Hamas really going to disarm? Why would they disarm, when, obviously, they still face — they believe they face security threats, and they also want to continue to be the de facto authority in Gaza? Is Israel really going to withdraw? Are they going to be prepared to have an international stabilization force? Neither side really wants that. Hamas doesn’t want to have a force that is going to be there maybe to disarm it. Israel doesn’t particularly like having a third party that’s going to be interposed between it and the Palestinians, because it wants to be free to do whatever it wants in Gaza.

So, I think we’re going to see obstacle after obstacle. It doesn’t sound like they have a concrete plan and know how to implement it. But again, I would take it one step at a time. And if all that is achieved is the end to the worst of the bloodshed, I’d give credit to the Trump administration to have done that. The rest of the plan is not just vague and ambiguous. There’s a lot not to like about it.

AMY GOODMAN: And talk about the battle over the corpses. Israel has just returned dozens of corpses of Palestinian prisoners — the Gaza Health Ministry says there are signs of them being tortured and mutilated — and then Hamas handing over corpses of Israeli hostages. They’re saying they need the kind of equipment — 

ROBERT MALLEY: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: — that they can’t get right now to get the rest. And, of course, they don’t have the DNA testing equipment.

ROBERT MALLEY: Yeah, and, of course, I’m not there. I don’t know. Even U.S. officials seem to have said, “Yes, we have to understand this is going to take time.” I mean, look at the pictures from Gaza. It is — it’s almost unwatchable, unthinkable, unspeakable. So, to think that they — you know, they know exactly where everyone is? But again, I just don’t know. U.S. officials seem to say that Hamas, so far, has not violated the deal. So, you know, if the Trump administration says that, I think that tells you something.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, if we could just go back to what you mentioned earlier, first of all, the U.S. officials who are there now negotiating the second phase, as you’ve mentioned, what the Trump administration did, which no previous administration did, is speak directly to Hamas. So, do you know if American officials who are there now — are they just speaking to Israel, or are they also planning to negotiate directly with Hamas again?

ROBERT MALLEY: I mean, they won’t, not on this trip, because they’re not — they won’t meet them in Israel, and they’re not going to go to Gaza. I think the question is whether — you know, when they’re in Turkey or in Qatar, will they meet with Hamas again? I suspect there are still contacts ongoing, texts or whatever, however they communicate.

And again, this is one of the taboos. I could spend hours denouncing what President Trump does here and abroad, but the fact that he broke, shattered this taboo — which is a taboo that never made any sense. How do you negotiate between two belligerents if you’re going to keep one belligerent at arm’s length and say we’re never going to talk to them? So, that’s good, and I think it helped put — bring Hamas over the finish line on this deal. So, again, something to — something to applaud, perhaps.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And the international stabilization force, I mean, as you mentioned, it’s opposed both, effectively, by Israel and by Hamas. If you could talk about what the international stabilization force — who will make up this force, and nationalities from everywhere or only Muslim countries?

AMY GOODMAN: And Vance just said today that there would not be any U.S. soldiers there.

ROBERT MALLEY: There will be no American — so, I think one of the big disputes is whether Turkey would be part of it. I don’t think — I think you may have, must have heard it is something that some Americans have thought of. Netanyahu is very clear, not an idea he likes. Who knows? I mean, and I think part of the question will be: Under what conditions are they prepared to go? Would Arab or Muslim or any troops be prepared to be there, if Israel is continuing to shoot on Gazans it suspects of being members or, you know, officials of Hamas?

So, there’s going to be a lot of back-and-forth over who’s going to be in this force and what its mandate is going to be and what it does if it sees something that either Israelis or Palestinians are doing that it doesn’t like. Is it really going to be prepared to try to forcibly disarm Hamas? Again, these are huge questions that it’s going to take time to resolve.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, the lack of Palestinian participation in these negotiations?

ROBERT MALLEY: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: And what they mean when they say Palestinian technocrats will run the administration?

ROBERT MALLEY: I mean, it’s not just that. But if you look at what’s happening in Gaza, this has been an Israeli — the title of our book is Tomorrow Is Yesterday, because so much of what we’re seeing today we’ve seen in the past: trying to fragment and morsel, you know, territory in the West Bank and now Gaza; parts of Gaza occupied by Israel, parts not; trying maybe to establish in the parts that are occupied by Israel different forms of governance. This is really a recipe for greater fragmentation of the Palestinian national movement. And to your point, yes, the Palestinians don’t seem to have had a major, if any, voice in the elaboration of the plan.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, I mean, another point that you make — and this is your book, Tomorrow Is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine. You make the argument, against what most have suggested or argued, that neither the October 7th Hamas attack nor Israel’s response are, as you say, neither, quote, “new, anomalous, or aberrant.” Explain why you think that’s the case.

ROBERT MALLEY: And this is partly why we wrote the book, is that after October 7th and after the slaughter that Israel has been conducting, people were saying it’s just a matter of getting rid of Netanyahu and his right wing, you know, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, it’s a matter of disarming Hamas and bringing — reforming the Palestinian Authority, as if Netanyahu and Hamas came from another planet and that it had nothing to do with the conflict and nothing to do with their respective societies.

You know, the October 7th, people may not like hearing it, but it was applauded and welcomed by large swaths of Palestinian society, because they felt, finally — and this is something they’d been trying to do in decades past: take Israeli captives as a way of getting Palestinian detainees out, try to “invade,” quote, unquote, Israeli territory as retribution for Israeli occupation and dispossession of Palestinian land, trying to make Israelis fear as much as they have feared. So, you didn’t hear denunciations of October 7th by Palestinians across the board after the attack.

The Israeli response, which an increasing number of experts have called a genocide, did you see large groups of Israelis denouncing it? No, it was also not Bibi’s war; it was Israel’s war.

So, the point of the book is to say, if, after decades of peacemaking, so-called, by the U.S., this is where we are, where both societies are prepared to identify with some of the worst expressions of violence and anger and hostility towards the other, something went terribly wrong. And we try to tell the story of what that is.

AMY GOODMAN: You weren’t there. You were no longer working for Biden October 7th.

ROBERT MALLEY: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: But the rage that many feel that this could have happened two years ago, this ceasefire.

ROBERT MALLEY: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: And if you can talk about what Biden did then? Many feel that Trump wouldn’t be in power, if he had done something two years ago, Biden, not to mention the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Palestinians who have died.

ROBERT MALLEY: Yes, I mean, I focus on the latter. I don’t know about the political equation. I think the latter, being sort of morally complicit, more than morally complicit in what happened, I think that’s a stain that is going to be very hard for the Biden administration to every erase.

The explanation, I think it’s partly — you know, partly the president himself and his whole history, his emotional makeup, his political makeup, his very strong empathy, which he never hides, with Israel and the Jewish people, and lack of a similar empathy, which his own vice president has now said, towards the Palestinians. I think there were other reasons, sort of the habits of American foreign policy. You side with Israel, and it’s sort of for strategic, historical, emotional and political reasons.

As you say, the politics may be changing, and I suspect the Biden administration was too slow in realizing — very slow — perhaps they didn’t even realize it until even at the end — that the usual political equation, which is you always gain by siding with Israel, and you always lose by criticizing Israel, that had begun to shift. I think they were late in coming to that realization. And yes, it is something that — it’s a very sad fact that President Trump could get the ceasefire that President Biden was unable to do.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, I mean, if you could explain? Because, of course, it’s not just the Biden administration, as you said. It was kind of a — there was continuity, bipartisan continuity, for decades, and this was the logic, that you have to side with Israel. And you worked, of course, with three successive Democratic administrations: Clinton, Obama and Biden. You yourself have said that under all three administrations, Israeli settler expansion in the West Bank accelerated, even as the U.S. was talking about moving toward a two-state solution. So, you were on the inside. If you could explain: What were the conversations that justified what is so plainly paradoxical?

ROBERT MALLEY: Very hard question to answer. I mean, again, part of it is just I think there’s a sort of a political DNA and the habits of what some have called the blob, to sort of replicate over and over again the same — the same policy.

I think, on a question like the settlements, which is really an interesting one, it’s almost the same contradiction of saying, “We are working endlessly for ceasefire, but we’re going to continue to give the weapons that are ensuring that the fire won’t cease,” saying, “Well, we want a two-state solution. We want a Palestinian contiguous, viable state,” and yet saying nothing when settlements expand, or not doing anything to stop it, turning a blind eye. There, the argument that I would hear and that was said publicly is, “Yeah, the settlements are not — they’re an obstacle to peace. They’re inconsistent with peace. But once we reach a peace settlement, they’ll all go away. Or the ones that are going to be annexed by Israel will be annexed by Israel. The ones that are going to be part of a Palestinian state will be part of a Palestinian state. So why pick a fight with Israel over something that will be overcome by a peace deal?”

So, in the name of — this is why we say that the peace process and the search for a two-state solution became a gimmick. In the name of this pursuit, the U.S. allowed all kinds of things that were inconsistent with the end goal. And, of course, when it came to the Palestinians, if they did anything that was, quote-unquote, “unilateral” or inconsistent with a goal — going to the U.N., promoting boycotts, civil disobedience, whatever — the U.S. was quick to say, “Oh no, that, you can’t do, and we’ll sanction you if you do it, because that’s inconsistent with the pursuit — the peace process.”

So, really a double standard, which, as we say in the book, if Israel’s — if October 7th was a microcosm in heightened, intensified form of the Palestinian feelings, and if Israel’s response was a microcosm in heightened ways of Israeli feelings, what happened after October 7th was a microcosm in an exacerbated way of American policy of turning a blind eye to one, to the actions of one, and denouncing the actions of the other.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, let’s go to one of the major questions about, and a very urgent question about, the rebuilding of Gaza. Who will be responsible? You’ve said that the rate that rebuilding has occurred after other wars in the past, it would take up to the 22nd century for Gaza to be rebuilt.

ROBERT MALLEY: Listen, I mean, when you just look at the — not just Israel/Palestine, but in general, wherever there are pledges to rebuild, how much of that money comes up? I just heard Steve Witkoff say he thought raising the money is going to be the easiest part. That’s a scary statement, because raising the money is going to be a very difficult part. Who’s going to want to rebuild? How many times do you have to rebuild Gaza, and then Israel destroys it again? So, you know, I think we have to be very, very skeptical about how quickly it’s going to be rebuilt, under what conditions. If the condition is that there’s no Hamas presence, who’s going to be the judge of that? You know, what we have — what I’ve written elsewhere with —

AMY GOODMAN: Didn’t Kushner just say that reconstructive aid would only go to areas controlled — 

ROBERT MALLEY: Exactly.

AMY GOODMAN: —by the Israeli military?

ROBERT MALLEY: And it’s the point that I was making earlier, which is another divide — divide Palestinians. I mean, this is a — the Palestinian people are now divided. Within Gaza, it’s fragmented — Gaza and in the West Bank. Within Gaza, it’s fragmented. The division with East Jerusalem, the division with the Palestinian citizens of Israel, the division with the millions of refugees. How are the Palestinians going to rebuild a movement that could represent the entirety of their people, when they’re being fragmented in this way every day?

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you so much for being with us, Robert Malley, co-author with Hussein Agha of the new book, Tomorrow Is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine, former U.S. senior Middle East official under Presidents Clinton, Obama and Biden, now a lecturer at Yale University and former president of the International Crisis Group.

Next up, we look at the New York mayoral race, as Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo sparred in the final debate before voting begins on Saturday. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “John Walker’s Blues” by Steve Earle, performing in our Democracy Now! studio.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: The International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel, as an occupying power, must allow U.N. aid into Gaza and that Israel cannot use starvation as a method of warfare. Yuji Iwasawa, the president of the International Court of Justice, read the ruling Wednesday.

JUDGE YUJI IWASAWA: The court considers that Israel is under an obligation to agree to and facilitate relief schemes provided by the United Nations and its entities, including UNRWA.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said, “This is a very important decision, and I hope Israel will abide by it.” This is Paul Reichler, one of the attorneys representing Palestine at the ICJ.

PAUL REICHLER: So, on the one hand, you have the court finding that starvation as a method — of civilians as a method of warfare is illegal. It’s prohibited. And on the other, the court found that Israel deliberately prevented food from reaching the civilian population in Gaza. I don’t see how a reasonable person, certainly acting in good faith, could then say that Israel has complied with its international legal obligations. Plainly, it has not.

AMY GOODMAN: Israel condemned Wednesday’s ruling and said it would not abide by the court’s instructions. The Trump administration also condemned the opinion.

We go now to Amman, Jordan, to speak with Tamara Alrifai. She is spokesperson and director of external relations for UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Tamara. Can you describe what’s happening on the ground? How much aid, how many trucks is Israel allowing in? And what about UNRWA in particular, which it has banned?

TAMARA ALRIFAI: The most important thing for us as UNRWA to reiterate is that we’re the largest humanitarian agency in action in Gaza, and we have never stopped providing medical assistance, managing the shelters, disposing of solid waste, pumping and trucking clean drinking water throughout this conflict. And despite the ban by the government of Israel on international staff, 12,000 Palestinian staff members of UNRWA, men and women, have continued to work in Gaza, and that is why our services have never stopped, even though international personnel and the goods, the supplies, the foods, the hygiene kits, the tents of UNRWA have been banned of going into Gaza.

Over the last 10 days and with the ceasefire, the fighting has subsided in many parts, which has allowed a lot of people in Gaza to start moving back to check in on their homes. But more than 90% of housing units in Gaza are destroyed, and these people are going to need immediate, urgent shelter and shelter material, including winter clothes and blankets, in the coming few weeks.

Meanwhile, although the agreement calls for 600 trucks per day of food and other humanitarian supplies, what we’ve seen in the last few days is certainly an easing, so a slight increase in the number of trucks going in, but we’re way, way, way below the 600. So, yesterday, 281 trucks went in; on Monday, 263. That’s less than half of 600.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Tamara, do you think that the opinion by the International Court of Justice is likely to have any effect, and more trucks may be able to get in?

TAMARA ALRIFAI: This is the highest legal authority of the U.N., and it’s provided its advice, its advisory opinion, based on the request by the U.N. General Assembly, which represents the international community. So there is a global buy-in for the course, the path, that this — that this court has gone through and of the opinion. While the opinion itself is not binding, the opinion confirms Israel’s obligation under international law, which also, we hope, will increase pressure on the government of Israel to allow more humanitarian supplies and international personnel, including of UNRWA, because we remain the largest in Gaza, to go in.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Tamara, but could you respond? You know, one probably can’t be too optimistic about what the effect of this advisory opinion is, because, as you said, it’s nonbinding. There are no direct penalties for noncompliance. And then, you know, Israel’s Foreign Ministry rejected the opinion outright, saying that it was political, and said it would not cooperate with UNRWA. And Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, blasted the opinion on UNRWA as, quote, “shameful.” So, your response?

TAMARA ALRIFAI: The response is, this opinion could not substantiate any of the Israeli allegations against UNRWA and UNRWA personnel. So, the opinion is unambiguous. It’s an opinion by the highest legal authority of the U.N.

Now, again, we are in a realm of international relations, and the pressure that can be exercised in order for an adequate amount of humanitarian supplies, foods, medicines to go into Gaza is as good as the pressure that the international community can exercise for the actioning of that opinion. So, while the opinion itself is nonbinding, it says a lot about violations of international law and about the impact of the restriction of humanitarian assistance. I mean, famine was declared at the end of August in Gaza. It says a lot about the impact of these actions, particularly against UNRWA, by the government of Israel on the civilians in Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: So, if you could respond to what the White House is saying and the State Department? The State Department: “As President Trump and Secretary Rubio work tirelessly to bring peace to the region, this so-called ‘court’ issues a nakedly politicized non-binding ‘advisory opinion’ unfairly bashes Israel and gives UNRWA a free pass for its deep entanglement with and material support for Hamas terrorism.” Your response, Tamara?

TAMARA ALRIFAI: The advice itself, the opinion itself, says that such claims are not substantiated. But more importantly, if this peace plan is to succeed, then bringing in stability to Gaza, bringing in respite, bringing in — flooding Gaza with humanitarian assistance are all key to the success of this plan. Everybody wants this plan to succeed. Everybody wants peace in Gaza and for what happened to never happen again, whether it’s the horrific attacks of the 7th of October or the devastating conflict and destruction that followed it.

And in that sense, allowing the largest aid agency, the one that’s most experienced in Gaza, not only in distributing food, but — I mean, what we do is closer to what the public sector does. We run health clinics. We run schools. We want to bring back over 600,000 traumatized children into learning and schooling and take them away from what could be a lost generation. For this plan to succeed, UNRWA has to be able to play its role in Gaza, because no other humanitarian agency has the scale and scope of our 12,000 personnel, our warehouses, our teachers, our facilities and, mostly, the trust of the community.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, where is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, this shadowy, controversial U.S.-Israeli-backed aid — so-called aid group, now that the international organizations are back, horrifying the world as it opened fire on people seeking food? Has it just disappeared?

TAMARA ALRIFAI: Thankfully, the GHF is nowhere to be seen or heard of since that plan kicked in. And that is why, for the success of that plan, especially the humanitarian element of it, which calls for a much increased number of trucks and aid and medicines and whatnot into Gaza — for that to succeed, the U.N., the humanitarian international system, the international NGOs, and at their helm, UNWRA, have to be able to play that role.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you, Tamara Alrifai, spokesperson, director of external relations for UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees, speaking to us from Amman, Jordan.

Up next, longtime U.S. diplomat Robert Malley, co-author of Tomorrow Is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine. Then we’ll come back home to New York to the last debate of mayoral candidates. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed on Freedom)” by the Resistance Revival Chorus, performed at Town Hall in September for Voices for Gaza.

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

We’re continuing to look at the escalating tension between the U.S. and Colombia after the Colombian President Gustavo Petro condemned the U.S. for blowing up boats in the Caribbean. This week, on Truth Social, President Trump called Colombian President Petro an “illegal drug dealer.” He’s also called him a “lunatic,” speaking on Air Force One.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You look at the fields. The fields are loaded up with drugs. And they refine the drugs, and they make tremendous amounts of cocaine. And they send it all over the world, and they destroy families. Now, Colombia is out of control, and now they have the worst president they’ve ever had. He’s a lunatic who’s got a lot of problems, mental problems.

AMY GOODMAN: Still with us is Ambassador Daniel García-Peña, Colombia’s ambassador to the U.S., who Petro just recalled as tensions rise between the U.S. and Colombia.

We’re also joined in Colombia by Manuel Rozental, Colombian physician and activist for 40 years of involvement in grassroots political organizing with youth, Indigenous communities, urban and rural social movements, been exiled several times for his political activities.

And we’re joined by Guillaume Long, Ecuador’s former foreign affairs minister, senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

I wanted to go first to Guillaume Long in this segment, because in one of these latest bombings of a, what’s called a submersible, two people died, and then two people, a Colombian and an Ecuadorian, survived. The U.S. says they’re killing drug traffickers, but then they just released them. If you can explain what you understand happened and the significance of, overall, these bombings of boats, from Colombia to Venezuela?

GUILLAUME LONG: Thanks for having me on the show.

Well, I mean, there’s very little information. This is the whole point. And I think Ambassador García-Peña was very clear in saying that we do not have information. The United States has not provided information on who the people it’s bombing actually are. And in the case of the latest bombing you mentioned, including a Colombian and an Ecuadorian citizen, you know, there was no evidence provided that they were dealing in drugs, they were drug traffickers.

In fact, as you rightly said, the Ecuadorian citizen was returned to Ecuador, and Ecuadorian authorities did not prosecute that citizen, despite the fact that the Ecuadorian government is very close to the Trump administration. There’s a real political alliance between the Noboa administration in Ecuador and the Trump administration in the United States. In fact, even the prosecutor general in Ecuador has been seen and perceived as very close to the United States, as playing ball with the U.S. “war on drugs,” with now plans to reintroduce a U.S. military base in Ecuador, and so on and so forth. So, there isn’t the same political tension between Ecuador and the U.S. that you do see between Colombia and the U.S. But despite this, Ecuadorian authorities did not prosecute the Ecuadorian person that was handed over by U.S. authorities. So, you would think that if there’d been the slightest element of evidence, they would have — they would have really prosecuted that person, put them into jail, so on and so forth. So, there’s none of this.

And I think this speaks very loudly about what — the broader phenomenon that’s taken place in the southern Caribbean. It’s essentially a bombing campaign that’s for show. We haven’t been given any evidence of whether these boats that have been bombed are actually carrying drugs. We also know, I mean, the whole hypothesis of that coastline, particularly Colombia and Venezuela coastline, and particularly the Venezuelan coastline, the Caribbean coastline of Venezuela, being like the key conduit for the trafficking of drugs to the United States — that whole hypothesis has been largely debunked. The Trump administration has been speaking of the Cártel de los Soles, the Cartel of the Suns, which experts have, I think successfully and convincingly, argued is actually fictional, doesn’t exist, and certainly Venezuelan authorities are not at the head of that cartel. And we know that the bulk of the cocaine being trafficked into the United States is not leaving from that coast. It’s not leaving from Venezuela. Most of it is leaving from Pacific ports, particularly Pacific ports in Ecuador, but also probably Pacific ports in Colombia, but the bulk of it Pacific ports further down south, actually, in Ecuador and Peru, very much so in Ecuador, in containers, lots of banana containers, so not on small ships, but on larger ships, as part of the export business of a number of very legit companies. And yet, much of the effort of the U.S. administration has not been targeting those containers, those ships, those ports, but rather these small ships that have been bombed in the Caribbean.

So, the whole thing really appears to not really be about targeting drug trafficking. There’s been lots of hypotheses that have been out there, presented out there, including regime change in Venezuela, and now significant pushback against the government in Colombia, which we know the Trump administration doesn’t like. And there’s been a history in the last six months of tensions between Colombia and the United States, starting with protesting deportations of migrants back when Trump was elected, but, of course, Petro’s policy on Gaza, his membership of the Hague Group, which he co-chairs with South Africa, to hold Israel accountable for its crimes under international law. So, all these — you know, there seems to be a much bigger political context, if you like, behind this than really going after drug traffickers, which seems to be the last of the — you know, not at all the main goal of the U.S. administration, I would argue.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, I’d like to bring Dr. Manuel Rozental into the conversation. This whole issue, these attacks on the boat started targeting Venezuelan, supposedly, drug dealers. Now we’ve gotten attacks that have been felt by citizens of Colombia and Ecuador. And in the early days of the Trump administration, you had all his threats toward Panama. And, of course, we have now the stationing of 10,000 American soldiers in Puerto Rico for potential action in Latin America. What is the Trump administration doing to the entire Caribbean region, in your view?

DR. MANUEL ROZENTAL: First of all, I agree with what has been said, and particularly what Guillaume was saying. And I’ll summarize the answer, Juan, by saying this is a pretext. The entire drug — “war on drugs” issue has been for the longest time. And I live in Cauca, in northern Cauca, one of the areas that is a producer of coca, producer of marijuana, within the global context. And I can — we know for a fact, and we’ve known for years, and it’s been exposed now with this attack on boats and this entire militarization of the Caribbean and the way President Trump speaks out, that actually the drug issue is policy.

On the one side, there’s a promotion of the production of drugs, because it produces massive amounts of transfer of value towards the north. The profit of drug trafficking flows towards the north — mafias, financial institutions, etc. But the numbers are out there. One kilogram of coca in Colombia is $3,000 at most. The same kilogram in the U.S. is $20,000, and it’s $150,000 in Europe. I’m just quoting by memory from a U.N. report. So, this is big business, and it’s accumulating, so long as it is illegal.

And then, the other side of the equation is the war against that, to remain, to maintain it illegal, to target peasants, now the people on boats that are transferring that. And then, it actually serves one purpose. People say the war on drugs is a failure. It is a failure as a war on drugs. But it is a tremendous success in what it intends to do, which is helping to address the global and the U.S. capital crisis, the crisis of stagnation of the economy, for the crisis that leads to seeing or perceiving that there is excess population, that there is excess capital that has to be destroyed, and that there are deficits of resources, such as mining oil particularly and others. So, the war on drugs, what it does is eliminate excess and then address the deficit by targeting on territories.

One could ask the question — and Guillaume is here and would know better than me: Why is the Noboa family and Noboa president and the banana plantations, that he mentioned and we all know have been involved in drug trafficking, or should at least be investigated seriously, not touched? And yet, the target is President Petro, who one can say anything good or bad about his policies, but he is not a drug trafficker, and his approach to the whole drug issue is the exchange of the drug production for good conditions and living conditions for people. So, when you put tariffs on these — on legal products, then you’re forcing people into the drug trade, and then you kill them.

AMY GOODMAN: We to leave it there, but we’re going to do an interview in Spanish with all three of our guests. Dr. Manuel Rozental, thank you for joining us from Cauca, Colombia. Former Foreign Minister Guillaume Long, thank you for joining us from New Delhi, India, former foreign minister from Ecuador. And we want to thank the ambassador, as well, Daniel García-Peña. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

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

A group of United Nations experts say U.S. strikes targeting boats in the Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela amount to extrajudicial execution. In recent weeks, the U.S. has struck seven boats, claiming they were being used to traffic drugs, but the U.S. has offered no proof to back up its claim. The U.N. experts said, quote, “These moves are an extremely dangerous escalation with grave implications for peace and security in the Caribbean region,” unquote.

This comes as President Trump has authorized the CIA to carry out lethal covert operations inside Venezuela. The CIA has also reportedly played a central role in the boat attacks, as well.

Tensions are also escalating between the U.S. and Colombia after the Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused the U.S. of committing murder for killing a Colombian fisherman in one attack in mid-September. President Trump responded by calling Petro a “lunatic” and a, quote, “illegal drug leader,” unquote. Trump also threatened to cut off foreign aid to Colombia and raise tariffs on Colombian goods. Petro then responded by writing, “Trying to promote peace in Colombia is not being drug trafficker,” unquote. This is Petro speaking Tuesday.

PRESIDENT GUSTAVO PETRO: [translated] I am making no mistake by speaking to the world from Colombia, because what I am demonstrating is that Colombia is the heart of the world. An aggression against Colombia is aggression against the heart of the world. I call on the world to help us. Before, I called on the world to help Palestine, now us, because they want to attack us, and they are mafia members, and Trump is believing them.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined right now by three guests.

Guillaume Long is former minister of foreign affairs for Ecuador. He’s a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Earlier this year, he wrote a piece in The Nation headlined “The Trump Administration Unabashedly Embraces the Monroe Doctrine.” He’ll talk about an Ecuadorian survivor of one of the bombings.

We’re also joined by Manuel Rozental, a Colombian physician and activist with more than 40 years of involvement in grassroots political organizing with youth, Indigenous communities and urban and rural social movements. He’s been exiled several times for his political activities. Manuel is part of the group Pueblos en Camino, or People on the Path.

But we begin with Daniel García-Peña, Colombia’s ambassador to the United States, who was just recalled to Bogotá as tensions rise with the U.S. He previously served as Colombia’s high commissioner for peace from 1995 to ’98. García-Peña also taught political science at the National University in Bogotá, Colombia.

We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Ambassador, let’s begin with you. Why don’t you lay out why President Petro has recalled you from the United States?

DANIEL GARCÍA-PEÑA: First of all, good morning, and it’s great to be here with you all.

No, it has to do with the statements on the part of President Trump this weekend that, first of all, accused President Petro of being the head of a drug cartel, threatened that if Colombia did not stop the flow of cocaine, that he would do it himself — statements that are completely unacceptable. And President Petro recalled me because that’s a mechanism that exists in diplomacy when situations like this arise, so that I can sit with the president, as I have done in these days with him, to analyze what is happening in Washington and how we can navigate these turbulent waters, because, well, first of all, these statements on the part of President Trump are simply unacceptable, but, secondly, they ignore the fact that there is no country in the world — and I say that unequivocally — in the world, that has done more to fight drugs than Colombia under the leadership of President Petro. So, that is why I’m here in Bogotá. And we’ll continue to seek ways that we can send that message to Washington so that these kinds of false statements can be corrected.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ambassador García-Peña, Colombia has long been one of the major recipients of foreign aid from the United States, and the United States is its main trading partner. What do you think is behind this, this now Trump administration hostility towards your country?

DANIEL GARCÍA-PEÑA: Well, it’s hard to know for sure or to speculate, but I think that, without a doubt, it has to do with these latest actions on the part of the Trump administration to use the military force in its supposed attempts to fight drugs, the bombing of these boats that are supposedly transporting cocaine, that violate international law, that is completely counterproductive, because if you were able to identify a boat that’s supposedly transporting cocaine, what we will do, and we have done, and we continue doing that on a daily basis with the United States, is to intercept it, to, first of all, verify that if — that they are truly smuggling drugs, and to capture those that are on those boats to see if you can get information about who the higher-ups are, because the people that are on those boats are not the drug traffickers, they’re employees of the drug traffickers. And so, it is completely ineffective to simply bomb them.

So, we have been very adamant, and President Petro has stood up to say that these are violations of international law and that they go against the logic of how law enforcement should deal with these situations. So, it appears that the position of our president, of President Petro, to call out the United States on these actions, I think that is part of the reason why President Trump is upset.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you comment on how U.S. policy has changed toward Latin America, especially with Secretary of State Marco Rubio being so much in charge of what — of U.S. policy in that region?

DANIEL GARCÍA-PEÑA: Yes, well, without a doubt, there’s the — the new administration and Secretary Rubio has identified Latin America as a key area for what they call the “America First” policy. And it has been seen in several ways. First of all, the issue of immigration and how they are dealing with the flows of, the presence of what are called illegal immigrants in the United States, it is now seen with this new emphasis on the use of the military in the “war on drugs.” We’re also seeing it not only with Latin America and Colombia, but with the world, with the threats of the tariffs on the trade issue. So, it’s been in many fronts in which the policies of this administration mark a great difference from previous administrations — in fact, even from the first Trump administration, where some of these things did appear, but not with the emphasis and not with the intensity that we’re seeing now.

AMY GOODMAN: I can see a lot of people are trying to reach you, but I’m glad we are able to speak to you. You have — I mean, in the last days, I’ve been listening to a lot of officers, former officers, with the CIA saying, if they are using CIA intelligence, this is not evidence. Trump has admitted to both the CIA covert actions in Venezuela, but also that the CIA is being used in tracking boats. I also — you also have people like the Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who is raising a red flag, saying these are straightforward extrajudicial killings.

And I wanted to ask you about Alejandro Carranza. He’s the fisherman whose “loved ones say he left home on Colombia’s Caribbean coast to fish in open waters. Days later” — and I’m reading from CBS — “he was dead — one of at least 32 alleged drug traffickers killed in U.S. military strikes. From Santa Marta, northern Colombia, Carranza’s family is questioning White House claims that he was carrying narcotics aboard a small vessel that was targeted last month.” Can you tell us about Carranza and what exactly this attack was, and then the next one, this submersible, that killed two people, and there are two survivors that were repatriated to Ecuador and to Colombia?

DANIEL GARCÍA-PEÑA: You know, that’s a great question, because it indicates how, when you blow the boats up with the evidence or to find out exactly what was on the boat or what they were doing, well, it disappears along with the boat in the middle of the ocean. So, what we have been demanding is information as to — and then, not only Colombia. Senator Rand Paul is right on the money to demand from the administration these kinds of explanations, because even if they were in fact carrying drugs, the procedure is to capture them, to seize them, to arrest them and to find information about who was behind them, and not blowing them up. So, what we are seeing here is something that is really going beyond what has been the normal procedure and what international law establishes.

But the case of the two, of the Colombian and the Ecuadorian that were repatriated, is very indicative of the fact that there’s a lot of great legal doubt about how these operations can actually be carried out. The Colombian and the Ecuadorian that were — that survived the attack were on a Navy ship, and they really were in a quandary. They had no — they didn’t know what to do with them, because even though the Trump administration claimed that this is an act of war and that they should be treated as enemy combatants, there’s absolutely no substance to that claim. And so, they were — had to be repatriated, because they were simply unable to find legal way of maintaining them, or as enemy combatants, as they originally said, or just as drug traffickers, if they were accused, but there was no legal basis for this.

So, that’s, I think, a clear indication of how there are questions, very severe questions, about what is happening. There’s a speculation — I don’t want to go into them, but there’s a speculation about the resignation of Admiral Holsey, the head of SOUTHCOM. And this was all in the U.S. media, that supposedly his withdrawal also has to do with how the U.S. military and the U.S. Navy also have questions about the legality of all of this. So, I think that the matter of it goes beyond simply a situation specific of these individuals that were — that you mentioned. It’s a broader question about how the use of force, the elimination of these boats, of these people, that are supposedly carrying drugs, is really walking a very fine line between what is legal by international standards, but also by U.S. standards.

AMY GOODMAN: We also want to ask you about what’s happened with Uribe, the appeals court overturning the conviction of the former Colombian president. But we’re going to go to break, and in addition to Ambassador Daniel García-Peña, who is now speaking to us from Bogotá because President Petro has recalled him to Colombia from the United States, because of President Trump bombing boats in the Caribbean, we are also going to be joined by Guillermo Long — Guillaume Long, who is a former minister of foreign affairs for Ecuador, and we’ll be joined, as well, by Dr. Manuel Rozental, Colombian physician and activist. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “If You’re Coming for Me” by MAKU Soundsystem, performing in our Democracy Now! studio.

AMY GOODMAN: Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes is suing Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson for refusing to swear in Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, who was elected a month ago in a special election to represent more than 800,000 people of the greater Tucson area. Grijalva says she believes Speaker Johnson is refusing to seat her because she would be the final vote necessary on a discharge petition to release unclassified records about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Last week, the House Oversight Committee released a new set of Epstein documents, including call logs that included someone listed as Donald Trump.

As all of this unfolded Tuesday, an explosive memoir was released by Jeffrey Epstein survivor, the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre, titled Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice. Virginia was the first survivor to come out publicly against Epstein. In the book, she details how he groomed her along with his co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, who met Virginia while she worked at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.

Giuffre writes, quote, “In my years with them, they lent me out to scores of wealthy, powerful people. I was habitually used and humiliated — and in some instances, choked, beaten, and bloodied. I believed that I might die a sex slave,” she said. Virginia also details how she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew three times, beginning when she was 17. Virginia also said she was beaten and raped by a “well-known prime minister.”

Virginia Giuffre died reportedly by suicide earlier this year in Australia at age 41. Nobody’s Girl was completed just before she died. In the book’s foreword, her collaborator, Amy Wallace, describes an email from Virginia shortly before she died that read in part, quote, “The content of this book is crucial as it aims to shed light on the systemic failures that allow the trafficking of vulnerable individuals across borders. It is imperative that the truth is understood and that the issues surrounding this topic are addressed, both for the sake of justice and awareness. In the event of my passing, I would like to ensure that Nobody’s Girl is still released,” she said.

For more, we’re joined here in our New York studio by Amy Wallace, the ghostwriter of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s posthumously published memoir this week, Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice. Amy Wallace’s op-ed in Sunday’s New York Times is headlined “Why Virginia Roberts Giuffre Would Not Stop Talking About Jeffrey Epstein.”

We welcome you to Democracy Now! This book is utterly painful, the cover a photograph of a young Virginia, disappearing, fading. If you can start off by talking about this horror that she underwent, that is rocking both Britain right now and the United States? In the U.S., it may well be why Congress has not resumed working. And, of course, right now you have the situation just before the two of your book was released: Prince Andrew has voluntarily given up his titles because of what’s being released in this book. Why don’t you start off by talking about how Virginia Giuffre came to work at Mar-a-Lago as a underage young woman, and then ultimately was trafficked by both Maxwell and Epstein?

AMY WALLACE: Yeah. Well, she was 16 years old. She was working a summer job at Mar-a-Lago. She was working in the spa, so there was a particular section of the hotel that she worked in. Her father worked at Mar-a-Lago as a maintenance man, and he helped her get the job. About — 

AMY GOODMAN: A man who abused her, as well?

AMY WALLACE: A man who abused her, as well, which she reveals in this book for the first time. And we can talk about that more.

But yeah, she was about a couple weeks into the job, but she loved working there. It was a beautiful place. She felt really privileged to be there. And a posh British woman walks in with an amazing outfit and very attractive. I think Virginia writes that “her handbag cost more than my dad’s truck.” There was a class issue here, clearly. And the woman sees her reading an anatomy book and says, “Oh, are you interested in massage?” And Virginia says, “Well, I don’t really know much about it, but I’m so inspired by the spa. I would love to learn.”

And she is asked to then go that day to Epstein’s house. She is — she goes because a woman has asked her and she thinks it’s going to be safe. And that very day, hours later, Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused her for the first time. And at that point, she was in the net.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And how did she go from Mar-a-Lago to then being close to and in the circle of Epstein?

AMY WALLACE: Well, I think, you know, there were different victims that were treated differently. There were some girls that went one time to the house in Palm Beach and then — and then were never seen again. And then there were other girls who were in the sort of inside circle.

And Virginia lived very close by. When she first met him, she lived in Loxahatchee, which is a sort of more rural, poorer area. She lived with her parents in a trailer in the back. And she — he liked her. I think that he could spot — he and Ghislaine both were very good at sniffing out girls who had already been abused and who were more vulnerable to being manipulated. And so, he quickly absorbed her into his — into his world, told her to quit her job at Mar-a-Lago. He would rent her an apartment. He didn’t want her living with her parents anymore, because he wanted her to come and go at all hours. He didn’t want — he didn’t want her parents to be suspicious.

So, very quickly, she gets — she gets pulled in. And then they say, you know, “You don’t have a passport. We need to get you one of those.” And Ghislaine Maxwell helps her fill out the application, and then — and then they take her to London. That’s really one of her first major trips. Certainly, she’d never been abroad before. They take her to London. And that’s where she’s first trafficked to Prince Andrew. She had already been, by that point, trafficked to other friends of Epstein and Maxwell. So, it was a pretty quick sort of itinerary on her going into the depths of hell. She quickly becomes one of their people that travels with them all over the world.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Now, in the book, she does not name many of those who she says sexually assaulted her, but you know all of them because you fact-checked them. Is there anything you have to say about that or the reason those names were not disclosed?

AMY WALLACE: Yeah, I think Virginia is pretty eloquent about this in the book. But, you know, any survivor of sexual abuse understands that coming forward, you have sort of a cost-reward ratio that you’re weighing. You know you want to hold these people accountable for what they did to you, but you also know that’s going to come at a cost — your privacy, obviously, but also, in the case of Virginia, some of these men had threatened her. Some of these men had threatened her physically. She had had death threats that the FBI found credible and called her. And she and her family rented a camper van in Australia, where they lived, and fled into the wilds of Australia for three weeks to try to figure out what to do next. So, there were real risks and legal risks. There were people that said to her, basically, “It doesn’t matter what you say or what’s true. We’re going to keep you in court for the rest of your life if you don’t take our names out of your mouth.” So, there was — there were a lot of decisions that she had to make about what names were going to go in. There are new names there, but there are — as you say, there are names left out.

I guess what I would add to that is that this book was never intended to be a list of names. If you want a list of names, you can go to the Epstein files, and they are there — not just Virginia’s names, and I know all of the ones that she told the FBI repeatedly, but other victims have bravely come forward. And this investigation has been going on for many, many years, since the first time that Epstein was arrested and charged back in two thousand, I believe, eight. There’s a lot of information there. And so, to put the — this is what my op-ed in The New York Times is about — to put the burden always on victims, the weakest among us, who’ve already been hurt, to make them repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, on demand, instead of having law enforcement do its job. And I think that’s why a lot of the American public is calling for the release of the Epstein files.

AMY GOODMAN: In the book, Virginia writes that she was beaten and raped by a “well-known prime minister.” I think the British version of the book says “minister.” This is “prime minister.” Who is she talking about?

AMY WALLACE: Well, I can’t reveal any of the names that are not in the book. I mean, and I’ll tell you a couple of reasons why. One, this is Virginia’s book, and these were decisions that she had to make for her safety, but also the safety of her family. And just because Virginia is gone does not mean her family is not in danger. Some of these people are scary. So I respect her choices. So, I mean, I guess that’s the short answer. It’s her book, and we’re not going to go any farther than that.

There are names that she has named in public depositions. There are four document dumps. I’ve read all of them, and there are names there. The names have been released by others at times. So, the names are out there. But again —

AMY GOODMAN: One of the names that is mentioned in these document dumps is the former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who was close to Jeffrey Epstein.

AMY WALLACE: Yes, his name is mentioned in the document dumps.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about what’s happening right now with Prince Andrew. He has voluntarily, supposedly, on the eve of the release of Nobody’s Girl, voluntarily given up his titles. But the king could strip him of his title, right? His father — I mean, his brother.

AMY WALLACE: His brother, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: His brother. He clearly — and she describes the encounters with him. She describes being raped by him the third time in an orgy, and Jeffrey Epstein’s island in the Caribbean, with young women, girls, who couldn’t even speak English because they were from another place. She said Jeffrey liked them that way because they were easier to deal with. But he clearly knew her age, right? Because at the beginning, when he was with Ghislaine Maxwell — is that Jeffrey Epstein who took the famous picture with Ghislaine in the background and Andrew with his — rather, Prince Andrew still, with his arm around Virginia?

AMY WALLACE: Yes, I mean, the back story around that photo is that Virginia always traveled with point-and-shoot disposable cameras, because she was about to be going around the world. She had never traveled in this way. She was not a person of means. Her family was not wealthy. So she traveled with these — with these little, you know, disposable cameras.

And when Ghislaine had woken her up that morning and said, you know, “Get up, sleepyhead, we’re going to have an amazing day. You’re going to meet a prince today,” and she took her shopping, and then she bought her outfits — and Virginia chose the outfit that is in that picture. And so, when he comes, when the prince comes and she’s introduced to him, she realizes — and we say this in the book — you know, “My mom would kill me if I met a prince and didn’t get a picture of it.” So she runs into her room, and she gets her camera, and she hands it to Epstein, and Epstein takes the picture. I mean, remember, this is a young woman. She is 17 at that point. When she was a child, she watched Cinderella, the movie Cinderella, on repeat. Meeting a prince was a big deal. These were supposed to be the best of us.

AMY GOODMAN: Why did Prince Andrew know her age even before she said it?

AMY WALLACE: Well, there was a game that Ghislaine Maxwell played where she would often ask people to guess the ages of the girls. And in this particular case, as we relate in the book, she says to Andrew, “Guess her age,” and he guesses correctly, 17, and then explains why he did so well at this game, because, he says, “You’re around the age of my daughters.” I think his daughters were a little bit younger.

So, the key thing there is he knew how old she was. And, you know, I think if you could line up all the men that Virginia was trafficked to and ask them why they did it, I think some of them would probably try to use as an excuse, “Well, we didn’t know they were underage.” In this case, we have a direct connection between his consciousness of her age and the reality. And that’s just sort of an amazing detail in the book.

AMY GOODMAN: And we should say — 

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to — 

AMY GOODMAN: — Prince Andrew denies all of this. But I’m going to give it to Juan.

AMY WALLACE: Prince Andrew continues to deny all of this. He has settled his lawsuit. When she sued him for raping and battering her, he settled that lawsuit.

AMY GOODMAN: For millions of dollars.

AMY WALLACE: I don’t know the amount.

AMY GOODMAN: Juan?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about Ghislaine Maxwell. She was not just a procurer of victims, as well. She was a direct abuser of these women, as well. Could you talk about that?

AMY WALLACE: Absolutely. I’m not quite sure how the narrative on Ghislaine Maxwell has somehow shifted, even though she’s been convicted in a court of law of being a key member of this sexual trafficking scheme. Somehow, people have started to think that maybe she was like just a receptionist or, you know, she was keeping the datebook. This is a woman who abused girls herself, didn’t just procure, which is evil enough, using her gender to lure girls into this net.

AMY GOODMAN: Poor girls.

AMY WALLACE: She did that. Poor girls, particularly. There were a few that weren’t, but most were poor. But then, she not only participated in the initial sort of initiation of these girls into the massage room and all the sex and abuse that came there, but she would then demand that they service her sexually. She would hurt them during sex. I mean, Virginia tells a story about being hurt with a ghastly sex toy that Ghislaine was using on her and intentionally hurting her, because she was dissatisfied or angry at her in some way. So, this woman is a sexual abuser herself, and this book makes that clear.

AMY GOODMAN: We have to wrap up, because I know you have to go, but I do want to just ask. When Virginia was alive, before she took her own life, she had three children, and talks about writing this when her baby girl was born, and wanting to turn the — turn around to being a survivor and to being a role model for others to speak out. President Trump, when he was running for office, ran on — one of his platforms was to release the Epstein files.

AMY WALLACE: Absolutely.

AMY GOODMAN: What would it mean to Virginia today if these Epstein files were released, that it wasn’t on people like her and all the other victims, but the files themselves to speak?

AMY WALLACE: I was with her in October in Australia. This is right before the presidential election. And she was thrilled that the former president, who was running for president, who she hoped would win the presidency — why? Because he had promised to release these files. And why was that important to her? Because it validated the experience of not just her, but so many others.

And I’m glad that you mentioned her children, as well, because one of the things this book does is it shows it’s not just a catalog of horrors. It’s a woman who was terribly abused as a child, escapes from that terrible abuse — valiantly — forms a family, which is in itself a triumph, and then becomes an advocate. So, it’s the entire arc of her life, and it’s a woman in full, a complicated woman in full, who is not just the things that were done to her. She was a person of open heart. She wanted to make the world a better place for all of us. She was really looking out for all of our children, not just hers.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you so much for being with us. We hope to have you back. I want to end with the words of Virginia Roberts Giuffre herself. She writes, “I yearn, too, for a world in which perpetrators face more shame than their victims do and where anyone who’s been trafficked can confront their abusers when they’re ready, no matter how much time has passed. If this book moves us even an inch closer to a reality like that — if it helps just one person — I will have achieved my goal.” Those are the words of Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Amy Wallace, ghostwriter of her memoir, Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice. We will also link to your piece in The New York Times, “Why Virginia Roberts Giuffre Would Not Stop Talking About Jeffrey Epstein.”

Coming up, we look at the escalating tension between the U.S. and Colombia, after President Gustavo Petro condemned the U.S. for blowing up boats in the Caribbean. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “Hungry Ghost” by Alynda Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff, performing in our Democracy Now! studio.