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

There are just days left in President Biden’s term. He has made history today, granting thousands of commutations, clemency overall, pardons in his last weeks. The question is: Will he grant clemency to Leonard Peltier? Over 120 tribal leaders are calling on Biden to grant the Indigenous leader Leonard Peltier clemency as one of his final acts in office. In a letter to Biden, the tribal leaders write, quote, “Our standing in the world as a champion of freedom, justice, and human rights cannot be maintained in a system that allows Leonard Peltier to die in prison.”

Leonard Peltier recently turned 80 years old. He spent the majority of his life, nearly half a century, in prison. For decades, he and his supporters have maintained Peltier’s innocence over the 1975 killing of two FBI agents in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and say his conviction was riddled with irregularities and prosecutorial misconduct. The federal government has been repeatedly accused of failing to prove its case against Peltier.

The former U.S. Attorney James Reynolds, who was a federal prosecutor for the District of South Dakota and was involved in Peltier’s prosecution, wrote to Biden in 2021 advocating for Peltier’s release. This is Reynolds reading a portion of that letter in a recent video produced by Preston Randolph.

JAMES REYNOLDS: President Joe Biden, I write today from a position rare for a former prosecutor, to beseech you to commute the sentence of a man who I helped to put behind bars. Leonard Peltier’s conviction and continued incarceration is a testament in a time and system of justice that no longer has a place in our society. We were not able to prove that Mr. Peltier personally committed any offense on the reservation. As a result to Mr. Peltier’s conviction, now arrest, is that he was guilty of a murder simply because he was present on the reservation that day. He has served time for more than 46 years on the hands of minimal evidence, a result I strongly doubt would be upheld in any court today. I believe that a grant of executive clemency would serve the best interest of justice and the best interest of our country.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Rapid City, South Dakota, where we’re joined by Nick Tilsen, founder and CEO of NDN Collective. Tilsen is among the more than 120 tribal leaders who issued a letter to Biden earlier this month as they continue to plead for Peltier’s freedom, who’s imprisoned in Florida right now.

Nick Tilsen, we only have a few minutes. Have you met with the pardon board?

NICK TILSEN: We actually met with the pardon attorney, Liz Oyer. We met with the pardon attorney at the Department of Justice headquarters in December with tribal leaders from around the country and talked specifically about Leonard Peltier and what this would mean for Indian Country. And she was the one who was actually drafting the recommendation, because there will be a recommendation that goes from the Department of Justice to the president’s desk. And now that recommendation has been made and is sitting on the desk of the president right now. And he will make a decision in — you know, today or tomorrow, in the coming days, whether he’s going to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier. And we don’t know — we don’t know exactly what the recommendation is, but when we left that meeting, all of the tribal leaders, we felt like — we felt like she was going to bring justice to Leonard Peltier, and we felt like it was going to be a recommendation for his release. And then the decision lies on — the decision lies on the president.

AMY GOODMAN: So, what did the pardon attorney tell you?

NICK TILSEN: The pardon attorney told us that they knew the case inside and out, that they — that one of the primary focuses of this particular meeting that we were sitting in is that the section of the recommendation that she wanted to work on was what this would mean for Indian Country, what this would mean for Indian Country if Leonard Peltier was released. And we talked in depth, that the president of United States issued an apology for the boarding schools, and that it so happens to be that America’s longest-incarcerated Indigenous political prisoner in history is, in fact, a boarding school survivor, and that we need to see action from the president, and that this is also an issue that will help illuminate many of the other good things that the Biden administration has done for Indian people. And so, they confirmed — she confirmed that, in fact, there was for sure going to be a written recommendation, and it was going to for sure go on to the president of the United States, and he was going to make a decision before he leaves office.

AMY GOODMAN: What is Leonard Peltier’s condition in the Florida prison?

NICK TILSEN: Leonard is 80% blind in one eye. He has type 2 diabetes. He’s in a walker. He has an aortic aneurysm. His health is deteriorating. And that facility, quite frankly, doesn’t even have the capability to meet his medical needs. And so, it’s absolutely a dire situation. And we need to get Leonard out of that prison, back home and able to see a doctor almost immediately upon his release.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell me if the first-ever U.S. cabinet — Native American cabinet member, Deb Haaland, the former congressmember from New Mexico, has weighed in?

NICK TILSEN: She has weighed in directly to the president. On Air Force One from Washington, D.C., to Arizona, when the announcement was going to be made for the apology for the boarding schools, she weighed in then. She’s weighed in several times. And at this point in time, the president of the United States needs to listen to this matriarch and needs to listen to Secretary Deb Haaland, and because this is a priority for Indian Country. And this is a perfect opportunity for the president of the United States to listen to the honorable Secretary Haaland. And she has weighed in. She has not weighed in publicly, but she has weighed in directly to the president as the secretary of the Department of Interior.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play a clip from — oh, it was over 10 years ago, when I talked to Leonard Peltier in prison on the phone at the time. It was President Obama who was in office.

AMY GOODMAN: Leonard, this is Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! I was —

LEONARD PELTIER: Oh, hi, Amy. How are you?

AMY GOODMAN: Hi. I’m good. I was wondering if you have a message for President Obama?

LEONARD PELTIER: I just hope he can, you know, stop the wars that are going on in this world, and stop getting — killing all those people getting killed, and, you know, give the Black Hills back to my people, and turn me loose.

AMY GOODMAN: It was very interesting, Nick Tilsen, as we break away from that interview — people can hear the whole interview at democracynow.org — that when I asked him to comment, he didn’t comment first on his own case. He talked about stopping the wars. If you can, in this last 30 seconds that we have, talk about what it would mean for Native America, for Indian Country, for this country overall, for Leonard Peltier to be granted clemency?

NICK TILSEN: You know, all throughout, the history of the treatment of Indian people by the United States government has been one of injustice. And the reality is, how Leonard Peltier was treated in his prosecution and incarceration is consistent with how this country has treated Indian people. And that’s why all of us see a little bit of ourselves in Leonard Peltier, and that’s why we fight so hard for him. So this is about Leonard’s freedom, but this is about justice for Indian people everywhere. This is about human rights for people everywhere. This is about paving a path forward that gives us the opportunity to have justice and begin to heal the relationship between the United States government and Indian people. And so, this decision is massive. And I really hope that the president of United States weighs this decision. If he releases Leonard Peltier, he will be forever known the president who did that. And American —

AMY GOODMAN: Native American activist Nick Tilsen, we’re going to leave it there, founder and CEO of NDN Collective. Thank you so much. That does it for our show. Democracy Now! produced with Renée Feltz, Anjali Kamat, Mike Burke. I’m Amy Goodman.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman.

In the weeks after President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the November election, he posted to Truth Social, quote, ”EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!” as he was met by a steady stream of billionaires visiting him at his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort, some of whom had kept their distance during his first term, like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post. Now Bezos and Zuckerberg will join Tesla’s and SpaceX’s Elon Musk, who campaigned with Trump and is the world’s richest man, on the dais Monday during Trump’s inauguration. They’re among the billionaires whose companies pumped a record amount of donations into the 2025 Trump-Vance Presidential Inaugural Committee. Apple, Chevron, Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Google, Pfizer, Microsoft and the pharmaceutical lobby also made major donations. Other ultra-millionaires and billionaires attending the inauguration will be those Trump has tapped to serve in his administration alongside Elon Musk.

For more, we’re joined by Craig Holman, Public Citizen’s Capitol Hill lobbyist on ethics, lobbying and campaign finance rules. His new report is titled “Corporations and Billionaires Funnel Millions into Trump Inauguration Committee.”

Craig, welcome back to Democracy Now! Give us a lay of the land. What’s going to happen on Monday? And who’s behind the money for this inauguration? And do we actually know at this point who’s pouring in what?

CRAIG HOLMAN: Well, glad to be here.

What we’re seeing is the Trump inaugural committee shattering all previous records, both in terms of total spending on their inauguration and in the size of donations they’re accepting from billionaires and corporations. First of all, the Trump inaugural committee targeted — set a target of $150 million, which would have broken the previous record of Trump’s $107 million in 2017 to raise and spend on the inauguration. Then it went up. Funds just started flowing in to the coffers. And so, the target went up to $200 million. And just a couple days ago, the target’s increased now to $250 million. We’re talking about a quarter-billion dollars to finance, basically, a party, which is absolutely outrageous. It literally — when you compare it to what other inaugural committees and other presidents have spent on their inaugural festivities, it just puts everybody — it just lays waste to previous norms. Literally, from Reagan to Bush, roughly about $20 million to $30 million was spent on their inaugural activities. Obama bumped it up to about $50 million. Then Trump stepped in with his first one at $107 million and was largely criticized for that. And now we’re talking about $250 million to celebrate the incoming president.

What’s even more concerning than the total amount being spent is the size of the donations that are coming in from corporations and billionaires, all of whom — just about all of whom — want something from the Trump administration. You know, we’re taking a look at cryptocurrency. The cryptocurrency industry just came out of the woodwork. I mean, they hardly ever contributed to politics at all, until 2020. And now they’re pumping millions and millions and millions into the inauguration. Ripple —

AMY GOODMAN: And Trump says he’s going to issue an executive order on cryptocurrency on day one.

CRAIG HOLMAN: That’s absolutely right. I mean, when you talk about what does this buy, I mean, you’ve got Ripple, Coinbase, MoonPay, all these cryptocurrency businesses investing heavily in the inauguration, and Trump just recently announced that he’s going to issue an executive order giving priority consideration to cryptocurrency. That means that federal agencies are going to have to take into consideration and figure out how to work with cryptocurrency. This is a dream come true. And, you know, prior to all this money coming in from the cryptocurrency industry, Trump was not a big defender of cryptocurrency. But suddenly he’s in their laps at this point.

AMY GOODMAN: So, maybe I don’t have a big enough imagination, but how do you spend $250 million on a party? I mean, what are the rules and regulations? And where does this money go? It’s not going to all go into Inauguration Day. Who gets it?

CRAIG HOLMAN: You know, we’re not going to know, in the end, where much of that money goes. The rules for regulating inaugural fundraising activities are very, very minimal. There’s only two rules of relevance. One is that a foreign national cannot contribute. Everyone else can. Every corporation, government contractor, billionaire, they can all give as much as they want. There’s no limit on how much they can give. And the second rule is, 90 days after the inauguration, the inaugural committee will release a record of donors of $200 or more to the inauguration. Now, that’s just donors only. The disclosure records will not tell us how the money was spent, and so we’re not going to know that.

There’s also no rules in effect as to how surplus funds are allocated. You know, at $250 million, it isn’t possible that the Trump inaugural committee can spend that much. Even back in 2017 with the $107 million, they had a surplus with that. And I had written letters twice to the inaugural committee asking what’s going on with the surplus funds, and never got an answer. They don’t have to answer me. They don’t have to tell us what they’re going to do with the funds. The stories we’re hearing in the press at this point is that some of the surplus may go to Trump’s super PAC. Some may go to the presidential library. But in the end, we really don’t know. If they don’t want to tell us where that money goes, we’re not going to know.

AMY GOODMAN: So, I want to ask about the inaugural fund chairs. You’ve got the well-known millionaire, former Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler, who’s Trump’s pick to be the head of the Small Business Administration, and a man who’s very much has been in the news over the last weeks, the real estate investor Steve Witkoff, who is the one who pressured Netanyahu to accept the ceasefire deal?

CRAIG HOLMAN: Yes. What we’re seeing is the Trump nominees for all the various Cabinet posts and senior positions tend to be his biggest donors. We see, like, Linda McMahon and Lutnick, who were the head of the transition team, are being appointed as secretaries, Cabinet officials. Elon Musk has worked himself into an advisory role, but Trump is even giving him an office in the White House. And by the way, I want to emphasize, in the advisory capacity, then, Elon Musk no longer has to comply with strict ethics rules. So, even though he has to disclose any conflicts of interest, he does not have to recuse himself from serious conflicts of interest or divest, which is an ideal —

AMY GOODMAN: Because?

CRAIG HOLMAN: Ideal position for Elon Musk. I mean, that way, he gets to hang on to his money.

AMY GOODMAN: Because, Craig? Why doesn’t he have to reveal? You are talking about him and Vivek Ramaswamy heading up DOGE, right? The office on government efficiency. But it’s not actually a real government office?

CRAIG HOLMAN: The code of ethics for an advisory position is very minimal. Now, Elon Musk does have to disclose his conflicts of interest, but he doesn’t have to work out an arrangement to recuse himself from those conflicts, if he can justify that the conflicts affect more than just him. If it goes beyond him to affect the whole industry, like cryptocurrency, then it’s fine. He doesn’t have to recuse himself. He doesn’t have to divest. So, it’s —

AMY GOODMAN: We just have a few minutes, and I want to get to a number of issues. One is, you have proposed dealing with abuses of inaugural fund, you know, where that hundreds of millions of dollars will actually go, with a legislative bill called the Inaugural Fund Integrity Act. Twenty seconds on what that is?

CRAIG HOLMAN: That’s right. It was just — the bill was just introduced yesterday by Representative Scanlon in the House. And I am working to try to find a Senate companion for the bill, as well. That bill would actually bring together some reasonable — reasonable regulations on the inaugural financing.

You know, inaugural financing has always been sort of an unregulated field, largely because no one really suspected it would become a playground for billionaires and government contractors to try to curry favor. What we’re seeing this time around, at $250 million, with all these special interests giving a million dollars or more, that this is exactly what’s going on. They are buying access, and with the hope of buying influence and public policies and government contracts. So, now that we’re seeing the abuses, that are just phenomenal this time around, I’m hoping this legislation stands a good chance.

It would set up, first of all, a ban on corporations making contributions, and that includes government contractors. It would set a contribution limit on individuals at $50,000, which is perfectly reasonable, even though, in my mind, kind of high, but at least it’s better than a million dollars or $5 million that we’re seeing now. And it would require full disclosure of both expenditures and contributions to the inaugural committee, and it would set up rules as to how the surplus funds are dispensed. Surplus funds would have to be given to a legitimate nonprofit organization and cannot be used for personal benefit.

So it’s legislation that’s needed. It’s been introduced several times and hasn’t gone very far, but with this record-breaking Trump inauguration, I suspect we’re going to get — we’re going to get some legs behind this legislation this time around. I mean, this inauguration and the massive donors, you know, the —

AMY GOODMAN: Twenty seconds.

CRAIG HOLMAN: The executive order for the cryptocurrency industry just, you know, reflects that they are buying influence with the Trump administration, so we’re going to see scandal after scandal follow this inauguration. And reform often comes on the heels of scandal.

AMY GOODMAN: Craig Holman, I want to thank you for being with us. We’ll continue to follow this story. Public Citizen’s Capitol Hill lobbyist on ethics, lobbying and campaign finance rules. We’ll into your report, “Corporations and Billionaires Funnel Millions into Trump Inauguration Committee.”

Next up, President Biden has made history granting thousands of commutations, pardons, clemency. Will he grant clemency to the Native American leader Leonard Peltier, in prison for half a century? Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: “Falling” by Julee Cruise from the Twin Peaks soundtrack. Iconoclastic director, transcendental meditation evangelist David Lynch passed away Thursday at the age of 78.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show on the long-awaited ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Israel’s security cabinet has just voted to recommend the full Cabinet approve the proposed ceasefire and hostage release agreement. A government meeting intended to grant final approval will be convened possibly even as we broadcast this program. If approved, the ceasefire is expected to go into effect Sunday. Three hostages are also expected to be released Sunday afternoon.

The Israeli Cabinet vote was initially expected on Thursday but was delayed by widening rifts with Israel’s governing coalition. Two far-right ministers in the government, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, are threatening to resign if the deal is passed. This is Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir urging Prime Minister Netanyahu to reject the agreement with Hamas.

ITAMAR BEN–GVIR: [translated] The willingness to pay heavy prices for the release of hostages also exists with us. We are ready to do anything that will lead to their release, provided that the price does not include a much heavier price than what happened on the 7th of October. The existing deal increases Hamas’s appetite and motivation. This deal is letting them attack, explode and kidnap and get what they want.

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, Gaza remains under relentless attack. Over 113 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since the announcement of the ceasefire deal on Wednesday. At least 28 of them were children, 31 women.

MOHAMED AL-QOUQA: [translated] The repercussion and effects of the war, especially the psychological impact on us, women and our children, will be the most challenging issue. The war was long, and what we witnessed during it was unprecedented.

AMY GOODMAN: For the latest on the ceasefire and hostage release, we’re joined by two guests. Gideon Levy is an award-winning Israeli journalist, author, columnist for the newspaper Haaretz, member of its editorial board. His new article, “Free All Hostages — Israeli and Palestinian.” Levy’s latest book, The Killing of Gaza: Reports on a Catastrophe. And we’re joined by Mouin Rabbani, Middle East analyst, co-editor of Jadaliyya and host of the Connections podcast. He is a former senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, contributor to the book, Deluge: Gaza and Israel from Crisis to Cataclysm.

Gideon, you’re in Tel Aviv. Let’s begin with you. As we broadcast right now, the security cabinet, the war cabinet, has just voted for the ceasefire deal. It now goes to the larger Cabinet. Explain the significance of this and the resistance.

GIDEON LEVY: No significance at all, because the first phase will be implemented from Sunday. Those are rituals. But once Netanyahu decided that he’s willing to go for the first phase of the deal, this phase will go to its way. The main challenge will be the second phase, and here there are many, many problems in the horizon. But right now we are going through the motions. The Cabinet, the government and two ministers will speak against it, and all the others will be in favor of it. And Sunday, the first hostages are going to be released.

AMY GOODMAN: And talk about the piece that you wrote, your new article, “All Hostages — Israeli and Palestinian.” They’re saying there will — “Free All Hostages — Israeli and Palestinian.” They’re saying, over this first period of 42 days in the ceasefire phases, 33 hostages will be released. They’re talking about Israeli hostages. A few of them are American. Not as much is said about the, what, something like 1,000 Palestinians. Talk about who they are.

GIDEON LEVY: So, part of them are terrorists, murderers, who sit decades and decades in jail for things that they have been doing in their early days and really paid their role, paid their price in jail. Part of them are political prisoners, don’t be mistaken. And part of them are hostages. Israel had captured in Gaza — we don’t know the exact figure — hundreds and maybe thousands of Palestinians.

They are being held in horrible conditions. I don’t want to compare to the conditions of the hostages, the Israeli hostages, but I’m not sure that they are being held in better conditions, and maybe even worse conditions. We don’t know, either. But in any case, in inhuman conditions, really inhuman. Haaretz has revealed in the last weeks some, really, information which nobody can remain indifferent. And they are not counted at all. Nobody cares about them. They don’t have families. Nobody’s happy about them. Nobody cares about them. I mean, they are not part of the international discourse, while they are also human beings, part of them terrorists, but also terrorists have some rights. You know, even the Nukhba, who did those horrible things on the 7th of October, have some rights, and they don’t get their rights.

So, in any case, I am thrilled. I am really shivering when I think about the Israeli hostages. But I cannot help it. There is also a huge number of Palestinian hostages, and they deserve also some freedom.

AMY GOODMAN: Would you say that Israel is rounding up more and more — we’re talking about thousands — in this yearlong Israel’s war on Gaza, so that they would release them as part of a deal to get the hostages out, the Israeli hostages out?

GIDEON LEVY: First of all, I’m not sure they will be released in this deal. Right now those who are candidates to be released are long-standing or long-sitting prisoners of decades, who did all kind of terrible things in the ’80s, in the ’90s, and now will be released. Others are even criminal prisoners. I’m not sure that those from Gaza will be released now.

And the thing is that Israel is really complaining, very rightly so, about the conditions, about the fact that the International Red Cross does visit the Israeli hostages, about the fact that their families don’t know if they are alive or not. The same is valid about the Palestinian prisoners and hostages. And therefore, I call to remember that there are also some others. We are not alone. Again and again, Israelis always think that they are the only victims. No.

AMY GOODMAN: Mouin Rabbani, we want to get your response to what’s happening right now. We saw the images of people in Gaza erupting in celebration at the news of a ceasefire. We see the heartbreaking interviews with Israeli hostage families who are demanding that Netanyahu sign the deal. We don’t see that same intimate interviews with people on the streets in Gaza talking about what they’ve lost, because the Israeli government bans all international journalists from being on the ground in Gaza, though Democracy Now! does interview people in Gaza. Can you talk about the significance of this and how this came about, President Biden saying, “This is my deal,” though giving a nod to President Trump, and Trump saying he’s ungracious in not saying it was his envoy that sealed this deal, that forced his ally, Netanyahu, to finally sign off on the ceasefire?

MOUIN RABBANI: Well, it’s quite clear that Biden had next to nothing to do with this deal. This is a deal that was formulated by Netanyahu and presented on his behalf by Biden in May of last year and was accepted by Hamas in early July of last year. And the only — the primary missing element has been Israel’s agreement to this text. And the only reason that Israel did not agree to this text until this week is because it didn’t have to worry about U.S. pressure. What it, in fact, had was unconditional U.S. support and U.S. collusion.

And it’s quite clear that the only thing that has changed in the past month is that there was an unambiguous message from the incoming Trump team to Netanyahu that they do not want to have to deal with a Middle East — with a foreign policy crisis during the inauguration and on their first day in office. And they especially don’t want to deal with a crisis that includes American hostages in the Middle East. They want to be Ronald Reagan in 1981, not Jimmy Carter. And I think Netanyahu —

AMY GOODMAN: And explain what you mean by that, Mouin.

MOUIN RABBANI: Well, I’m referring to the Iranian hostage crisis, that is considered a large contributor to Jimmy Carter’s election loss in 1980, and that those American hostages were not released until after Carter had left the White House and Reagan had entered it. And Trump very clearly does not want to be a Carter; he wants to be a Reagan in this respect. Netanyahu understood the message loud and clear, and so he signed on the dotted line.

You know, we’ve had all this drama and theatrics of the past two days, that Gideon Levy was just talking about, but it was never in doubt, particularly because, I think, Netanyahu is now hoping that with Trump so narrowly focused on January 20th, that he’ll lose interest within a few weeks, and Netanyahu will then be able to scuttle the deal when it gets to when the first phase ends, because, as Gideon Levy mentioned, the second stage is still being negotiated and is yet to be finalized.

AMY GOODMAN: And talk about that second stage, though, what we understand and what Ben-Gvir and Smotrich — and also talk about their histories, and even with the Israeli government, them being gone after for, for example, terrorism. But if you can talk about what their objections are when it comes to the Israeli military in Gaza?

MOUIN RABBANI: Well, they share, in fact, Netanyahu’s objections. One of Netanyahu’s previous — so, again, we need to recall, this is not an American initiative. This is an initiative that, according to Biden, was formulated by Netanyahu and merely presented by the Americans. And what happened after it was presented and after it was accepted by Hamas in July, Netanyahu began adding new conditions, that Israel would have to retain a permanent presence in the so-called Netzarim Corridor bisecting the Gaza Strip, the so-called Philadelphi Corridor abutting the Egyptian border, and, most importantly, that there could be no formal end to hostilities. In other words, there would be no definitive ceasefire. So, it seems that Netanyahu’s expectation was that Hamas would sign an agreement that would oblige it to release all the Israeli captives and hostages, and then accept that once the last one was released, Israel could resume its genocidal campaign against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip — clearly a condition designed to be rejected.

Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are insisting that they cannot accept any deal that ends Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip. And what they’ve said is they are against this deal. Ben-Gvir will leave the government. They will vote against it. But they will continue to support Netanyahu against any no-confidence measures, and that if and when Netanyahu resumes this genocidal campaign, they will rejoin — they will rejoin the government. So, it’s really a very, very empty threat. I see it as pure theater.

AMY GOODMAN: This is President-elect Trump’s national security adviser nominee Mike Waltz in an interview with Fox & Friends Thursday following news that the prime minister, Netanyahu, was again delaying the vote to approve the Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal.

MIKE WALTZ: No one has done more for Israel than President Trump. We will have their back to make sure Hamas never exists as a terrorist state and certainly does not govern Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: Your response to that, Mouin Rabbani?

MOUIN RABBANI: Well, Israel has been at it for 15 months and still has a very long way to go. And if one assumes that it’s virtually impossible for the Trump administration to provide more and more unconditional support to Israel than Biden has, I’m not quite sure what he means by that.

Secondly, in terms of so-called postwar governance scenarios, because Hamas has survived, it will be impossible to impose any government or administration on the Gaza Strip that does not have the consent of Hamas. Hamas doesn’t need to be included in that and may well prefer not to be included, but it does require its consent. You know, and this is, I would say, a typical American politician making extravagant statements about what they’re about to achieve. But, you know, reality tends to bite pretty hard once these people get into office.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to what happened at the State Department yesterday. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, with his farewell news conference, had two journalists forcibly removed from his final press briefing after they questioned him on the Biden administration’s policies in Gaza. This is the exchange between Blinken and Max Blumenthal, editor of The Grayzone.

MAX BLUMENTHAL: Three hundred reporters in Gaza were on the receiving end of your bombs. Why did you keep the bombs flowing when we had a deal in May?

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: So, I’m happy to address questions —

MAX BLUMENTHAL: We all knew we had a deal. Everyone in this room knows we had a deal, Tony, and you kept the bombs flowing. Why did you sacrifice —

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: I’m happy to address questions when we get a chance. Thank you.

MAX BLUMENTHAL: — the rules-based order on the mantle of your commitment to Zionism? Why did you allow my friends to be massacred? Why did you allow — 

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: I’m happy to address, sir, your questions when we get to questions. Thank you.

MAX BLUMENTHAL: — my friends’ homes in Gaza to be destroyed when we had a deal in May?

AIDE: Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m going to have to ask you ask to leave.

MAX BLUMENTHAL: You — 

AIDE: I’m sorry.

MAX BLUMENTHAL: You helped destroy our religion, Judaism —

AIDE: I’m sorry.

MAX BLUMENTHAL: — by associating it with fascism.

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: Yeah, I have a statement — yeah, I have a statement to make. Thank you.

AIDE: We’ll have the time to take questions.

MAX BLUMENTHAL: You waved the white flag before Netanyahu.

AIDE: We’ll have the time to take questions at the end.

MAX BLUMENTHAL: You waved the white flag before Israeli fascism.

AIDE: You’ll have the time to take questions at the end.

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: I look forward to taking questions when I get a chance to finish my statement. Thank you.

MAX BLUMENTHAL: Your father-in-law was an Israel lobbyist. Your grandfather was an Israel lobbyist. Are you compromised by Israel? Why did you allow the Holocaust of our time to happen?

AIDE: It’s time to go. Thanks very much.

MAX BLUMENTHAL: How does it feel to have your legacy be genocide? How does it feel to have your legacy be genocide? You, too, Matt, you smirked through the whole thing every day. You smirked through a genocide.

AMY GOODMAN: A few minutes later, the independent journalist Sam Husseini was also dragged out of the room as he shouted out.

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: Finally, I just wanted to share this morning —

SAM HUSSEINI: Get your hands off me! Get your hands off me! Get your hands off me! Get your hands off me! Answer a damn question!

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: I look forward to answering questions in a few minutes.

SAM HUSSEINI: Do you know about the Hannibal Directive? Do you know about Israel’s nuclear weapons? Everybody from the ICJ — I was sitting here quietly, and now I’m being manhandled by two or three people. You pontificate about a free press? You pontificate about a free press?

SECURITY GUARD 1: Please leave.

SAM HUSSEINI: You are hurting me!

SECURITY GUARD 2: Sir. Sir, please get up.

SAM HUSSEINI: You are hurting me! You are hurting me! I am asking questions after being told by Matt Miller that he will not answer my questions, and so I asked him questions.

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: Please, sir, respect the — respect the process.

SAM HUSSEINI: Wasn’t — wasn’t — wasn’t — wasn’t —

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: We’ll have an opportunity to take questions in a few minutes.

SAM HUSSEINI: Wasn’t the IC — wasn’t the point of the May 31st statement to block the ICJ orders? You blocked the ICJ orders. You —

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: Please, sir, respect the process. Thank you.

SAM HUSSEINI: Oh, “respect the process.” Respect the process while everybody’s — everybody, from Amnesty International — from Amnesty International to the ICJ, is saying that Israel is doing genocide and extermination. You’re telling me to respect the process. Criminal! Why aren’t you in The Hague? Why aren’t you in The Hague? Why aren’t you in The Hague?

AMY GOODMAN: Journalist Sam Husseini was being taken out even before he asked a question. They had gathered around him as Max Blumenthal was taken out. Gideon Levy, if you can respond to journalists breaking the kind of consensus at the State Department and challenging Antony Blinken, the secretary of state?

GIDEON LEVY: I wish there would have been more. I wish there would have been journalists like this in Israel, which you hardly see.

Blinken is a typical American liberal, like the Yair Lapids and the Benny Gantzs and the Israeli Zionist leftists or the Israeli liberals. They have very clear borders to what should be said and what shouldn’t be said. They always say the right things and do exactly the opposite. Blinken cannot run, cannot break away from his accountability to what is happening in Gaza. Blinken and Biden, they say the most noble things about humanitarian aid, about the right of the Palestinians to live in peace and to have their own rights — beautiful things. In the same time, they financed, they armed this horrible weapon — this horrible war without putting any conditions on Israel. And they will be judged not according to their nice talkings, but according to their policy and their actions.

And their actions bleed only to one conclusion. What happened in Gaza, which is quite clear already that it is totally criminal, has two main responsible factors. One is obviously the Israeli leadership, and the second one is the American administration. And no beautiful talkings will release Blinken and Biden from their responsibility to 20,000, 30,000 killed children and babies and women, 50,000, 60,000, maybe 70,000 people killed in Gaza, total destruction by American weapons, which were delivered to Israel without putting any conditions to Israel. That’s the reality. And Max Blumenthal and others tried to call the bluff and tried to say the truth. And I’m very sorry that their voice is not legitimate.

AMY GOODMAN: Mouin Rabbani, your final comment on the ceasefire deal that’s being approved by the Israeli government as we speak, the hostage and ceasefire deal, at least for 42 days, what this means for the overall region?

MOUIN RABBANI: Well, it’s not a political agreement, and it’s certainly not one that addresses the underlying causes of the crisis that erupted in October of 2023. This is a very limited agreement to deal with a very specific issue, namely, a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and an Israeli-Palestinian exchange of captives and hostages. And it’s a very fragile one, precisely for the reasons enumerated by Gideon Levy, that I believe Netanyahu will do everything possible, with collusion of certain Trump officials, to try to scuttle it after the first phase. At the same time, I think the most that can be hoped for at this stage is a return to the U.S. policy of strategic neglect of the question of Palestine. But let’s recall, that’s what got us into this mess in the first place.

AMY GOODMAN: Mouin Rabbani, I want to thank you so much for being with us, Middle East analyst, co-editor of Jadaliyya, host of the Connections podcast, and Gideon Levy, award-winning Israeli journalist and member of the editorial board of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, speaking to us from Tel Aviv.

Coming up, Trump’s billionaire inauguration. Stay with us.

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

NERMEEN SHAIKH: On Thursday, six Trump nominees faced Senate combination hearings: Senator Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick for secretary of state; John Ratcliffe for head of the CIA; Russell Vought for budget director; Sean Duffy, a climate crisis denier, for transportation secretary; Chris Wright, a fracking executive and Trump’s pick for energy secretary; and Pam Bondi, Trump’s nominee for attorney general.

At Bondi’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she avoided directly answering questions about Trump’s vow to pardon January 6th defendants and refused to say Trump definitively lost the 2020 election. Bondi vowed not to politicize the Justice Department but refused to commit to maintaining independence from Trump and his possible requests to prosecute journalists or other perceived threats.

AMY GOODMAN: This all comes as President Biden used his farewell address in the Oval Office Wednesday night to warn Americans about growing threats to democracy.

For more, we go across the country to Los Angeles to David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect. His recent piece is headlined “Pam Bondi and the Pay-to-Play Justice System.”

Thanks so much for being with us, David. As you write about your adopted city in flames, let’s talk about what’s happening in D.C. Who is Pam Bondi? And talk about the questions she was asked and her refusal to say that President Biden was, in fact, fairly elected, just said “he is president” and stood by that, not to mention other issues.

DAVID DAYEN: Yeah. Pam Bondi was the attorney general of Florida from 2011 to 2019. After she left, she immediately became a corporate lobbyist, where she served over 30 corporate clients. During her time in office in Florida, she reversed many of her predecessor’s investigations, at least in part because they were donors to her campaign. She even stopped an investigation into Trump University, the for-profit college entity that he was using to defraud students, after she received a $25,000 gift from the Trump Foundation. So, Bondi clearly has a comfort level with basing her prosecutorial discretion on whether someone has power and influence, and whether they’re willing to give her a taste of that.

And that’s my biggest fear. Obviously, if you run the Justice Department, you have a powerful entity of the state to seek punishment against a corporate offender, or any offender, or to, you know, give them a break. And the fact that she won’t break with Trump, that she was a powerful surrogate for Trump on the campaign trail, that she was Trump’s lawyer in 2020 in Pennsylvania looking into alleged election irregularities, that shows a real fusion between the Attorney General’s Office and the presidency. And, you know, Bondi controls that department — or, when she does, if she’s confirmed, Trump can threaten people to get in line with his agenda, under threat of some sort of punishment. And Bondi has shown herself very willing to go along with that.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, David, you’ve gone through a list of companies that could potentially directly benefit from her position. She was, as you pointed out, a lobbyist for Amazon. She also lobbied for GEO Group, the private prison firm that stands to gain from Trump’s immigration policies. So, if you could elaborate?

DAVID DAYEN: Sure. There are dozens of criminal, civil, and otherwise, investigations against corporations that are left over from the Biden Justice Department. And so, what Pam Bondi is going to do with that is really completely up to her. Amazon is under a federal investigation by the Justice Department right now; Boeing, which engaged in deception around the 737 MAX crashes. Private prison firm CoreCivic is under a civil rights investigation right now, and Bondi was the lobbyist for GEO Group, which is their main rival. And both of those companies stand to gain from Trump’s mass deportation policies. And there’s a host of others, including active antitrust investigations against Apple and Google and Nvidia and Live Nation-Ticketmaster and several others, Visa, among others. And so, Bondi is going to have a lot of power here to decide whether or not to move forward on all of these investigations.

And many of these companies under this investigation are the ones giving millions to Donald Trump’s inauguration. So you can see the real conflicts of interest here. And, you know, while Bondi has sort of said that she would recuse from any investigations involving companies she personally worked for, she has not extended that to say she would recuse from investigations from the company, the lobbying firm, Ballard Partners, that she worked for. So did the Trump chief of staff, Susie Wiles. And so, you know, there could be companies that have relationships with her colleagues, her former colleagues, that she would not recuse herself from making decisions on those. So, I think it’s a very dangerous situation.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to Pam Bondi speaking on Fox News in 2023.

PAM BONDI: The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones. The investigators will be investigated.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Pam Bondi. “The investigators will be investigated.” “The prosecutors will be prosecuted.” David Dayen, the significance of this, of not refusing to say whether she’d investigate Jack Smith, whether she’d keep an enemies list? She said there will be no enemies list, despite what the nominee for FBI is saying.

DAVID DAYEN: Well, it’s very dangerous, and she’s shown herself willing to take on prosecutors within her own department. When she was Florida attorney general, the two highest-level prosecutors, who were investigating foreclosure fraud, the use of mass documents, fake documents, in foreclosure cases to take people out of their homes, were working at the Florida Attorney General’s Office. And they were investigating someone who was — Lender Processing Services — a key donor to Bondi. And so, when she got into office, she fired those two high-level prosecutors. So, she has no problem doing something like that. And when she says, “We’re going to investigate the investigators and prosecute the prosecutors,” you know, this is the extension of the Trump intimidation and bullying scheme into the Justice Department. And it’s the very weaponization that he decried, and her, as well. So, yeah, I think it’s a difficult thing to take a look at.

AMY GOODMAN: And they kept bringing up Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee for FBI, though he’s supposedly independent, not clear whether any of these people will be independent from President Trump. We have 15 seconds.

DAVID DAYEN: Yeah, 100%. The lack of independence is what Democrats focused on in that hearing. She kind of deflected, did not give major answers on that. And so, that uncertainty continues.

AMY GOODMAN: David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect. We’ll link to your article, “Pam Bondi and the Pay-to-Play Justice System,” and also your writing on the L.A. fires. That does it for our show. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh, for another edition of Democracy Now!

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

NERMEEN SHAIKH: To talk more about the ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza, we’re joined now by three guests. Muhammad Shehada is a writer and analyst from Gaza. He’s chief of communications at Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor. He joins us from Copenhagen. Jeremy Scahill is co-founder of Drop Site News. And Daniel Levy is president of the U.S./Middle East Project and a former Israeli peace negotiator under Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin.

So, Daniel, I’d like to begin with you. If you could just start by responding to Netanyahu delaying the Cabinet vote, and what you think the cause of that is, in particular, the pressure on him from right-wing members of his coalition?

DANIEL LEVY: Right. So, what we’re led to believe is that the proximate cause — in other words, what the media in Israel is being background briefed on; I’m not sure if they’re saying it publicly yet — is that this has to do with the lists of prisoners that would need to be let go by Israel, the Palestinian prisoners. There are thousands of Palestinian prisoners, often held in detention without trial, in Israeli prisons. And this has to do with the names that Hamas is insisting will be on that list. We don’t know whether this will torpedo things or not.

What we do know — and let’s stick with that — is that Netanyahu didn’t want to get to this moment. You can listen to the lies of the outgoing administration, of Secretary Blinken. You know, sometimes in a negotiation it’s useful to have some constructive ambiguity. One of the mediators may even have to align with the narrative of one of the parties to give them that victory now, even if they haven’t got the victory, to get a deal over the line. But there’s also a kind of lie which is just a lie, and it undermines things. And we’ve been told throughout that the problem is Hamas; that’s the reason there’s no deal. But every Israeli journalist who’s been serious who’s covered this — and it’s rare to have unanimity there — from left and right, pro- and anti-Netanyahu, have acknowledged that Netanyahu worked hardest to prevent this deal.

And Netanyahu has changed under the pressure of a president who’s perceived to be someone who can act like the leader of a superpower, who Netanyahu can’t wrap around his little finger like he could with Biden. That’s the circumstance in which Netanyahu has found himself being dragged into a deal that threatens his domestic political stability. He wants to continue with this war. And therefore, Netanyahu will do everything, today and, I imagine, if we move forward, throughout the period of implementation and as one tries to get further down the road — he will do everything to torpedo this, hoping that it will be easy. Given narratives that exist in the West, it will be easy to say, “Look, you see, Hamas are the ones who are to blame.” That’s the fragility of this thing. That’s where Netanyahu is. And that’s what we’re having to contend with in these very hours.

AMY GOODMAN: And explain what the objections are of Bezalel Smotrich, as well as Ben-Gvir. And explain what it would mean if one of them left — Smotrich said he will not approve this — and if both of them left. Will Netanyahu survive as prime minister?

DANIEL LEVY: OK, let’s do the coalition math first, if I may. Smotrich or Ben-Gvir, if one of those leaves, and Ben-Gvir is the one who has — his faction have set this out more clearly — that, on its own, if they left the government, and even voted against the government, would not bring down the coalition. Together, if they left and voted against the government, that brings down the coalition. They can certainly leave and say that they are leaving because of this deal, but if Netanyahu reverses the terms, then they will return, or that they will leave, but they will hold their fire in terms of bringing down the coalition. And I think that’s probably — that’s the ballpark in which we are. The opposition will offer a safety net over the implementation of the deal. They won’t offer a general safety net.

What all this adds up to — without boring people with the intricacies of Israeli coalition math, what all this adds up to is that Netanyahu has a political problem if he moves forward with this. And it’s one of the main reasons — there were other things, but it’s one of the main reasons he did not want to go to a deal. But his problem is that that was only sustainable when domestic pressure was the only factor, if there was no significant external pressure. The only actor that can bring significant external pressure is the U.S., because the U.S. offers the weapons, the arms, the political, diplomatic, economic cover. Israel couldn’t do this for a day without the U.S. The Biden administration refused to use that leverage.

Why are the coalition allies from the extreme right against this? The point is very simple. Their vision — and it is a vision shared by many in the Israeli media, by many in Netanyahu’s own party, and it is the vision that, let’s face it, Netanyahu himself has pursued for most of this assault on Gaza — the vision is that Gaza will be shrunk; ultimately, the Nakba will be continued, the removal of Palestinians; that Israelis will resettle in Gaza. And it’s part of a broader vision of the permanent denial of rights, dispossession and removal from the physical expanse, that began with the Nakba — why are Gazans refugees in the first place — of this particular Zionist vision. They see that if Palestinians are allowed back to the north, that if the Israeli military has to withdraw — these are all things that are part of an agreement — that that vision will take a serious hit. And they look at this, and they say, “Wait a minute. The Palestinians are still here. They’re still standing. Hamas is still standing. Hamas is still exacting a price from the IDF. Palestinian resistance is resilient. This isn’t what we thought we had signed up for. We thought we were going to get total victory, with American assistance.” And suddenly they look around, and they see that Israel’s legal, political, economic vulnerabilities, which this has caused, are not being offset by the kind of grandiose schemes for accelerating the displacement of Palestinians that they thought they would get.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Muhammad Shehada, I want to ask you about a piece that you recently published, which was based on conversations with numerous Israeli, Palestinian and Arab officials involved in the talks. They all expressed surprise, including the Israeli officials, that the Biden administration has continued to publicly blame Hamas as the obstacle to a ceasefire, when it was clear to all involved that it was Netanyahu who was holding up the agreement. So, if you could talk about this latest development of the postponement of the Cabinet vote and also respond to the terms of the agreement that was passed yesterday, agreed upon yesterday?

MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Thanks so much, Nermeen. And thanks for bringing together a team of very good and close friends. Good to be here with Daniel and Jeremy.

I’ll start with the first issue on the terms of agreement. It is literally, word for word — I read the whole text very carefully — it’s, word for word, the same text as the one that was produced by Israel’s own team on the 27th of May, 2024, so about seven to eight months ago. Hamas accepted it on July 2nd. Hamas was informed by mediators that the Israeli team gave a positive response, as well. Netanyahu immediately rejected it, as soon as Hamas’s answer was given, and imposed four conditions that his own generals, his own advisers, his own negotiators said that these conditions are impossible and render a deal unfeasible. But he insisted on them.

The Biden administration immediately took a very easy approach. They decided to absolve themselves of any responsibility for refusing or failing to pressure Netanyahu by rewriting history. That’s what a very senior Israeli security official told me recently in November. He said Biden’s team is engaging in a shameful attempt to rewrite history, basically gaslighting, putting all blame on Hamas, so that it sounds that they tried their best with Netanyahu, they got him to accept, and Hamas is to blame. The other thing is that mediators and Israel’s own negotiating team have been begging Biden’s team for months to name and shame Netanyahu, believing that it can create some domestic pressure on him. Biden refused consistently. We know — yesterday in The Times of Israel it came out, citing Israeli negotiators — that Blinken, when he used the narrative of saying “Netanyahu accepted, Hamas rejected,” it threw a wrench in the negotiations and collapsed them. That’s what an Israeli negotiator himself said. So, in a way, we had a consistent effort by Biden’s team to cover up and buy time for the unfolding genocide in Gaza.

The other element about what is happening now and where things stand is that Netanyahu, in the very last minute, as Daniel said, is trying to impose new conditions that would destroy the possibility of reaching a deal. His office just released a statement that negates completely the very explicitly stated terms of the appendix that was attached to the deal yesterday. For example, in the appendix, it says that the IDF should reduce its soldiers at the Philadelphi Corridor, that separates Rafah from Egypt, throughout the first phase of the ceasefire, and they should withdraw from that Philadelphi Corridor by day 50 of the ceasefire. Netanyahu is now saying, “No, no, no, no. There will be zero reduction. No IDF post will be removed. There will be redeployment, and there will not be any withdrawal by day 50.” The second point that he’s insisting on is to say there will not be any ending of the war unless Hamas accepts Israel’s condition to achieve the objectives of the war. What are the objectives of the war? Is that Hamas should cease to exist. So he’s saying to Hamas, “Dismantle yourself. Do exactly the job that Israel, the IDF failed to accomplish throughout the last 15 months of genocide, of destroying Hamas’s military force. Do it yourself as Hamas. Hand over your arms. Surrender. Bend the knee. Or, otherwise, the war continues.” And neither of these conditions were in the ceasefire agreement. So, that’s how he’s trying to ruin it.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me bring Jeremy Scahill into this conversation. Jeremy, just before the ceasefire was announced yesterday, you wrote a piece on “The Trump Factor.” Yesterday, President Biden spoke twice, right after the announcement, which also puts enormous pressure on Netanyahu, since all the world and networks are reporting there’s a deal, and yet he is trying to bring together his coalition to support it. Biden spoke both in the afternoon, and he gave his farewell address from the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office last night and said, “This is my deal from May,” though did give a nod to President-elect Trump weighing in at the same time, as if there’s two governments. Explain what the difference is this time from when Biden did put this forward in May.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, you know, it’s very clear, if you read the Israeli press and listen to Israeli politicians and political leaders, that this deal would not be signed, certainly not at this time, but for the intervention of Donald Trump. And much of the media coverage of Trump’s threats on this were focused on Hamas, because Trump kept saying, “If the hostages aren’t released, there’s going to be hell unleashed in the Middle East.” And, you know, he wasn’t specifying what his threat was, but it was — you know, most of it was focused on Hamas.

But what happened was that Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East is not someone like an Antony Blinken or a Henry Kissinger. Instead, it’s kind of, you know, like a scene from The Godfather, where Tom Hagan gets sent as the consigliere to sort of do the bidding of the don. He sends another billionaire real estate tycoon, Steve Witkoff, to the region, and Witkoff then is in the room with CIA Director Bill Burns, with Brett McGurk, the current envoy, with all of these mediators. And we understand from Israeli media coverage that last Friday Witkoff is in Doha. He calls Netanyahu’s people and says, “I’m coming tomorrow to Israel, and I expect Netanyahu to be there.” And they say, “Oh, well, no, it’s Shabbat. He’s not going to be able to meet with you.” And Witkoff, who himself is Jewish, was like, “I don’t care what day it is.” He arrives there and, by all accounts, sort of said, “This deal is going to happen before President-elect Trump takes office.”

Now, some of this, I think, is true, and I don’t think we can understate the role that Trump played in forcing this deal through. And it really exposes the utter moral rot that existed within the Biden White House on this issue of stopping the war, because before he even gets into office, Trump is showing the vast powers of the American presidency. He’s doing it in an unorthodox way. He’s doing it before he assumes office. But it just shows that Joe Biden could have ended this long ago if he used some of the levers of American power available to him, as Daniel said.

This does benefit Netanyahu to an extent, because it can sort of be portrayed as, you know, “Trump forced us into doing this.” But the devil is in the details. Last night, Mike Waltz, Trump’s incoming national security adviser, echoed something that Netanyahu has been hinting at, which is that the Israelis view this as a bitter pill that they have to swallow right now, but they’re not even talking about phase two and phase three. Netanyahu really is sort of implying, and Mike Waltz co-signed that last night in interviews, that it’s really just a phase one deal and that once we get a decent number of hostages released from Gaza, then we can resume the war. Trump’s national security adviser said that the aim of totally destroying Hamas and demilitarizing Gaza is a just one that the United States supports. So, while Trump should be given credit for doing something that Biden and Harris systematically refused to do, this remains an extremely dangerous moment, as evidenced by the fact that Netanyahu has now ordered his forces into a full-spectrum, full-scale attack against the Palestinians of Gaza leading up to Sunday.

One last point, Amy, echoing some of what Muhammad and Daniel said, this narrative that Hamas has been the impediment to a ceasefire has been a lie for this entire time. From the very beginning, Hamas officials told Israeli negotiators and others that they wanted to make a deal to exchange the Israelis taken on October 7th for Palestinians being held. Antony Blinken has been the liar-in-chief, promoting this narrative. I was shown a document, Amy, this week by — that was signed by Hamas’s negotiators, all of them, and it was a copy of the ceasefire agreement that Hamas’s team signed and stamped on Monday. Every day after that, leading up to Wednesday — so, all through the evening Monday, all through the day Tuesday, all through the day Wednesday — Antony Blinken and Israeli officials kept saying, “We’re just waiting on Hamas to accept the deal.” I have seen proof that Hamas actually formally accepted the terms of the ceasefire on Monday. And Blinken and the Americans knew this, and they continued to feed into this lie. That’s indicative of this whole story that’s been going on for almost a year and a half where a genocide has been committed against the Palestinian people, and the United States has not just serviced it with weapons and political support, but also consistently promoting lies and a narrative that ultimately was very, very lethal.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Jeremy, if you could elaborate on why you think it is that it was so important for Trump to get this deal agreed upon? And I’d just like to read comments that a former director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry made earlier today, saying that this “total victory for Israel” — he called the ceasefire agreement a “total victory for Israel” — happened not in Gaza, but in Washington. Trump is seen as a total victory, for Israel has so much to benefit from Trump regarding its international status and other issues. So, if you could — 

JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah, I mean — 

NERMEEN SHAIKH: — respond, Jeremy?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, you know, let’s remember that Trump is an unorthodox political figure. Whatever anyone thinks about him, he’s an unusual character in the history of the American presidency, and he is not a creature of the Washington swamp. He may be a creature of other kinds of swamps, but he’s not a creature of the Washington swamp. And so, you know, part of what is happening here, it’s akin a little bit to what Ronald Reagan did to Jimmy Carter during the election in 1980 with the Iran hostage situation. It’s not exactly the same, but there are some vibes of that. And I think Trump wanted to sail into his inauguration with what he could claim was like a major diplomatic victory in a war that has gone on for 16 months and which quite likely was the defining factor that cost Kamala Harris the election against Donald Trump.

On a different level, I think that Trump has a much broader agenda. I don’t think he particularly wants to see the Middle East in flames when he takes power. He’s very, very interested in getting a normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel. I think that’s one of the prizes that he’s going to move toward handing Netanyahu in all of this. But there’s also some really dangerous things at play that extend beyond that normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia. The West Bank, Israel wants to fully and officially annex the West Bank. Trump’s number one donor, Miriam Adelson, has made very clear she wants the West Bank annexed. Mike Huckabee, the incoming U.S. ambassador to Israel, has said there’s no such thing as a Palestinian, no such territory as the West Bank. So, let’s not pretend for a moment that Trump was motivated by humanitarian, you know, sort of concern. But he is viewing this, I think, as a business transaction, and Trump wants capitalism in the Middle East. And he ultimately endorses an agenda that is going to be very bad for the Palestinian people. But in the short term, no question: Donald Trump the defining factor in forcing this through.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Daniel Levy, if you could respond, in fact, to that point? Because a number of people have suggested that what the U.S. offered Netanyahu in return for his agreeing to the terms of the agreement is free license to expand settlements in the West Bank.

DANIEL LEVY: Does anyone who says that suggest that a Trump administration, a Republican ecosystem, was going to clamp down on settlements in the West Bank? This is the point. It’s a very important distinction to make, and Jeremy walked us to that distinction. It’s one thing to say — and this is, I think, what we’ve all been saying — that Netanyahu looks at Trump and says, “OK, he’s the leader of a superpower. He acts like it. He’s unpredictable. When my personal political interests cut across what he perceives to be the American interest of the moment, he’s the top dog here. I can’t do what I did with the liar-in-chief Blinken and the rot that is the White House,” as Jeremy correctly described it. So, there’s a difference between that, which has changed, has upended Netanyahu’s political calculation — there’s a difference between that and anyone trying to depict Trump, his team, the administration, the Republican ecosystem, the evangelical dispensational Zionists, the Miriam Adelson donor world — between trying to depict all of those things as somehow having an agenda of Palestinian rights and liberation and ending occupation and apartheid. Of course, that would be pure silliness.

But the difference here is that Israel expected to get all those things, to get an even more permissive environment when it came to violations of international law and trampling Palestinian rights on the West Bank and everywhere else, to get even more of an American lean in to Abraham Accords-style normalization, to get an even more aggressive assault on the international legal infrastructure and architecture, like the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice. They expected to get all of those things but not have to deal with pesky requests on a Gaza ceasefire because the Gaza continuation of that war and the holding of the hostages is something that irks, apparently, the incoming administration. So, I think this idea that they’re getting a quid pro quo is a nonsense. They’re getting those things anyway. They simply expected to be able to get them and do whatever they wanted on everything else.

And that’s, very sadly, the difference when it comes to, again, this final powerful demonstration of the Biden administration in all its weakness. And let’s just think about this for a moment. They have spent billions of American taxpayer dollars sending arms to Israel. They have spent other billions of American taxpayer dollars trying to secure safe shipping from the Houthis. The Houthis have told us all along this would end if you get a ceasefire in Gaza. They’ve spent some hundreds of millions of dollars probably in making good on just a tiny fraction of the damage done in Gaza that was caused by their original billions in weapons. All of that money until — now, some have profited from that. Let’s not be naive here. But all of that in order to pursue a policy that, literally, in a matter of days, all it took was to say “on this, no,” that is shameful.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Muhammad Shehada, we give you the last word. You were born in Gaza. We’re speaking to you, though, in Copenhagen. As Trump takes office and the first hostages are expected to be released — three women on Sunday, a thousand Palestinian prisoners expected to be released in these weeks — what concerns you most about the future of the Palestinian people? We just have a minute.

MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Basically, what concerns me the most is that as soon as this war is going to end, Israel will impose a permanent state of nonlife on Gaza, leave every Gazan with the destruction that it created for the next decades, while at the same time Gaza and Palestine will be pushed into complete irrelevancy. Everybody is going to pretend like it doesn’t exist anymore, and try to force us to look the other way, so that that’s going to be even more painful than the war, people just suffering every day nonstop, indefinitely, without any option or horizon.

AMY GOODMAN: Muhammad Shehada, we thank you for being with us, Gaza-born writer and analyst, chief of communications at Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor. Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of Drop Site News, we’ll link to your pieces. And Daniel Levy, president of the U.S./Middle East Project, former Israeli peace negotiator under two Israeli prime ministers, Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin.

Up next, we come back to D.C. to look at the confirmation hearing for Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick to be attorney general. Back in 20 seconds.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: “Shame” by Madlib. The legendary producer lost his home, equipment and decades of music in the L.A. fire.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Celebrations were held in Gaza and Israel Wednesday after the announcement that Israel and Hamas had agreed to a six-week ceasefire and hostage deal. But now Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has postponed a Cabinet vote approve the ceasefire, which is opposed by some far-right members of Netanyahu’s government. Netanyahu has said Hamas is demanding last-minute concessions, but Hamas has denied the claim.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani outlined part of the deal on Wednesday.

PRIME MINISTER SHEIKH MOHAMMED BIN ABDULRAHMAN AL-THANI: [translated] Qatar, the Arab Republic of Egypt and the United States are happy to announce the success of joint mediation efforts in order to reach a deal between the parties of the conflict in the Gaza territory to exchange prisoners and hostages and a return to a prolonged truce that achieves a permanent ceasefire between the two sides, in addition to an agreement for the delivery of large amounts of humanitarian relief and aid to the Palestinian brothers in the Gaza Strip.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: President Biden said the deal is based on the ceasefire plan he outlined last May. In recent weeks, the Biden administration worked with representatives from the incoming Trump administration to negotiate the ceasefire deal, which is scheduled to begin on Sunday, the last full day of Biden’s presidency.

Under the terms of the deal, Hamas would release 33 Israeli hostages over the next six weeks, with the first hostages being released on Sunday. In exchange, Israel will release a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israel over the six-week period. The deal also calls for Israel to pull back its troops from populated areas of Gaza and for Israel to allow 600 aid trucks into Gaza a day.

AMY GOODMAN: This comes as authorities in Gaza say Israel has killed at least 81 Palestinians over the last 24 hours. The official death toll in Gaza is nearing 47,000. But just last week, The Lancet medical journal said the actual toll may be 40% higher.

We’re joined now by Shrouq Aila, an independent journalist and producer in Gaza. Her husband, the journalist Roshdi Sarraj, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in October of 2023. He ran Ain Media, which Aila now heads. In 2024, Aila received the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Shrouq. If you can start off by talking about the response on the ground to the announced ceasefire, even though the Israeli government has now put off a Cabinet vote on it?

SHROUQ AILA: Hey, Amy. Hi, everyone. Thank you for having me today.

I’m happy to share this with you today over the news of yesterday, the announcement of the ceasefire. You know, it’s just an announcement. It’s not officially happening on the ground. The effect of this is going to take place on Sunday. But even though, the people here are celebrating. They are happy that there is, you know, a step, a baby step, for their healing process, for going forward, like, in the future, which is, you know, just all about the uncertainty. So, I can tell the feelings here is such a mix of feelings. You can see people smiling and crying at the same time. I —

AMY GOODMAN: We can hear you fine, Shrouq. We can hear you.

SHROUQ AILA: Yeah, OK, OK, perfect. Sorry. The power went off.

So, what I was talking, that all of the people were celebrating and crying at the same time. This is a moment that all of us, like plus-2 million people, have been waiting for this moment, for this announcement. And yet, we believe it’s still — we have, like, two, three days left to be killed, and the bloodshed is not stopping. Since the announcement until this moment, plus-70 people got killed. Massacres are everywhere, especially in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. We hear the — we were able to hear the bombardment that happened in the north even in the south and the central part of the Gaza Strip. Some people in the West Bank, they also hear those high explosions, those high explosions in the north.

But I can tell you that people are happy, and also they are — you know, that mix between heartbreak and relief. So, this is exactly what we are living, because there’s that sense of uncertainty of the future. Nobody knows what the future holds for him or her, especially those who are displaced now and waiting for the implementation of this ceasefire so they can return to their homes, or what’s left of their homes, in the north. So, there is that kind of uncertainty. You cannot guarantee, or you cannot decide what do you want. And it is — I can give it from a personal perspective, as well. I’m part of this society. I’m a story of the stories of this society, as well. But at least we are so grateful that we reached this moment and there is a step forward and there is a ceasefire. And hopefully, it will last more, and it will really be really implemented on the ground.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Shrouq, could you respond, though, to the fact that the Netanyahu government has now delayed a Cabinet vote on the ceasefire? Are you confident that it will still go ahead?

SHROUQ AILA: Like, despite the delays that happens by the Netanyahu’s government, I still believe it will be — it will happen. And we are on the track. And, like, we have seen this before. Like, it happened. That is because of the pressure of the President Trump. And, like, it’s been almost over one year under the presidency of Biden and not having on the ground to stop this madness. But by expecting the presidency of Trump, this is a real step here that we, all of us, are seeing. And the President Trump, he already brought pressure on both sides, the Israelis and the Palestinians, as well. So, I believe those delays, that Netanyahu is trying as much as he can to get advantage of whatever moment or minute left for him in the government. But yet I think we are on the track, and we are going for the implementation of the ceasefire.

AMY GOODMAN: Shrouq, I want to play an extremely emotional clip. While reporting from Gaza on news of the ceasefire yesterday, the Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif took off his helmet and vest, like you’re wearing, that’s marked “press,” while he was on air. This is what he said.

ANAS AL-SHARIF: [translated] Now I can take off this helmet, that has weighed on me, and also this vest, that has been part of my body throughout this long period. And now we are announcing from inside Gaza, Gaza City, this news: a ceasefire for the citizens and the whole population of Gaza that has faced a genocidal war, has faced bombings, explosions and forced displacement. In this place where I am standing, I will dedicate this to Ismail al-Ghoul, who would be standing here in my place announcing this news. To pay tribute to our colleague Ismail al-Ghoul, we remember our colleague Rami al-Rifi. We remember our colleagues Samer Abu Daqqa, Hamza Dahdouh, and also our precious friend who was always holding the frame, Fadi al-Wahidi.

AMY GOODMAN: Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif soon put his press vest and helmet back on. He then posted on X, quote, “An hour ago, I was documenting the joy of the people of Gaza over the news of the ceasefire, but the Israeli occupation as usual continues to commit massacres and kill joy in people’s hearts,” as he dealt with a number of people who had been killed soon after in Gaza.

Shrouq Aila, as we wrap up, your final thoughts from Gaza in this first period, if this does go through? You’re expressing the thoughts of what most people are saying now, that even with the Israeli delay, that it will go through. The first phase, 33 hostages to be released — three female hostages on day one, four more on day seven, 26 more over the next five weeks; in exchange, Israel will release around a thousand Palestinians and allow the entry of 600 trucks carrying humanitarian relief into Gaza daily. What this all will mean?

SHROUQ AILA: Well, it means that for us, as we are displaced here, like over 1 million people are displaced in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. And even those who are living in the north, for example, they are already displaced in other parts because of that, you know, the — lots of the evacuation orders that the army issued several times, and they are still issuing this. And they already issued an evacuation order before the announcement in two hours.

So, it is a moment of realization for all of us. Like, eventually, we are getting more close to that moment to be, firstly, accepting the reality of that, that there is another war just waiting for us after this war, because of the — there is a war of insecurity. There is a war of rebuilding, the war of the people who already left us, and the memories that we left, as well. And, you know, like, the majority of the people in Gaza are struggling with the grief, trauma and other psychological aspects.

And I can say that having this step, it will be a real action for us, like, to do something. It’s been like almost 15 months of being on hold, all, everything, like our feelings, our days. Like, I can tell, like today, I’m feeling that I’m getting back to the 8th of October. So, yeah, the genocide started on the 7th of October. We have never seen the 8th of October ’til the moment of the announcement of this ceasefire. So, I can tell that now we are still stuck back with 2023, the 7th of October, and we’re like living now the 8th of the October. That means that how time is stopped with those people here because of agony.

They are, like — they are singing in agony and in grief over everything, literally everything. What I mean, like, nobody here has lost nothing. Like, if your home is still standing, your beloved ones, friends, whoever, they are still with you, you are not losing your source of income, but yet you lost your hope in humanity. You lost your — in security, as well. You lost that sense of in security. And let me say that the education in terms of the kids, who already lost two academic years in a row because of the ongoing genocide. So, everyone lost something here. And nobody — like, OK, we are celebrating, but it doesn’t mean we are celebrating out of joy. We are celebrating out of grief, because eventually we will have that moment to break down, to get that chance to deal with our hardships and our problems that occurred during this genocide.

AMY GOODMAN: Shrouq Aila, independent journalist in Gaza. In 2024, she received the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists, speaking to us from Deir al-Balah.

When we come back, we go to the Gaza-born Palestinian analyst Muhammad Shehada, the former Israeli neogotiator Daniel Levy and journalist Jeremy Scahill. Stay with us.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman.

We’re continuing to look at Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing to become defense secretary before the Senate Armed Forces Committee. Three U.S. veterans were arrested for disrupting the hearing. This is former merchant marine Al Glatkowski with Veterans for Peace.

AL GLATKOWSKI: Pete, Pete, you are a misogynist. Not only that, you are a Christian Zionist, and you support the war in Gaza!

AMY GOODMAN: Former military intelligence analyst Josephine Guilbeau was also removed and arrested Tuesday after interrupting Hegseth’s confirmation hearing. She served in the military from 2006 to 2023.

PETE HEGSETH: War fighting, accountability — 

JOSEPHINE GUILBEAU: Hey, corrupt senators! When are you going to stop bombing babies in Gaza? Veterans are committing suicide and are homeless! My father, a veteran, committed suicide! And you’re sending money to bomb babies!

CAPITOL POLICE 1: Sit down.

CAPITOL POLICE 2: You’ve got to sit down.

PROTESTER: I’m leaving, man.

JOSEPHINE GUILBEAU: We need money. We need money for veterans committing suicide! Veterans are homeless. We need money here, not to bomb babies in Gaza! Shame on all of you! My father, a veteran, committed suicide! We need money to help veterans who have PTSD, not money to send to bomb babies! My father was a veteran who committed suicide, yet we send our money to bomb babies in Gaza! What are we doing? Shame on all of you who don’t speak up against the genocide!

AMY GOODMAN: We’ll be joined by Josephine Guilbeau in a minute, but this is former U.S. Army Ranger Greg Stoker, who was carried out of Tuesday’s hearing. Stoker served four combat deployments in Afghanistan.

PETE HEGSETH: Retention crisis and readiness —

GREG STOKER: Twenty years of illegal war and genocide in Gaza! That’s your recruiting crisis!

CAPITOL POLICE 1: Come on. Come on. Come on.

GREG STOKER: No money for disasters! Only [inaudible]

CAPITOL POLICE 2: Sit down.

MEDEA BENJAMIN: I’m going to leave.

CAPITOL POLICE 2: Sit down.

MEDEA BENJAMIN: I’m going to leave.

CAPITOL POLICE 2: Let’s go. Let’s go.

MEDEA BENJAMIN: Can I leave?

CAPITOL POLICE 2: No. Let’s go.

GREG STOKER: That’s your recruiting crisis!

MEDEA BENJAMIN: Can I leave, please?

CAPITOL POLICE 2: Out this way.

AMY GOODMAN: That was former U.S. Army Ranger Greg Stoker, who joins us now in Washington, D.C., along with former military intelligence analyst Josephine Guilbeau. They were both arrested for protesting during Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Forces Committee.

We thank you both for being with us. Josephine, let’s begin with you. Talk about your service in the military, and then talk about why you were protesting and got arrested yesterday.

JOSEPHINE GUILBEAU: Thank you, Amy, for having me on.

I served 17 years in the military. I was a combat medic, and then I became an intelligence officer. And I have a background in working with, you know, combat units, infantry units.

And the reason that I am protesting, in this way specifically, is because I have used all other avenues to try and reach my leadership about what we are participating in and funding, which is the genocide inside of Gaza. For over 460 days, I have witnessed with my own eyes children getting bombed daily, indiscriminately. I understand what self-defense is. And what I’m witnessing is not self-defense.

And I do have a concern, especially as a Christian woman here in America, that someone like Pete is using his religion to try and approve of what we are witnessing. And so I look at the next four years of him serving in this position, which he is unqualified for, and it looks like we’re going to most likely see more death and destruction at the hands of the military-industrial complex.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about your own father? As you were being taken out, you were talking about military suicides.

JOSEPHINE GUILBEAU: Yes. So, something that I advocate a lot for is the fact that in America there are 22-plus veteran suicides a day, as well as a significant increase in veteran homelessness. Over the past year, so many veterans are waking up and coming to the reality of what we participated in. And basically, we were used as pawns for the rich, who have assets and interests. It’s not our country’s interests. It’s not the American people’s interests. It’s the elites’ interests. And they use as pawns to go to these wars and ultimately kill innocent people.

And so, for me, this is — obviously, my father was a veteran, and I stated he did commit suicide. This is something that I feel like our country lacks the ability or capacity to actually acknowledge. The reason why veterans are committing suicide and have PTSD is because they sacrifice their humanity and consciousness in order to carry out these horrific actions, and now that’s caught up to them. And there’s no healing that can be allowed in these communities until our government and leaders can actually acknowledge what veterans are experiencing.

AMY GOODMAN: Greg Stoker, we just watched you carried out of that hearing yesterday. You are a former U.S. Army Ranger with a background in special operations and human intelligence. You’re now an antiwar activist, an analyst with MintPress News. You had four combat deployments from 2009 to 2013 during the Afghanistan War surge. In fact, Pete Hegseth also was a military — was an infantry officer in the Army National Guard. He deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo. Explain why you were out there yesterday getting arrested at the hearing.

GREG STOKER: Well, I felt like I had to do something to disrupt it. As an antiwar veteran activist, I take a lot of notes from the Vietnam backlash. And I don’t expect to really effect any sort of massive social change, but I do believe that, like, voting and protesting are some of the, like, least effective ways of enacting political change. However, my one goal was to visibly protest, disrupt the hearing, in order to, hopefully, like, inspire other veterans who may be on the fence about, like, getting involved, getting active in the movement, in an intersectional antiwar movement. And, you know, it’ll take years to normalize that, but, you know, just keep pushing the ball forward. That’s basically my one goal by disrupting the meeting. Didn’t expect it to change anything. Obviously, it won’t.

But again, normalizing this, I guess, activism within the veteran community is helpful, mostly because it’s harder rhetorically for the powers that be to dismiss us as terrorist sympathizers when we’ve actively engaged al-Qaeda and the Islamic State and stuff like that. And that’s kind of our goal within the antiwar movement, to just be there and make it rhetorically more challenging for, as you said, the elites to dismiss us and the movement in general.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let me ask you about what Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas said when he asked Pete Hegseth about your protest.

SEN. TOM COTTON: We’ve got a big audience here. Many of them seem to be patriotic supporters of you, Mr. Hegseth. Some of them seem to be liberal critics of you. I would note that it’s only the liberal critics that have disrupted this hearing. As was my custom during the Biden administration, I want to give you a chance to respond to what they said about you. I think the first one accused you of being a Christian Zionist. I’m not really sure why that is a bad thing. I’m a Christian. I’m a Zionist. Zionism is that the Jewish people deserve a homeland in the ancient Holy Land where they’ve lived since the dawn of history. Do you consider yourself a Christian Zionist?

PETE HEGSETH: Senator, I support — I am a Christian, and I robustly support the state of Israel and its existential defense and the way America comes alongside them as their great ally.

SEN. TOM COTTON: Thank you. Because another — another protester, and I think this one was a member of CodePink, which, by the way, is a Chinese communist front group these days, said that you support Israel’s war in Gaza. I support Israel’s existential war in Gaza. I assume, like me and President Trump, you support that war, as well, don’t you?

PETE HEGSETH: Senator, I do. I support Israel destroying and killing every last member of Hamas.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Pete Hegseth being questioned by Arkansas Republican Senator Cotton. Greg Stoker, your response?

GREG STOKER: Well, it’s just a completely unviable operational goal to defeat Hamas. They’ve created a whole new acronym, “wounded child, no surviving family.” Blinken himself — I think you played the clip earlier, that Hamas is obviously bloodied and shook, but they’ve replenished their ranks, and they’re going to keep fighting. What we’ve learned from counterinsurgency operations during the unfortunately named “global war on terror” is that bombing campaigns and general counterinsurgency operations, especially the way Israel is running it, are completely ineffective. So, hopefully, there’s a ceasefire soon. But Hamas is not going to be defeated unless they literally kill everyone inside Gaza. And that’s something he should have learned doing COIN operations — excuse me, counterinsurgency operations — in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I don’t think he — it’s clear he didn’t learn anything from our 20 years of engagement in that theater.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you, Josephine Guilbeau, about Pete Hegseth’s views of women. He wrote in his 2024 book that women are meant to be life givers and shouldn’t serve in combat roles. He said, “Dads push us to take risks. Moms put the training wheels on our bikes. We need moms. But not in the military, especially not in combat units.” Your response?

JOSEPHINE GUILBEAU: Well, Amy, I actually am a — was selected to be the first female intelligence officer inside of an infantry battalion, and so I am familiar with what it looks like to integrate with combat MOS’s and infantry. So, I can assure you that this narrative is just something that doesn’t actually exist among the ranks. If I went back and spoke directly with anyone that I served with inside of that infantry battalion, not one of them would say that I wasn’t a good member of the team. I did my job as an intelligence analyst, and I did it very well, and I was very much respected by all of the males that were infantry officers and infantry enlisted. So, it’s just a narrative that they’re using.

And I can assure you that things like what Pete says and Tom Cotton is not how the Christian conservative community feels. As someone who grew up in the Republican Christian conservative community, they do not represent how we feel. And Tom Cotton is a corrupt politician who is bought and paid for by corporations and AIPAC, and he does not actually represent the American people. And even his own constituents in Arkansas understand that.

AMY GOODMAN: During Tuesday’s hearing, Maine independent Senator Angus King asked Hegseth about the Geneva Conventions.

SEN. ANGUS KING: Are we going to abide by the Geneva Convention and the prohibitions on torture, or are we not? Is it going to —

PETE HEGSETH: Senator, as I’ve —

SEN. ANGUS KING: — depend on the circumstances?

PETE HEGSETH: As I’ve stated multiple times, the Geneva Conventions are what we base ours. But we’re — what an America First national security policy is not going to do is hand its prerogatives over to international bodies that make decisions about how our men and women make decisions on the battlefield.

AMY GOODMAN: Josephine Guilbeau, your response?

JOSEPHINE GUILBEAU: You know, what’s interesting is the fact of how blind they think the American people and the world are. Everything that they have done in order to support Israel in this unwavering way and unconditional way while they’re committing genocide has jeopardized our national security. You know, we heard earlier from former State Departments that speak directly to how far they’ve jeopardized our national security by, you know, violating international laws, violating the Geneva Conventions. We’re literally watching a huge shift in the global economy and alliances happening, from NATO over to BRICS, because the reality is the Global South has realized that we are hypocrites and we no longer are fit to be a global power, because we refuse to follow international laws and the Geneva Convention. And ultimately, the biggest victim of all of this are the children. And we cannot normalize, as American citizens, the bombing indiscriminately of children the way that we have for decades now in the Middle East.

AMY GOODMAN: I also wanted to ask you about the accusations that Pete Hegseth had sexually assaulted, had raped a woman in 2017. It’s been reported in many places that she has a nondisclosure agreement now and was paid off by Hegseth. During his confirmation hearing, he dismissed the allegations as, quote, “coordinated smear campaign.” Meanwhile, The New York Times reports Hegseth’s own mother once accused him of mistreating women. In 2018, Penelope Hegseth wrote him an email that read in part, “On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say … get some help and take an honest look at yourself.” The email was sent a year after that woman accused Hegseth of raping her at the California hotel at the Republican women’s convention. What concerns do you have about Pete Hegseth in relation to this issue, and also this issue of public drunkenness, everyone — those accusing him, from people working in his veterans’ organization, where he was accused of financial mismanagement, to those who work at Fox, who accused him of being drunk as he went on air, saying they smelled alcohol on his breath? Again, he repeatedly said, “Anonymous smears.”

JOSEPHINE GUILBEAU: Yeah, I think it’s shocking to me and disturbing how we are selecting this type of quality to be in these leadership positions for our country, and just how shameful and embarrassing it is as American citizens that there isn’t anyone else out there that is more qualified, number one, even if you don’t, you know, compile all these factors you just named about his behavior. If you just look directly at his résumé, this individual is not qualified to be in this position. And then you compound it with these other factors that you’re talking about, and you’re talking about normalizing someone that has these types of behaviors to be in leadership roles. What sort of precedents is that setting just, you know, in a worldview in our country, that you can be in positions of power and have been accused of doing these types of things to women?

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Greg Stoker, you served in the military for years. You were, what, four times deployed to Afghanistan. What changed your mind? I mean, your criticism was not only of Hegseth, both of you. You’re talking about Israel’s war on Gaza, which took place during the Biden administration, which continually has armed Israel throughout.

GREG STOKER: Yeah, I think what first started to get me to question the war machine, we could say, is I was in tactical operation centers actively watching — I was actually plugged into the synchronization process of kinetic drone strikes. And there just really wasn’t a huge standard of proof for everybody that was being dropped.

And then, I think what caused me to speak out early on was, about a few days after October 7th, when the bombing campaign really picked up in retaliation for October 7th, we were watching about 1,000-pound GBUs, guided bomb units, dropped on Gaza. And I think I was watching General Petraeus say, “Yes, we did that. We did that in Baghdad, and we did that in Afghanistan.” First of all, we did not. One of my best friends was in the fire control center in Baghdad during that time. You could not drop those ordnance. And I think watching these paid-for pundits on legacy media straight-up lie to the American people is kind of what got me started down this path. I had been following the Palestine issue for a long time, but I was not a public figure then.

So, yeah, we’ve — warfare is kind of like law, in that you need to be really careful about what precedents are set. And now we have set, for modern warfare going forward, things like the state policy of directly targeting and bombing hospitals. And because of what’s happened, the world is a less safe place, and this country is a less safe place.

AMY GOODMAN: Greg Stoker —

GREG STOKER: So, I encourage every veteran — yeah. Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: — and Josephine Guilbeau, I want to thank you both for being with us, two military veterans arrested by Capitol Police after protesting during Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday morning. They were working alongside CodePink, which was also protesting. Guilbeau is a former military intelligence analyst, now a fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network. And Greg Stoker is a former U.S. Army Ranger with a background in special operations and human intelligence collection, now antiwar activist, analyst with MintPress News. He served four combat deployments in Afghanistan.

Up next, “Surviving War and HIV: Queer, HIV-Positive, and Running Out of Medication in Gaza.” Back in 20 seconds.

AMY GOODMAN: Donald Trump’s pick to become defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, appears to be moving closer to securing enough votes to be confirmed by the Senate. On Tuesday, Republican Senator Jodi Ernst of Iowa announced she’s going to back the former Fox News host. Ernst is a former military officer and survivor of a sexual assault. She initially had expressed skepticism over Hegseth. The New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer revealed a dark money group tied to Elon Musk had spent half a million dollars on ads pressuring Ernst to back Hegseth. Hegseth’s confirmation can only be blocked if three or more Republicans join Democrats in opposing him.

During Tuesday’s one-day hearing, Senate Democrats grilled Hegseth on a number of issues, including his criticism of women in combat, allegations he raped a woman in 2017, reports of public drunkenness and his record running two veterans’ groups where he was accused of financial mismanagement. The hearing ended after just one round of questions, after Republicans rejected a request by Democrats for a second round of questions. Many Democrats also criticized Hegseth for refusing to meet privately with them, which was unprecedented, before Tuesday’s hearing.

Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois questioned Hegseth’s qualifications to run the Defense Department, which employs over 3 million people. Duckworth is an Iraq War veteran, Purple Heart recipient, former assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. She lost both her legs in combat in Iraq.

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: What is the highest level of international negotiations that you have engaged in, that you have led in? Because the secretary of defense does lead international security negotiations. There are three main ones that the secretary of defense leads and signs. Can you name at least one of them?

PETE HEGSETH: Could you repeat the question, Senator?

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Sure. What is the highest level of international security agreement that you have led? And can you name some that the secretary of defense would lead? There are three main ones. Do you know?

PETE HEGSETH: I have not been involved in international security arrangements, because I have not been in government — 

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: OK.

PETE HEGSETH: — other than serving in the military. So my job has been to —

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: So, no. The answer is no.

PETE HEGSETH: — lead men and women in combat.

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Can you name one of the three main ones that the secretary of defense signs?

PETE HEGSETH: If you’re talking about defense arrangements, I mean, NATO might be one that you’re referring to.

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Status of Forces Agreement would be one of them.

PETE HEGSETH: Status of Forces Agreement. I’ve been a part of teaching —

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: So —

PETE HEGSETH: — about status of forces agreements inside Afghanistan.

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: But you don’t remember to mention it? You’re not qualified, Mr. Hegseth. You’re not qualified. You talk about repairing our defense-industrial complex. You’re not qualified to do that. You could do the acquisition and cross-servicing agreements, which essentially are security agreements. You can’t even mention that. You’ve done none of those. You talked about the Indo-Pacific a little bit, and I’m glad that you mentioned it. Can you name the importance of at least one of the nations in the ASEAN — in ASEAN and what type of agreement we have with at least one of those nations? And how many nations are in ASEAN, by the way?

PETE HEGSETH: I couldn’t tell you the exact amount of nations —

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: No, you couldn’t —

PETE HEGSETH: — in that.

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: — because you’ve not even bothered to do —

PETE HEGSETH: But I know we have allies in South Korea, in Japan and in AUKUS with Australia, trying to —

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: OK.

PETE HEGSETH: — work on submarines with them —

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Mr. Hegseth —

PETE HEGSETH: — and data transfers with them.

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: — none of those countries are in ASEAN.

PETE HEGSETH: We have allies across —

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: None of those three countries that you’ve mentioned are in ASEAN. I suggest you do a little homework.

AMY GOODMAN: Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois questioning Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee to be defense secretary. This is Hegseth responding to New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who questioned him about his past comments opposing women serving in combat roles.

PETE HEGSETH: I respect every single female service member that has put on the uniform, past and present. My critiques, Senator, recently and in the past, and from personal experience, have been instances where I’ve seen standards lowered. And you mentioned 11 Alpha, 11 Bravo, MOS, places in units. And it — the book that has been referenced multiple times here, The War on Warriors, I spent months talking to active-duty service members, men and women, low ranks, high ranks, combat arms and not combat arms. And what each and every one of them told me, and which personal instances have shown me, is that in ways direct, indirect, overt and subtle, standards have been changed inside infantry training units, Ranger school, infantry battalions to ensure that —

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND: Give me one example.

PETE HEGSETH: — commanders meet —

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND: Please give me an example. I get you’re making these generalized statements.

PETE HEGSETH: Commanders meet quotas to have a certain number of female infantry officers or infantry enlisted. And that disparages those women —

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND: Commanders do not have to meet quotas for the infantry.

PETE HEGSETH: — who are incredibly capable of meeting that standard.

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND: Commanders do not have to have a quota for women in the infantry. That does not exist. It does not exist. And your statements are creating the impression that these exist. Because they do not. There are not quotas. We want the most lethal force. But I’m telling you, having been here for 15 years listening to testimony about men and women in combat and the type of operations that were successful in Afghanistan and in Iraq, women were essential for many of those units. When Ranger units went in to find where are the terrorists hiding in Afghanistan or in Iraq, if they had a woman in the unit, they could go in, talk to the women in a village, say, “Where are the terrorists hiding? Where are the weapons hiding?” and get crucial information to make sure that we can win that battle. So, just you cannot denigrate women in general, and your statements do that. “We don’t want women in the military, especially in combat.” What a terrible statement! So, please, do not deny that you’ve made those statements. You have.

AMY GOODMAN: Democratic New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand questioning defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth. And this is Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO: In June of 2020, then-President Trump directed former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper to shoot protesters in the legs in downtown D.C., an order Secretary Esper refused to comply with. Would you carry out such an order from President Trump?

PETE HEGSETH: Senator, I was in the Washington, D.C., National Guard unit that was in Lafayette Square during those events —

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO: Would you carry out an order to shoot protesters —

PETE HEGSETH: — holding a riot shield on behalf of my country.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO: — in the legs —

PETE HEGSETH: I saw 50 Secret Service agents —

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO: — as directed to Secretary Esper?

PETE HEGSETH: — get injured by rioters trying to jump over the fence —

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO: Again —

PETE HEGSETH: — set the church on fire and destroy a statue.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO: You know what? That sounds to me that you will comply — 

PETE HEGSETH: Chaos.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO: — with such an order. You will shoot protesters in the leg. Moving on. President-elect has attacked our allies in recent weeks, refusing to rule out using military force to take over Greenland and the Panama Canal and threatening to take — to make Canada the 51st state. Would you carry out an order from President Trump to seize Greenland, a territory of our NATO ally Denmark, by force, or would you comply with an order to take over the Panama Canal?

PETE HEGSETH: Senator, I will emphasize that President Trump received 77 million votes to be the lawful commander-in-chief of this country.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO: We’re not talking about the election. My question is: Would you use our military to take over Greenland, or an ally of Denmark?

PETE HEGSETH: Senator, one of the things that President Trump is so good at is never strategically tipping his hand. And so, I would never in this public forum give, one way or another —

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO: So, that sounds to me —

PETE HEGSETH: — direct, what orders the president would give to me in any context.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO: That sounds to me that you would contemplate carrying out such an order to basically invade Greenland and take over the Panama Canal.

AMY GOODMAN: Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii questioning Pete Hegseth at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Forces Committee. This is Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, who asked Hegseth about allegations that he raped a woman at a Republican women’s conference in Monterey, California, in 2017.

SEN. TIM KAINE: I want to return to the incident that you referenced a minute ago that occurred in Monterey, California, in October 2017. At that time, you were still married to your second wife, correct?

PETE HEGSETH: I believe so.

SEN. TIM KAINE: And you had just fathered a child by a woman who would later become your third wife, correct?

PETE HEGSETH: Senator, I was falsely charged, fully investigated and completely cleared.

SEN. TIM KAINE: So, you think you were completely cleared because you committed no crime. That’s your definition of “cleared”? You had just fathered a child two months before by a woman that was not your wife. I am shocked that you would stand here and say you’re completely cleared. Can you so casually cheat on a second wife and cheat on the mother of a child that had been born two months before, and you tell us you were completely cleared?

PETE HEGSETH: Senator — 

SEN. TIM KAINE: How is that a complete clear?

PETE HEGSETH: Senator, her child’s name is Gwendolyn Hope Hegseth. And she’s a child of God, and she’s 7 years old.

SEN. TIM KAINE: And she was —

PETE HEGSETH: I’m glad she’s here.

SEN. TIM KAINE: And you cheated on the mother of that child less than two months after that daughter was born, didn’t you?

PETE HEGSETH: Those were false charges.

SEN. TIM KAINE: Well, no — 

PETE HEGSETH: It was fully investigated, and I was completely cleared. And I am so grateful —

SEN. TIM KAINE: You’ve admitted — 

PETE HEGSETH: — for the marriage I have to this amazing woman behind me.

SEN. TIM KAINE: Now, you’ve admitted — you’ve admitted that you had sex at that hotel on October 2017. You’ve said it was consensual, isn’t that correct?

PETE HEGSETH: Anything —

SEN. TIM KAINE: You’ve admitted that it was consensual. And you were still married, and you just had a child by another woman.

PETE HEGSETH: Again — 

SEN. TIM KAINE: How do you explain your judgment?

PETE HEGSETH: Completely false charges against me.

SEN. TIM KAINE: You — 

PETE HEGSETH: Fully investigated, and I was completely cleared.

SEN. TIM KAINE: You have admitted that you had sex while you were married to wife two after you just had fathered a child by wife three. You’ve admitted that. Now, if it had been a sexual assault, that would be disqualifying to be secretary of defense, wouldn’t it?

PETE HEGSETH: It was a false claim then and a false claim now.

SEN. TIM KAINE: If it had been a sexual assault, that would be disqualifying to be secretary of defense, wouldn’t it?

PETE HEGSETH: That was a false claim.

AMY GOODMAN: Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth answering questions from Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine. And this is Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly confronting Pete Hegseth about reports he’s been drunk at work.

SEN. MARK KELLY: So, while leading Concerned Veterans of America, there were very specific cases cited by individuals about your conduct. I’m going to go through a few of them, and I just want you to tell me if these are true or false. Very simple. On Memorial Day 2014, at a CVA event in Virginia, you needed to be carried out of the event for being intoxicated.

PETE HEGSETH: Senator, anonymous smears.

SEN. MARK KELLY: Just true or false? Very simple. Summer of 2014 in Cleveland, drunk in public with the CVA team.

PETE HEGSETH: Anonymous smears.

SEN. MARK KELLY: I’m just asking for true or false — true or false answers. An event in North Carolina, drunk in front of three female staff members after you had instituted a no-alcohol policy and then reversed it. True or false?

PETE HEGSETH: Anonymous smears.

SEN. MARK KELLY: December of 2014 at the CVA Christmas party at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C., you were noticeably intoxicated and had to be carried up to your room. Is that true or false?

PETE HEGSETH: Anonymous smears.

SEN. MARK KELLY: Another time, a CVA staffer stated that you passed out in the back of a party bus. Is that true or false?

PETE HEGSETH: Anonymous smears.

SEN. MARK KELLY: In 2014, while in Louisiana on official business for CVA, did you take your staff, including young female staff members, to a strip club?

PETE HEGSETH: Absolutely not. Anonymous smears.

SEN. MARK KELLY: I’m going to leave with concerns about your transparency. You say you’ve had personal issues in your past, yet when asked about those very issues, you blame an anonymous smear campaign, even when many of these claims are not anonymous. Which is it? Have you overcome personal issues, or are you the target of a smear campaign? It can’t be both. It’s clear to me that you’re not being honest with us or the American people because you know the truth would disqualify you from getting the job. And just as concerning as each of these specific disqualifying accusations are, what concerns me just as much is the idea of having a secretary of defense who is not transparent.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly. No Democrats met with — got to meet with Hegseth before that hearing, except for the ranking member, Senator Reed. Meanwhile, Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma criticized the Democrats’ questioning of defense secretary [nominee] Pete Hegseth.

SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN: Senator Kaine — or, I guess I better use “the senator from Virginia” — starts bringing up the fact that — what if you showed up drunk to your job? How many senators have showed up drunk to vote at night? Have any of you guys asked them to step down and resign from their job? And don’t tell me you haven’t seen it, because I know you have. And then, how many senators do you know have got a divorce before cheating on their wives? Did you ask them to step down? No. But it’s for show. You guys make sure you make a big show and point out the hypocrisy because a man’s made a mistake.

AMY GOODMAN: And those are some of the excerpts from Pete Hegseth’s Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday. When we come back, we’ll be joined by two military veterans who were arrested for protesting Hegseth at the hearing. Stay with us.