Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-08-29 Friday

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

Democracy Now! Friday, August 29, 2025

From New York and Telly Ride, Colorado, this is Democracy Now. By God, I'm moving around inside Gaza City. I haven't decided until now, but if the situation worsens, I will have to move, not by will. Palestinians are displaced again as Israeli soldiers push deeper into Gaza City, blocking UN-led humanitarian efforts as famine spreads. This comes as President Donald Trump met Wednesday to discuss plans for a post-war Gaza with his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose think tank developed a post-war Gaza plan that included the creation of a, quote, Trump Riviera. This is former Middle East on board, Jared Kushner, speaking just last year. In Gaza's waterfront property, it could be very valuable to, if people would focus on kind of building up, you know, livelihoods. Then today marks 20 years since Hurricane Katrina roared ashore, and state and federal officials left people to fight for survival in the rising floodwaters.

Nearly 2,000 people died. The calmness before a storm is. Definitely As Hurricane Katrina was approaching We knew this was going to be a catastrophe I didn't want to leave because I didn't know What we was going to be coming back to I just was praying

We'll speak with Academy Award nominated filmmaker Tracy A. Curry Director of the new five-part documentary series Hurricane Katrina Race Against Time And finally, we'll hear from Amy Goodman about why she's at the Telluride Film Festival. A remarkable documentary on Democracy Now and on Amy herself premieres this Sunday afternoon at the Telluride Film Festival. The film is called Steal This Story, Please. All that and more coming up.

Welcome to Democracy Now. Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Narmine Sheikh. Israel's military has declared Gaza City a dangerous combat zone as it ramps up its offensive to seize the Gaza Strip's largest urban area. The announcement came as Israel carried out drone, artillery and fighter jet attacks that killed at least 41 Palestinians since dawn, including children and people searching for food. Meanwhile, UNICEF warns Gaza's starvation crisis, due to Israel's blockade, is growing worse by the day, telling Al Jazeera, quote, famine is absolutely ravaging Gaza City.

Thousands of the city's residents have been fleeing their homes, most of them heading towards the coast, as Israeli forces attack eastern suburbs. What should we do? Do we stay here to die, to be broken? My two brothers died. My mother was martyred. My cousins were killed before my eyes. What should we do? We keep moving from one place to another until God above looking. upon us. Earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israeli forces in Gaza recovered the body of Elon Weiss, a 55-year-old Israeli abducted by Hamas in October 2023. Forty-nine hostages remain in Gaza, at least 27 of whom are deceased, according to

Israel. On Thursday, Israel's far-right Minister of Finance, Bezalil Smotritch, called for the annexation of the Gaza Strip if Hamas refuses to disarm. Hamas condemned his threat as, quote, an official call to exterminate Palestinians. Israeli forces have arrested at least nine Palestinians in raids across the occupied West Bank. Among those detained is a school principal and the head of a village council.

Separately, two Palestinians were shot and wounded by Israeli troops during a raid on Nablus, and a Palestinian man was shot in the feet by Israeli settlers east of Nablus. The continuing West Bank violence, came as Israeli and Palestinian protesters gathered in Baitzhala for a weekly vigil, demanding an end to Israel's assault on Gaza. We're here Israelis and Palestinians from combatants for peace in a joint vigil mourning

the children of Gaza, thousands of children that have been killed. What was their crime? What did they deserve? Their futures have been stolen. And we're here to mourn them and to say no more. More than a million people have been displaced in Pakistan after the worst flooding in more than four decades. Monsoon rain and the release of water from overflowing dams in India caused three major rivers to burst their banks, destroying crops and businesses in the region and flooding more than 1,400 villages in Punjab province.

Since June, the floods have killed more than 800 people across the country in Pakistan. Thailand's constitutional court has removed Prime Minister Paetongtan Shinawatt from office. She was found guilty of ethics violations over a phone call to Cambodia's former leader. In a leaked recording of the call, she criticized the Thai military's conduct in clashes with Cambodia last month. Paetongtarn is the fifth prime minister since 2008 to be removed from office by Thailand's top court. Two Lebanese soldiers were killed and two others. were injured Thursday when an Israeli drone exploded in South Lebanon. This comes as Israel attacks Lebanon almost on a daily basis, despite reaching a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah in November.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to end the UN's peacekeeping mission in Lebanon over the next two years. Currently, about 10,000 peacekeepers are stationed in southern Lebanon. In the past, the UN has accused Israel of firing on its peacekeepers in the region. This comes, as the U.S. has been pushing for Hezbollah to disarm. Lebanon will reportedly present a plan this Sunday to encourage Hezbollah to surrender its weapons, after which Israel is expected to offer its counterproposal to withdraw from Lebanon. In Minneapolis, family members have identified the two students killed Wednesday when a shooter fired over 100 rounds through the window of a church at the Annunciation Catholic School

as children and other worshippers gathered for the first mass, of the new school year. Eight-year-old Fletcher Merkel loved his family, friends, and, quote, any sport he was allowed to play. And 10-year-old Harper Moisky was described as a, quote, bright, joyful, and deeply loved 10-year-old, who adored her big sister. Fifteen other children and three adults were wounded in the attack. On Thursday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said, without evidence, that he was looking into psychiatric medications as a cause of mass shootings. He repeated the unsubstantiated claim in a Fox News interview.

Launching studies on the potential contribution of some of the SSRI drugs and some of the other psychiatric drugs that might be contributing to violence. Kennedy's comments drew backlash from Democratic lawmakers. Minnesota Senator Tina Smith wrote on social media, quote, I dare you to go to enunciation school and tell our grieving community, in effect, guns don't kill kids, antidepressants do. Just shut up. Stop peddling BS. You should be fired, Senator Smith wrote, using the expletive for BS. On Thursday, elected officials gathered at Minneapolis City Hall to demand immediate action on gun control. This is Congress member Ilan Umar.

This is something that is simple, a simple band to make sure people who should not have access to these weapons do not get them and then cause harm and trauma for generations to come in our communities. It is a simple ask. Health Secretary RFK Jr. said Thursday his top deputy, Jim O'Neill, will serve as the acting head of the Centers for Disease Control after the White House abruptly fired. CDC director, Susan Monares, less than a month after she was confirmed by the Senate. Monares is challenging her dismissal. O'Neill is a biotech investor who's worked for the far-right billionaire Peter Thiel and has previously served as a speechwriter in the George W. Bush administration. He has no formal training in medicine.

The New York Times is reporting that the Trump administration fired Monars after she declined to fire agency leaders or to accept all recommendations from a vaccine advisory panel, stacked by RFK Jr. with anti-vaccine activists. Meanwhile, staff at CDC's headquarters in Atlanta staged a mass walkout Thursday to support senior officials who stepped down in protest against RFK Jr.'s actions. Infectious disease experts, Demitri Daskalakis, Daniel Jernigan, and Deborah Huri thanked colleagues and promised to keep fighting to protect public health. Whether it's preventing overdose, chronic disease, stopping Ebola at its source rather than let it come to this continent, you are the people that protect America.

And what makes us great at CDC is following the science. And so let's get the politics out of public health. We need Congress to intervene. We need our appropriations. We need to follow science. We need to have ethics back. Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cookfield filed a federal lawsuit in Washington, D.C., Thursday, challenging what she called President Trump's unprecedented and illegal attempts to fire her. The case is likely to end up at the Supreme Court. President Trump's so-called border czar, Tom Homan, warned Thursday that immigration and customs enforcement will ramp up immigration raids in Los Angeles and other sanctuary cities. Holman's threat, comp came, as the White House said it was seeking to use Naval Station Great Lakes, a U.S. military base on the outskirts of Chicago, as a staging ground for the Department of Homeland Security, to carry out immigration raids.

Meanwhile, the government of Rwanda said Thursday it had accepted seven immigrants from the United States as part of a third-party deportation deal. The Trump administration is also seeking to deport people to South Sudan and Eswatini, even though they're in. they have no connection to those countries. Meanwhile, in Florida, officials are reportedly emptying an immigration detention camp in an Everglade swamp dubbed alligator alcatraz by Republicans after a federal judge ordered much of the facility to be closed over environmental violations. The U.S. Air Force is offering full military honors to Ashley Babette, the January 6th rioter who was shot by officers as she stormed the U.S. Capitol four years ago

to protest President Trump's defeat in the 2020 election. This comes as a federal judge offered a refund to another January 6th rioter, Yvonne St. Cyr, who was ordered to pay $2,200 in restitution and fines. She had her felony conviction dropped by Trump in a blanket pardon of January 6th rioters. The Trump administration says the United States will withdraw from a UN review of its human rights record. Under the Universal Periodic Review, all 193 U.N. member states are required to present their human rights record for peer review every four and a half years. This is the first time the U.S. or any other U.N. member has refused to participate. In a statement, the ACLU said, quote, this move is a chilling attempt to evade accountability, setting a terrible precedent that would only emboldened dictators and autocrats and dangerously weaken respect for human rights.

at home and abroad. Republican lawmakers in Texas have advanced a bill to expand abortion restrictions. On Thursday evening, the Texas House of Republicans voted overwhelmingly in favor of House Bill 7, which allows private citizens to sue anyone who manufactures, distributes, males, or provides abortion medication to or from Texas. Plaintiffs winning their lawsuits would receive a cash bounty of at least $100,000. The bill now heads to. Texas's Republican-controlled Senate. In a statement, the ACLU of Texas said the legislation

would, quote, fuel fear among manufacturers and providers nationwide, while encouraging neighbors to police one another's reproductive lives, further isolating pregnant Texans and punishing the people who care for them. Ahead of the Labor Day weekend, President Trump signed an executive order Thursday, stripping union protections from federal employees. Under the order, several government agencies, including NASA, the National Weather Service, and the Office of the Commissioner for Patents, will end their collective bargaining agreements with unions. Trump cast his executive order as critical for protecting national security.

On Thursday, members of 30 unions and organizations marched in Washington, D.C., to protest Trump's anti-worker policies. And the Reverend Al Sharpton led hundreds of demonstrators for the march on Wall Street Thursday to protest President Trump's assault on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and his attempts to control democratic-led cities led by black mayors. New York State Assemblyman and mayoral candidate Zaharan Mamdani marched alongside Reverend Sharpton and Martin Luther King III. The other mayoral candidates, Governor Andrew Cuomo, and Mayor Eric Adams did not attend the march.

This is Zaharan Mamdani addressing the crowd in Lower Manhattan. As we stand here in the wealthiest city, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, as we stand here by Wall Street, where last year they had more than $40 billion in bonuses, we ask ourselves, how is it that one in four New Yorkers are still living in poverty? We ask ourselves, how is it that we have still yet to answer the question that Dr. King posed all those decades ago? because what he said then and what we must answer now is what good is it to have the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can't afford to buy a hamburger?

That was Zohran Mamdani speaking at a March Thursday. When we come back, we'll get an update on President Donald Trump's meeting Wednesday to discuss plans for a post-war Gaza with his son-in-law Jared Kushner and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair whose think tank developed a post-war Gaza plan that included the creation of a Trump Riviera. Back in a minute.

I want to know I want to know I want to know I'm Derey, I've been Enterini, by the singer Fatumato, performed in our Democracy Now studio.

This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Nermine Sheikh in New York, joined by Amy Goodman in Tellerite, Colorado. Hi, Amy. Hi, Nirmine, and welcome to our listeners, viewers and readers around the country and around the world. Yes, this is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. Across Gaza, Israeli attacks killed at least 41 Palestinians since dawn today, including three people seeking aid in the so-called safe zone of Al-Mawesi. This comes as the Israeli Army, said today,

it will end a daily tactical pause in Gaza City that it announced last month for humanitarian purposes saying the city now, quote, constitutes a dangerous combat zone. This is Mohamed Al-Adam, a displaced Palestinian in Gaza City. What should we do? Do we stay here to die, to be broken? My two brothers died. My mother was martyred. My cousins were killed before my eyes. What should we do? We keep moving from one place. to another until God above looks upon us.

As Israel pushes deeper into Gaza City, the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Gutettish called its expanded military operation to seize area a new and dangerous phase. Unbelievably, civilians are facing yet another deadly escalation. Israel's initial steps to military takeover Gaza City signals a new and dangerous face. Expanded military operations in Gaza City will have devastating consequences. Hundreds of thousands of civilians already exhausted and traumatized would be forced to flee yet again plunging families into even deeper peril. This must stop. As aid groups warn famine is absolutely ravaging Gaza City, Guterres said Israel is continuing

continuing to block UN-led humanitarian efforts and call the famine a, quote, result of deliberate decisions that defy basic humanity. This comes as President Trump met Wednesday to discuss plans for a post-war Gaza with his son-in-law and former Middle East envoy, Jared Kushner, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair stepped down as Prime Minister in 2007 and went on to serve as UN Middle East envoy until 2015. Last month, it was reported that staff members of his think tank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, had joined Israeli business leaders in developing a post-war Gaza plan that included the creation of a Trump Riviera

and a manufacturing zone named after Elon Musk, using financial models developed by the U.S. firm Boston Consulting Group. Meanwhile, Jared Kushner has previously praised Gaza's potentially, quote, very valuable waterfront property. In February, Trump called for a U.S. takeover of Gaza and shared an AI-generated video depicting the territory as a luxury beach resort called Trump Gaza. Donald is coming to set you free, bringing the light all to see. No more tunnels, no more fear. Trump Gaza is finally here.

Well, for more, we're joined in London by Josh Paul, a veteran State Department official who worked on arms deals and resigned in protest of the push to increase arms sales to Israel amid its assault on Gaza. He's a former director in the Bureau of Political Military Affairs in the State Department, where he worked for 11 years. He's now a director at a new policy that lobbying organization he co-founded with fellow resignees. Darik Abash to press for a change in U.S. policy on Palestine and Israel. Josh Paul also worked with Tony Blair when Blair was Quartet Special Envoy for Middle East Peace and Paul was an advisor for the U.S. security coordinator. Josh Paul, welcome back to Democracy Now. So if you could comment on this meeting that took place earlier this week

between Trump, Blair and Jared Kushner, and to what extent, in fact, it echoes what Kushner had said earlier this last year, and Trump said earlier this year, about converting Gaza into a riviera and essentially expelling all Palestinians from the territory. Yes, thank you very much for having me. Look, at the end of the day, this is a nightmarish example of profits over people. What you have with Kushner and Blair is a combination of the corrupt and the feckless. And I say that, having worked with Tony Blair, as you say, when he was Quartet Special Advisor, and seen how he prioritised pie-in-the-sky economic programs over the real political progress that needs to be made

to allow any sort of Palestinian economic development and reconstruction. But worse than that, they are intimately tied into this Gaza-Riviera project, which, you know, is reliant ultimately on the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, and that's the reason that the Boston Consulting Group, which had played a part in developing it, not only withdrew from the project, but fired some of the consultants who had been involved, precisely because there is no way to advance this project without violating international law. So it is a deeply concerning development,

and I think shows the continuing path that Israel and other partners of its in the Middle East, all the corporate partners, and certainly Mr. Kushner and Blair, are trying to take Gaza on. It's a dark path. Axios is reporting, Josh, that the White House envoy, Steve Witkoff, has been collaborating with Kushner and Blair for months. I mean, if you could talk about this vision of a day after, I mean, you also worked with Blair. You have a sense of what they're doing. I mean, Jared Kushner, we haven't heard his name in a while as he works on these global development projects where he and Ivanka Trump. are making enormous sums of money from Albania to other places, going back to that sort of

famous moment when he talked about, you know, Gaza being a valuable piece of real estate and this whole repeated issue of, you know, Trump's Riviera. So I think for some people, and I include Mr. Kushner, among these, everything is about money. Tony Blair and Jared Kushner have played a continuing role in pursuing the economic lane of the Abram Accords, the effort to normalize Israel's relationships with other countries in the Middle East, which of course have come at the expense of the Palestinians and greatly led us to where we are now. It was not long after October 23 that Jared Kushner sprung up and started talking about building seafront apartments in Gaza. Of course, this is at the same time that the Israelis are decimating the Gaza Strip, that the UN has declared a famine.

We're talking about a development project in which apartments would essentially be built on the graveyard of Palestinians. That is just an unconscionable approach, but it does fit in with the long-term pattern. And when it comes to Tony Blair, my own experience was that he pursues policies that are simply disconnected from the realities on the ground. When I worked with him in the West Bank, he sat in his five-star hotel in Jerusalem in the German colony and dictated economic fantasies that went nowhere because there was no political resolution because Israel would nickel and dime each proposal to death. It was death by a thousand cuts when it came to the implementation, but Blair was fundamentally unwilling to face this reality, tied in as he is,

to the senior leadership in Israel and across the region. And so this is, first of all, and most importantly, a distraction from the very real, very urgent humanitarian crisis right now that demands that we do all we can to get Israel to lift its blockade on humanitarian assistance and let the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies do their job. But it is also a very cynical effort to exploit incredible suffering for economic gain. Josh, Paul, I want to get your response to the news that broke Thursday, former U.S. national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, now saying he would support Congress voting to withhold military aid to Israel. This is Jake Sullivan speaking to the bulwark podcast. The situation as it stands today following the breakdown of the ceasefire in March,

means that a vote to withhold weapons from Israel is a totally credible position. That is a position that I would support. So that was Jake Sullivan. Meanwhile, the State Department spokesperson under former President Biden, Matt Miller, admitted in May he believes Israel committed war crimes in Gaza, a reversal coming after more than a year as the face of the Biden administration's foreign policy, repeatedly defending Israel against allegations of war crimes and genocide. This was Miller, speaking in April of last year.

We have been very clear that we want to see Israel do everything it can to minimize civilian casualties. We have made clear that they need to do everything, that they need to operate at all times in full compliance with international humanitarian law. At the same time, we are committed to Israel's right to self-defense. But during an interview with Sky News in June, Matt Miller said he believed Israel did commit war crimes in Gaza and that Israeli soldiers are not being held accountable. I don't think it's a genocide, but I think it is without a doubt true that Israel has committed war crimes. You wouldn't have said that at the podium. Yeah, look, because when you're at the podium, you're not expressing your personal opinion. You're expressing the conclusions of the United States government.

So, Josh, Paul, you are a veteran State Department official. If you can first respond to these revelations or this reversal of the former U.S. National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, under Biden, someone you worked with very closely. So what I would say is, first of all, look, it's never too late for genuine contrition. But that's not what this is. Mr. Sullivan is reading the tea leaves, seeing the remarkable shift in American public opinion and so particularly in democratic politics, and he and others are trying to shift in order to continue to secure for themselves the sinecures, the influence, and potentially the roles in future

administrations that they desire. But the problem here is that while the situation is worse now than it has been, the facts are not new, Israel's approach are not. knew. Fifteen of us resigned during the course of the Brighton administration, resigned publicly because, and precisely because, people like Mr. Sullivan would not listen to those facts, and in fact did all they could to subvert an honest approach to this crisis. And so I think that it is, you know, a reflection of the changing American politics that they are shifting their perspectives, but they remain unmoored in any sort of moral grounding here. And I think there has to be some form of accountability in terms of the future careers of these people.

And Josh, Paul, I'd just like to go back to the meeting that occurred earlier this week. In addition to Blair and Kushner, Axios, the same article that Amy referred to, also reported the presence of an unexpected third, namely high-ranking Israeli official Ron Dermann, whose input Trump reportedly requested. He apparently said that Israel does not want to organize. occupy Gaza for good and does not seek the expulsion of Palestinians. I mean, Dermer is an extremely senior official in Netanyahu's government. He's Minister of Strategic Affairs has been since 2022 and is now the head of negotiations

for the release of the hostages. So if you could talk about the significance of this, whether you think it's accurate, likely accurate, and to what extent it's representative of at least some people within Netanyahu's administration? So, first of all, let me say, you know, President Biden, I think, was famously said about Ukraine. I think it was Secretary Blinken at the time, nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. And yet here we are discussing the future of Gaza and of the Palestinians without the Palestinians. So I think, first of all, let's be clear that this is a discussion that should never have taken

place without Palestinian representation. But second of all, let's step back and recognize that, yes, there is very clearly, an intent here to impose essentially a new form of colonialism, a transition from Israeli colonialism to corporate. And I might actually very clear and say Emirati colonialism as well in the Gaza Strip that segments the Palestinians into small manageable groups. I use the term manageable, of course, very cynically, and then imposes these forms of governance that are undemocratic, that are autocratic, and that allow for companies to come in and take profits, for countries to come in and gain strategic advantage.

It is, again, I think, very troubling, but let's also note that we are seeing that plan already being implemented. This isn't just something that is being discussed for the future. This is the purpose of the Gaza humanitarian foundation, the GHF so-called, at which over a thousand Palestinians have been killed at their sites, is precisely to start building towards this plan, first with American mercenaries and then to transition. to other countries.

I mean, if you could just tell us, where do you think negotiations stand? I mean, to the extent that Palestinians are involved anywhere, they are involved in those negotiations, and Hamas has reportedly accepted a ceasefire and hostage deal proposal put forward by Qatar and Egypt, but Israel has yet to respond. So I think, you know, as has been the case throughout the last couple of years, this ultimately remains a question of Benjamin Netanyahu's political interest. Indeed, it's been reported in the last week that even senior IDF officials have turned to Mr. Netanyahu and said, stop, there's no more benefit, quote unquote, to be gained. We are continuing to put

at life the risks of our own hostages who are in Gaza. And yet, Mr. Netanyahu refuses to move forward on any sort of lasting ceasefire. And so we remain where we are until he sees that it is in his own interest to do so. And that is just, first of all, unconscionable at an individual level, but also disastrous, I think, not only for the people of Gaza, but for the country of Israel and for the United States in its complicity in this. Josh Paul, thanks so much for joining us, Veterans State Department official who worked on arms deals and resigned in protest against the push to increase arms sales to Israel amid its assault on Gaza. He's a former director in the Bureau.

of political military affairs in the State Department, where he worked for 11 years. He's now a director at a new policy, the lobbying organization he co-founded with fellow Rezainee Darikabash to press for a change in U.S. policy on Palestine and Israel. When we come back, today marks 20 years since Hurricane Katrina roared ashore in New Orleans and state and federal officials left people to fight for survival in the rising floodwaters. Nearly 2,000 people died. We'll speak with Academy Award nominated filmmaker Tracy A. Curry, director of the new five-part documentary series Hurricane Katrina, Race Against Time. Back in 30 seconds. And so

Yeah, and Yeah, And it's not going to Come in, let's not yet, Michael. Nola Brass Band, performing in the streets of New Orleans in 2005 in the months after Hurricane Katrina. Amy, before we go to our next segment on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I just wanted to say on behalf of all of Democracy Now, a huge congratulations on the amazing documentary that's premiering this weekend at the Tell You Ride Film Festival, which is where you are.

The film tells the story of Democracy Now from its inception and also tracks your remarkable trajectory over the last 30 years. The documentary is called Steal This Story, Please. So tell us about the film and how you feel as its premiere at Tellurite approaches this Sunday afternoon. Well, it is amazing to be here on this first day of the Telluride Film Festival. Thank you, Nermaine. We're really excited about this documentary that's premiering. And, of course, you and Democracy Now is Juan Gonzalez, who is there from the beginning, are featured in the film as well. as many, as well as many others and the stories we cover, which, of course, is going to the title,

which is steal this story, please. The film is made by the Oscar-nominated filmmakers, Carl Deal and Tia Lesson. They are the filmmakers who directed Trouble the Water about Hurricane Katrina, as well as the Janes, about an underground network helping women get abortion and Citizen Coke. So the film is premiering this Sunday and for people in Colorado and especially around the Telluride area, I want to invite you to the premiere, which is Sunday at 1 o'clock. It's going to be at the Mason's Theater, the old Mason Hall still is, over a hundred years old. It is where Michael Moore premiered Roger and me, really thrilling.

I mean, this is a highly unusual film festival. The festival is going to be honoring the Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who was arrested and imprisoned by the Iranian secret police in 2010 as well as 2022 for his filmmaking. I will also be part of a panel on Saturday at 4 p.m. at the Abel Gantz Outdoor Cinema called Truth Be Told, Journalism and Filmmaking in the 21st Century. It's a special panel will include the great filmmaker Werner Herzog. He is flying in from the Venice Film Festival right now, where he just got a lifetime Achievement Award, Ezra Edelman, Marshall Curry, these filmmakers, as well as David Remnick.

A film has been made about the New Yorker and Jacqueline Stewart. So again, the panel is Saturday at 4 o'clock, and then the film premiere of Steal This Story, Please, is going to be 1 o'clock on Sunday. It is really thrilling. We're very excited. Also, there are other very, very interesting films here. There is a biopic that is now going to come out here, deliver me from nowhere, an unusual biopic about Bruce Springsteen. And Bruce is coming in today.

The film, he is played by Jeremy. Alan White and also starring in that is Jeremy Strong. I got to meet them last night along with and we'll be interviewing her soon, E. Jean Carroll, a very interesting documentary made by the filmmaker Ivy Miraple on E. Jean Carroll. Ivy Miraple is the granddaughter of the Rosenbergs who were executed in the 1950s during the Red Scare. So I'll report on all of this next week on Tuesday, on Democracy Now, but I really hope to see folks at the premiere who are in this area and maybe you're already at Telly Ride or at other places around the state.

One o'clock on Sunday for the premiere of Steal This Story, please. But let's continue on the issue of films, Nermaine. Well, thank you so much, Amy. And congratulations again from all of us. We also should say to our audience the film will eventually release across the United States. Just watch our website for details. Well, we spend the rest of the hour looking at the devastation in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Today, 20 years ago, on August 29, 2005, Katrina roared into southeastern Louisiana,

tearing through the Gulf Coast with catastrophic force and gushing winds, driving a massive storm surge toward New Orleans. Thousands of residents were abandoned by state and federal officials left to fight for survival in the rising floodwaters. Many stranded on the rooftops of their sinking homes without water, food, or medical care. Efforts by community members to rescue their neighbors laid bare the resilient spirit of New Orleans amidst what became one of the deadliest hurricanes in United States history. That's at the heart of a riveting five-part documentary series by National Geographic. released just last month, called Hurricane Katrina Race Against Time. This is the series trailer.

If you're still hearing us and you haven't left yet, please leave. I hate to say this, but I just don't have enough body bag. The calmness before storm is deafening. As Hurricane Katrina was approaching, we knew this was going to be a catastrophe. I didn't want to leave because I didn't know what we was going to be coming back to. I just was praying. Here is a house. People won't realize how big Katrina was.

It's too big to turn. It's going to hit us. It's not a normal hurricane. Something wrong. And my heart just sank. We have the breach and a levee. We have rain inside the super dome. I repeat, rain inside the dome.

Three minutes, it went from the ground to the roof. A lot of people suffered, and a lot of people suffered needlessly. Just letting me know y'all living, you know what I'm? People coming out of one bad situation, but they didn't know there was coming to another hell. We expected FEMA to come in, but there was no help. I told the guys, go find whatever boat you can find. We went and did what we had to do to try to save people's lives. This community was not wanting to go out and just loot.

There was people trying to survive. You got a governor. What is they doing? It's seriously. That's not something you ever want to do to tell the truth to shoot civilians. That's your people. They just let us down to them, we wasn't even human anymore. But people from New Orleans, we knew how to survive.

And this was supposed to be the greatest country on the planet. In order to prevent something, you got to understand why it happened in the first place. For more, we're joined by Tracy A. Curry, the Academy Award-nominated director of this acclaimed new documentary series by National Geographic Hurricane Katrina Race Against Time. All episodes are now streaming on Disney Plus and Hulu. Tracy Curry is also the co-director and producer of the Oscar-nominated documentary Attica with legendary filmmaker Stanley Nelson. Tracy, welcome to Democracy Now. It is truly astounding this documentary series. I watched it on Hulu just a few days ago. It was a beautiful day in New York.

By the end of it, I thought it was raining. I thought the waters were rising. this inexorable move toward disaster. You have captured something like I've seen no one else capture it. And I wanted you to start off by talking about the systemic failure. This isn't just a natural disaster of the rising waters. This is an absolutely catastrophic government failure. If you can talk about, well, everything leaves.

up to it and the level that racism played in the response to those who suffered and died almost 2,000 people. Yeah, Amy, first of all, thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure to be here. I think one of the things that we really wanted to show in the film is that it really wasn't the storm itself, that the storm, in fact, was sort of a catalyst that, revealed and exacerbated, as you said, all of these sort of pre-existing systemic and structural failures that had actually been failing people long before the storm ever came. And the storm

comes along and sort of rips away any sort of sense that there was safety and protection for these people. And so part of what we tried to do with the film is every episode peels back another layer, another layer, another layer of those broken systems that failed people during Katrina. So in the first episode, we understand that this is actually an environmental justice story and the destruction of the natural environment that caused a vulnerability for the people of New Orleans when Katrina came. Then we get into what we know is the failure of the man-made barrier, the levy system that the Army Corps, that the government was responsible for building in a way that made it vulnerable to the floods. Then we sort of pull back the media systems and institutions and how those failed people.

And then we kind of pull back the state violence that people were subjected to. And from there, we sort of get into the story about housing policy. And again, preexisting racial disparities in housing policy really informed who was able to come back and recover and restore their lives after the storm. So really we go into all of these many, many levels of systemic and institutional failures that, again, pre-existed the storm, but the storm comes along and exposes and exacerbates all those things to create, as we hear Malik Rahim say, a disaster that became a catastrophe. Well, your film, Tracy, is not only very, very informative, of course, and powerful,

It's also absolutely beautifully filmed and compiled. So let's go. We'd like to show another clip from the documentary. Again, the title is Hurricane Katrina, Race Against Time. In this clip, we hear from Ed Bush, who was a Louisiana National Guard Major during Katrina and Shelton Alexander, a spoken word poet from St. Bernard Parish, who filmed his experience sheltering inside the Superdome. his footage was weaved into the documentary. There is no comms.

And since the loudspeaker system didn't work, I walked around the 30,000 people in the Superdome to let them know, we're working on it. I think it's going to be buses and we're going to bring it. I don't know how it's all going to work, but buses are coming. It did uplift our spirits. And so I was watching people settle beeps

and shaking hands, you know what I mean? The place started getting real trashy. So a lot of the teenagers, they started coming together and they started cleaning up. There was a young man pushing around one of those hotel luggage carts with a person laying on it. And he said, hey, this lady just passed out. What do you want me to do with her? And she was okay and she was conscious, but she was clearly overheated. And I said, can you, can you roll her?

to the medical center. It's right down there. So he took it. And he came back about 10 minutes later. He's like, you want me to keep doing this? If I see stuff or any people, and I was like, please do. He loved that he had a role. The risk of allowing that young man to help push people

to the medical arena was this much. The impact of other people seeing how he was helping was colossal. The National Guard around for service, please do themselves. We're talking a couple of minutes. I'm a National Guard chaplain who would talk to us and he'll say, what are your concerns right now? What are you thinking? And people just, you know, would say, my loved ones.

I know, a loved one. Look, one of the things we want to focus in on is, As bad as it is, we can rebuild the house. I have no home to go to me either. Everything I have has been destroyed. I'm wearing what I have. So we're all in the same boat. But you know what?

All of my family is okay. And that is important. And that's where we have to pray. New Orleans is a city that pray. And I thought he did a great job. And he, as a man of God, stood up there and he spoke to us, and he made us feel better. Even though we are uncomfortable, we give faith that God said, this angel down to tough it up.

A lot of people started feeling like, you know, now we're chosen at this point in time. Amen. We end this thing together. And before we get it even worse, we're going to get out of here. That's a clip from the docu series, A Hurricane Katrina Race Again. time. The film also features stories from Katrina survivors like hairdresser Lynette Buett. This is Buett in her own words from the documentary. And so I wanted to come back into the community and do what I had to do. And I was not going to stop until I got back to where I intended to be back in 2005.

Every penny I have made since Katrina has gone into me getting back into my salon and my property. It's mine. And like I told the people that rode home, you will have to prime out of my brinkled up little brown hands to get it. So Tracy Curry, those are a couple of clips from your docu-series. So if you could tell us some of the personal stories, the interviews you do with survivors, Malik Rahim, who Democracy Now has also, Amy Goodman has also spoken to at length, and others, the personal stories you got of the hurricane and how people survived. Well, one of the things that I and the producers that I work with learned early on, we made some early visits to New Orleans before we ever started filming anything, really just to listen and hear what people had to say.

And one of those conversations was with General Russell Honore, who you see in the film, who sort of comes in and finally begins to kind of wrangle things. So things start moving. And one of the things that he told us, and General Honorer knows Katrina better than most, is that his understanding is of what Katrina was is that it's what you experienced where you were, where you stood in it at the time. And so that really informed our understanding that there isn't just a Katrina story. There are many Katrina stories, as many Katrina stories as there are Katrina survivors. And so what we really set out to do was to collect as many different parts and pieces of that story as we possibly could to begin to make something that felt like,

a whole telling of what happened and to center the experience of those story and the people that lived it. And so we really set out to understand what it was to be in the Superdome, as we heard the clip with Shelton and Ed, what it was to be trapped in your attic. And we spoke to Lucretia Phillips. You played the clip from Ms. Lynette Boutte, who was stranded on the interstate highway. We spoke to someone who was inside of the convention center. We spoke, as you mentioned, to Malik Rahim, who while he was across the river in a part of the city that did not flood, was experiencing racialized violence as a result of the vulnerabilities and people being exposed and lived where there was also police violence that was happening to in unarmed

Amanda in Algiers. So we really tried to get as many parts of what it was, this sort of basket of experiences that we all kind of understand collectively under Katrina, that as I said, really is not, it was the name of the storm, but really is not about the storm at all. It was about all of these other ways that the storm revealed and exacerbated the vulnerabilities that people were living with at the time. And so we really tried to ground that in the experience of the people who really lived it and restore the narrative and the story to them. I mean, the story of the government malfeasance. I mean, when you have the former FEMA director, right, who famously said he didn't realize

people were in the convention center. I mean, so shocking when thousands of people were there. when you had, and then, of course, you think about the level of experience these people had in dealing with catastrophes as opposed to political appointees. And the level of racism, those who got saved and those who different didn't, if you can talk about, I mean, a change city, why this isn't just about 20 years ago. The demographics change with so many African Americans left New Orleans. People didn't. didn't even know where they were going. As they got on planes, they wouldn't even be told that it became a whiter city. All the teachers fired at the beginning. It was so astounding. And then it becomes a prototype for the charter school system in the United States, an entire charter system

replacing the public schools, Tracy. Yeah. And one of the things, I'm really glad that you mentioned that thing about the public school because there's so many levels and layers to which Katrina transformed the city irreparably. And one of the things about the firing of the public school teachers is that when you think about who made up a large population of those teachers, it was black women. And I spoke to someone who didn't end up putting in the film, but she was one of those teachers. And now 20 years later, when she should be living comfortably in her retirement, she's still having to work because her pension that she would have gotten as a retired teacher was cut in half when the school system was thrown out, as were the teachers. And so

they're just all these levels and layers that were not necessarily apparent at the time to the ways that Katrina has just really transformed people's lives. We spoke, as I said, to Malik, who I know you guys know well at Democracy Now started. this organization Common Ground that was doing environmental remediation work and health care. Another person in our series, Alice Kraft, while living in a FEMA trailer, started a health clinic for people in the lower ninth ward. And one of the things they tell us is that there was a huge mental health crisis. This was a profound trauma for everybody that experienced it. And there was never any sort of healing for that.

And so they're just, what you're sort of getting at, I think, there, Amy, is just all of these sort of levels and layers of lasting harm that were done as a result of this that I don't think we're quite apparent. And even 20 years later, I don't think quite apparent in how this city has been irreparably changed. I talked early on to a lot of the people when we were just sort of listening to what people had to say. And what they told me is that, you know, for those of us who go to New Orleans as visitors, It feels like the New Orleans that we know or the New Orleans of our imagination. We do the Mardi Gras, the Bourbon Street, the jazz festivals. But for them, which is to say the people who are of this place and lived it, they experienced this bifurcated experience of New Orleans that they describe as before Katrina and after Katrina.

And so much of what that after was like is that these very close ties of kinship and community that really defined life in New Orleans for the people lived there were rent apart by Katrina. in a way that was never knit together. I mean, people were kind of called refugees and there was all this sort of othering language that was used to describe them. But really what they were was internally displaced people. And many of those people never, ever, ever came back.

So this was just an absolutely transformative event in the lives of these people and this city and continues to be to this day. Well, Tracy A. Curry, I just want to congratulate you on this series. Tracy is the Academy Award nominated director of the acclaimed new documentary series, Hurricane Katrina, Race Against Time, now streaming on Disney and Hulu. And that does it for this show. Special thanks to our local crew here in Telluride, Greg Cairns and Stash Wislaki and Patrick Dyer and Dallas Sainsbury and Dennis Moynihan. Special thanks also to everyone at the Telluride Film Festival who helped. make this broadcast possible, and to Telluride's community radio station, Koto FM, that is

broadcast Democracy Now for so many years. Democracy Now produced with Mike Burke, Renee Felstine at Guster, Messiah, Rhodes. I hope to see folks Sunday at 1 at the premiere of the Democracy Now documentary. Steal this story, please, at the Mason Theater here in Telluride. I'm Amy Goodman with the