Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-09-09 Tuesday

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Democracy Now! Tuesday, September 9, 2025

From New York, this is Democracy Now. Oversight Democrats just got a hold of the Jeffrey Epstein birthday book and note that, of course, was sent by Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein to Jeffrey Epstein, This note, Donald Trump has said, does not exist. But once again, he is lying to the American public and is leading a White House cover. The House Oversight Committee has released new documents related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, including a 50th birthday book with messages from friends, including a note and sketch of a naked woman apparently signed by Donald Trump. As the White House faces growing calls to release the Epstein files, we'll look at a major New York Times expanse about how America's largest bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, enabled Epstein's crimes and profited from him while ignoring major red flags. Then to Trump's threats to wage war on Chicago, ISIS just launched a major operation in the city days after Trump posted a message declaring,

Apocalypse Now, a reference to the Vietnam War film, Apocalypse Now, which contained this iconic scene. I love the smell of night come in the morning. In Trump's message, he wrote, I love the smell of deportations in the morning. To talk about Trump's immigrant crackdown the militarization of U.S. cities from Chicago to Los Angeles and the film Apocalypse. Now, and his reference to it, will be joined by the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, Viet Pan Nguyen. All that and more coming up.

Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report, I'm Mimi Goodman. Israel's escalating its attacks on Gaza City and has issued orders to forcibly displace the city's entire population of nearly one million people. On Monday, Israeli planes dropped leaflets ordering Palestinians to head to Amalasi, a coastal strip of barren land, Israel's designated as a so-called humanitarian zone, despite frequent deadly attacks on the area. Israel's latest forced evacuation order comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasts of blowing up high-rise buildings across Gaza City and warns of even more deadly attacks. All this is only an introduction, opening act to the powerful main act, which is a ground maneuver of our forces who are now assembling and organizing into Gaza City. And this is why I say to the residents of Gaza, I take this opportunity, listen carefully, you have been warned, leave now. Israel's defense minister says his forces have leveled 30 major buildings across,

Gaza City and threatened to bring more down. Among the high-rise's bomb to rubble is the Arroyo Tower, which housed the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. This is a displaced Palestinian mother whose family was sheltering and a tent near a Gaza high-rise that was blown up Monday. I am afraid for my children. I am afraid for myself, and I'm afraid for those around me. The Israelis have no mercy. Whatever they say, they carry out. It's not that they are only trying to scare us or make us leave. They are actually killing us, burning us. Around four days ago, they burned children in a tent. And here we are, next to the towers. We live here, which means

that shrapnel could have hit us. Gaza health officials say Israeli attacks since dawn have killed at least 35 Palestinians, including children and people seeking food. Meanwhile, health officials report six more Palestinians died of starvation over the past 24 hours did Israel's blockade. And the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces carried out violent raids Monday that killed two 14-year-old Palestinian boys. Both Mohamed Sari Omar Moskala and Mohamed Sari Omar Moskala were killed by Israeli fire in the Jinin refugee camp. The stepped up raids follow Monday's shooting attack and occupied East Jerusalem that left six Israelis dead and 12 others wounded. In the wake of that attack, Israel's far-right finance minister Bezal Smotricks said the villages, that the two Palestinian attackers came from should, quote, become like Rafah and Bait Hanoon,

a reference to cities in Gaza, reduced to rubble by Israel. A Monday Israeli forces release footage of engineers preparing to destroy the homes of the alleged gunmen, part of a policy of collective punishment, often deployed by Israel, against the families of Palestinians accused of crimes. In Tunisia, activists with the global Samud flotilla say, One of their main boats preparing to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza was attacked by a drone overnight Monday. Journalist Yusuf Omar was on the deck of the ship when the apparent bombing occurred. Guys, I was sleeping right here on this mattress, and I hear this explosion and a big ball of flames, like burning the sides of your face.

And then down here, you can see exactly what has happened. it landed here. The drone, it landed here, and it just a big explosion happened right next to our diesel tank gun. Tunisia's National Guard disputed the activist's account of the explosion, saying the fire appeared to have started in a life jacket caused by a cigarette butt or a lighter. That claim directly contradicted by surveillance video showing a trail of fire falling into the ship and exploding into flames. This is Yasmin Ajjar, a member of the global.

global smooth flotilla. They have bombed a boat once again with civilians on it in Tunisian territory. This is an attack against Gaza because they don't want us there. So we need you to mobilize. Let's not stay quiet. In Germany, five members of the Direct Action Group, Palestine, Action Monday, broke into a weapons factory. by Elbit Systems, a major supplier to Israel's military. Video released by Palestine action shows an activist using a crowbar to pry open a door.

The activists are then seen smashing equipment and spraying, painting graffiti, denouncing Israel's assault on Gaza. Nobody was injured during the group's acts of sabotage and people ultimately arrested all five, police arrested all five without resistance. Palestine Action later published a video by a member claiming responsibility. My name is Leandra and you are watching this video because last night I took action against Elbit Systems in all Germany. This criminal corporation make millions of dollars year after year, especially since 2014, out of the extermination of the indigenous people of Palestine and the occupation of their land. Most of the drones bombing the hell out of Gaza are being made by Elbit systems.

The surveillance systems of the walls that made Gaza an open-air prison and the humanitarian aid blockade possible are made by Elbit systems. The action by Palestine Action, Germany, came after British police arrested nearly 900 people Saturday at a protest in London against the UK government's ban on Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act. On Monday, the artist Banksy took credit for a mural that appeared on the Royal Courts of Justice depicting a British judge in a wig using a gavel to attack a man lying on the ground and holding a sign. spattered in blood. Guards later covered the mural in black plastic. Authorities say it will be removed. Officials in Lebanon say at least five people were killed and five others wounded Monday as Israeli warplanes struck parts of the eastern Beka Valley. It's Israel's latest violation of a ceasefire deal signed last November. Separately, Syrian media reports, Israel's Air Force

bombed targets and humps in central Syria, as well as the coastal city of Latakia, and the historic city of Palmyra. Syria's foreign ministry called Israel's latest strikes, a blatant infringement of Syrian sovereignty and a threat to regional stability. Meanwhile, Yemen's Houthis have claimed responsibility for a drone attack on an airport near the Israeli Red Sea city of Eilat. Two people were injured in the attack, which follows Israeli strikes in late August that killed the Houthi Prime Minister and other top officials in Sana'a. In Nepal, the Prime Minister, K. P. Sharma Oli, has resigned amidst anti-corruption demonstrations that continue to royal Nepal. At least 19 people were killed in over 100 injured Monday as authorities cracked down on the protests with police firing rubber-coated bullets and tear gas at protesters trying to storm the parliament in Kathmandu.

Organizers dubbed the protests demonstrations by Gen Z as young people take to the streets to condemn government corruption and a ban on social media platforms. Every corruption in the country from the local level to federal level, all the Nepal's citizens are fed up of corruption. Every youth are going outside the country. So we want to protect our youth and make the countries become better. For that, we need a new youth, new power and new politicians who are well-educated to move the country from. The Trump administration's asking the Supreme Court for an emergency order to allow it to freeze $4 billion in foreign aid that was already allocated by Congress. For the first time in nearly half a century, President Trump's relying on the impoundment control act, which gives the president the authority to request the cancellation of funds approved by Congress. This follows a federal judge's ruling last week that the administrations required to spend the funds.

A study by the Lancet Medical Journal found that foreign aid programs funded by USAID over the past two decades have helped prevent more than 91 million deaths globally, including the deaths of 30 million children. The Supreme Court's paused a federal judge's ruling that barred federal agents from making immigration stops and profiling people based on their appearance or the languages they speak, while the Trump administration appeals. the case. Attorney General Pam Bondi praised Monday 6 to 3 ruling by the court's right-wing majority, writing on X, quote, now ICE can continue carrying out roving patrols in California without judicial micromanagement, unquote. Justices did not state their reasons for overturning the lower court's ruling. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, quote, We should not have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone who looks let's speak Spanish and appears to work a low-wage job, she wrote.

Los Angeles City officials and immigrant rights groups condemn the Supreme Court's ruling. Armando Goodino is director of the Los Angeles Worker Center. By siding with the Trump administration, this court majority has revealed itself as highly prejudicial and has further empowered authoritarianism in this country. Immigration agents are now being given the power to profile, stop, detain, and and arrest people because of the color of their skin, the language they speak, or the work that they do. In doing so, they have effectively legalized racial profiling and by extension racial discrimination. The Department of Homeland Security says it's begun Operation Midway Blitz, a stepped-up mass deportation campaign spearheaded by immigration and customs enforcement.

Monday's announcement came just two days after President Trump declared, quote, Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of War, unquote, in a social media post evoking the 1979 film Apocalypse Now in the Vietnam War, Trump also wrote, I love the smell of deportations in the morning, a reference to one of the most infamous lines in the film, I love the smell of napalm in the morning. of more on Trump's threats against Chicago and Los Angeles later in the broadcast, as well as the references to Apocalypse Now, with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Vietnamese-American author, Viet Pan Wen. A prominent nonviolent activist from Moroccan occupied Western Sahara has been detained by federal immigration officers. Jamal Fidel was seized by masked ICE agents at Manhattan's notorious federal building at 26, Federal Plaza on August 25th after a routine immigration hearing, an arrest that was caught on video. This is, this is the freedom.

I'm coming to my process of immigration. What country are you from? I'm from Western South. Jamal Fidel is from the occupied city of Buzdur in Western Sahara. He's been protesting non-violently against Moro. his occupation since he was a high school student and was threatened by Moroccan authorities so many times that he left to seek political asylum in the United States. He's currently being held by ICE at the Moshanin Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania. His attorney expects ICE

will move for an expedited removal hearing. If deported to Morocco, Fidel faces lengthy imprisonment, torture, or worse. In a speech at the museum, of the Bible in Washington, D.C. Monday, President Trump downplayed the seriousness of domestic violence while claiming crime is down after he deployed National Guard troops to the District of Columbia. And much lesser things, things that take place in the home, they call crime. You know, they'll do anything they can to find something. If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say, this was a crime, see? So now I can't claim 100%. But we are, we are a safe. Trump's downplaying of domestic violence at the Museum of the Bible came as the House Oversight Committee released a birthday note with a sexually suggestive drawing signed allegedly by Donald Trump to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein back in 2003.

The committee had subpoenaed Epstein's estate for the birthday book and other files. Despite the note containing his signature, the White House denied. the letter was from Trump, saying he, quote, did not draw this picture and he did not sign it, unquote. A second page of the birthday book featured an image of Epstein holding a large check. Democratic lawmakers said the photo showed Epstein and a longtime Maralago member joking about selling a, quote, fully depreciated woman to Donald Trump for $22,500. This follows a request by the Justice Department to a federal judge to reject NBC News request to unseal the names of two Epstein associates who both received wire payments of $100,000 and $200,000 from Epstein back in 2018. As part of his non-prosecution plea deal with federal prosecutors in Florida, Epstein helped ensure his associates would not be prosecuted.

Meanwhile, a New York Times investigation has found that J.P. Morgan Chase spent years bankrolling Epstein and ignored red flags and suspicious activity. We'll have more on this story later in the broadcast with the New York Times reporter who exposed this story. And a federal appeals court has rejected President Trump's attempt to overturn his $83.3 million verdict for defamation. the writer E. Jean Carroll. In their unanimous opinion, the judges wrote, quote, the jury's duly rendered damages awards were reasonable in light of the extraordinary and egregious facts of this case, unquote. This comes as President Trump and his lawyer said that they intend to ask the Supreme Court to review the jury's $5 million verdict that he sexually abused E. Jean Carroll. And those are some of the headlines.

This is Democracy Now.com. Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. When we come back, the New York Times exposes how J.P. Morgan Chase enabled the crimes of the late sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. Stay with us. heart of the grand Babylon

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prohibit L'A Autorida. Lua Downes performing Manucho's clandestino for Democracy Now's 25th anniversary virtual celebration in the midst of the pandemic. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report, I'm Mimi Goodman. The House Oversight Committee has released more documents from the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's estate, including a birthday book given to him by friends. The book includes a sexually suggestive note and sketch of a naked woman that appears to be signed by Donald Trump. In the text, Trump says, we have certain things in common, Jeffrey.

It concludes with Trump writing, a pal is a wonderful thing. happy birthday, and may every day be another wonderful secret, unquote. The White House has denied the letter was created by Trump, but the New York Times has revealed Trump's signature is very similar to his signature and other documents from that period, a simple Donald. A second page of the birthday book featured an image of Epstein holding a large check. Democratic lawmakers said the photo showed Epstein and a longtime Mar-a-Lago member joking about selling a, quote, fully depreciated, quote-unquote, woman to Donald Trump for $22,500.

As pressure grows on the Trump administration, to release the full Epstein files, we turn to look at how the country's largest bank, J.P. Morgan, enabled Epstein's sex trafficking operation and profited from its ties to Jeffrey Epstein. On Monday, the New York Times published a major expisade on J.P. Morgan's ties to Epstein. It's based on more than 13,000 pages of legal and financial records. According to the Times, J.P. Morgan processed more than 4,700 transactions totaling more than $1.1 billion for Epstein, including payments to some of the women who are sexually trafficked. We're joined now by David Enrich, Deputy Investigations editor for the New York Times. He co-wrote the piece headlined how J.P. Morgan enabled the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein.

David, welcome back to Democracy Now. Why don't you start with that headline? How did J.P. Morgan enable the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein? Well, for many years, J.P. Morgan was basically the primary bank serving Epstein. and in the course of the 15 years that it worked with him, it did a number of things. And first and foremost, it set up accounts for not only him and his companies, but also quite a few of his victims who had been trafficked into the United States, and it arranged for Epstein to be able to pay those victims, both in the U.S. and in Eastern European countries and in Russia.

The bank lent him money for projects associated with sex trafficking. It, in some cases, just paid him cash. millions of dollars of it over the years to thank him for some of the services he had provided the bank. And over and over again, when people within the bank raised red flags about how much cash Epstein was withdrawn and some of the suspicious wire transfers he was doing, people higher up at the bank essentially look the other way because they wanted to keep this guy as a lucrative client. And so basically, Epstein's sex trafficking operation, we now know, operated in large part because he had unfettered access to the global financial system.

And for many years, it was J.P. Morgan that was providing him with that access. Take us through the timeline. And David Enrich, what about other banks? Did Jeffrey Epstein try to bank with other banks? I mean, this is perhaps the most prestigious, the largest bank in the United States. But wasn't he turned away by bank after bank? Well, there's some question about who turned him away and when. And certainly we know that in 2013, after J.P. Morgan, after years of internal pressure,

finally parted ways with him, he went right on to another bank, the German lender Deutsche Bank, which is, you may recall, was the bank that was willing to do business with Donald Trump, among others. But in the history of J.P. Morgan and Jeffrey Epstein starts in the late 1990s, and Epstein at the time was a very wealthy, but kind of mysterious guy. The bank itself, in documents that we've reviewed, didn't have. a whole lot of information on where his money was coming from, who he was working for, or why he was important. All they knew is that he was parking a ton of money at the bank and generating millions of dollars a year in fees. And over the ensuing years, Epstein's role

inside the bank became more and more important. And it involved not just doing business that made money for the bank, but he introduced the bank to a lot of potential clients, to government government leaders like Benjamin Netanyahu and advised them on strategic initiatives and provide them kind of with troubleshooting advice along the way. So he was a really indispensable part of the bank and an indispensable partner, I think, to some of the bank's very highest-ranking executives. Now, if you could talk about the significance of this, in fact, it was two Israeli prime ministers, Benjamin Netanyahu that he brought to the bank as well as Ahud Barak. Yeah. So he, and this is, there's a laundry list of rich, powerful, famous people that Epstein

counted among his acquaintances. And he was extremely adept at using those connections to ingratiate himself with lots of other people and institutions. J.P. Morgan was very eager to do business with him and to accept the introductions he was offering. And the relationship that Epstein had with J.P. Morgan and was really important to Epstein because it hooked him into the global financial system and provided him with money. But I think to an equal degree, it also imbued him with legitimacy and credibility that was really important to him, especially after he was, in first 2006, indicted and arrested on sex trafficking-related charges.

And then in 2008, pleaded guilty and was then incarcerated on similar charges. And all the while, J.P. Morgan continued to bank him, and for years afterwards, as well. And that was even though people within the bank, including at a pretty senior level, were aware that what Epstein had been accused of, what he had pled guilty to, and were concerned that there was a lot more going on here that hadn't even become public. And yet they decided institutionally that the right thing to do was to continue working with him, primarily because he was making them a ton of money. He also brought to the bank, Sergey Brin, right? The founder of Google, who banked with them to the tune of something like $4 billion.

Yeah, and there, again, there's a long list of people that he made introductions to. And I think the bank would say that, you know, they are one of the biggest, most prestigious banks in the world, and they don't have any trouble finding clients on their own or talking to government leaders on their own. But there is no dispute that Epstein, at least with one of the very highest-ranking executives of the bank, bank was someone who the bank was turning to over and over again for advice, for counseling, for introductions, and most of all for financial services. And so this is a long, symbiotic relationship. And I think that the fact that this full story hasn't been told until now is really emblematic in some ways of how many mysteries continue to swirl around Jeffrey Epstein

and his money and how much more digging there is to do by everyone from journalists to congressional investigators who are, I think, belatedly getting really serious about this. So, David Enrich, if you can explain, I don't know if everyone knows how banks work, what does it mean when there are red flags? What were those red flags? What was J.P. Morgan ignoring? When do they have to report to the feds about these red flags? And then we'll talk about Jess Staley and Jamie Diamond. Sure. So, I mean, the red, there was a range of of red flags. The most obvious of them internally at the bank was that Epstein, he had hundreds of millions of dollars parked at the bank, but he was taking out so much money in cash on a regular

basis that it was a real warning sign. And banks are kind of trained to be on the lookout for people that are regularly withdrawing huge sums of cash. And by huge sums, I mean, you know, tens of thousands of dollars virtually every month. And this drew attention. within the bank. And yet, when it got escalated to higher-ups, people looked the other way. And the reason it draws attention is that cash is a common currency for criminals. And sure enough, what we now know is that virtually almost identical amounts of, as he was taking out amounts of money, they were almost identical to what we now know he was paying to young women and girls as part of the sex trafficking operation. Another big red flag

was that he was wiring money and there were patterns of him wiring money to all over the world, including to banks and individuals in Eastern Europe and Russia that we now know, in fact, we knew to some degree at the time as well,

that this was part of what appeared to be a sex trafficking operation. And these are things that anti-money laundering experts and compliance officials within JPMorgan and within the banking industry in general, these are pretty clear, well-established red flags for possible criminal behavior, and sure enough, the bank's teams of anti-money laundering experts and compliance officials recognize this more or less in real time, and in some cases

reported it to the government, but did not take it seriously internally. And, you know, they had discussions about these are suspicious things that are happening. We don't know exactly what he's using this money for, but these are red flags. And in many cases, with other bank customers, we can see that when a bank customer gets accused of wrongdoing or is engaged in potentially suspicious transactions, the banks like J.P. Morgan will very quickly get rid of them as clients because it is not worth taking the legal or reputational risk to keep doing business with them. And again, that did not happen in J.P. Morgan's case, and this is not just like one isolated incident. This was happening over and over again, over a period of many years, where

people inside the bank repeatedly rang the alarm bells and then were just overridden by people higher up the food chain. Compare what happened to Jeffrey Epstein to Wesley Snipes. Yeah. So Wesley Snipes, the actor, was another J.P. Morgan client in 2006. And he was accused of tax fraud by the federal government. And almost instantaneously, he had not been convicted of those charges. He had not admitted to those charges. Almost instantly, the bank kicked him out as a client. And this was almost exactly the same time that Epstein was initially indicted and arrested for alleged sex crimes, which is arguably more serious than a tax fraud allegation. And instead of swiftly kicking Epstein out of the bank, the way they had done with Wesley Snipes,

they had a fairly robust internal discussion that culminated and the bank deciding to keep him as a client with basically no strings attached. We're talking to David Nmerch, Deputy Investigations editor for the New York Times. The major new expose, he co-authored, headlined how J.P. Morgan enabled the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein. A Times investigation found America's leading bank spent years supporting and profiting for, from the notorious sex offender, ignoring red flag, suspicious activity, and concerned executives, which takes us to the higher ups. If you can tell us about Jess Staley, wants the leading contender to succeed Jamie Diamond as chief executive of J.P. Morgan, how he had an ongoing relationship with Jeffrey

Epstein, at the bank, outside the bank, would later become head of Barclays and Britain. just take us through that relationship and then his relationship and what he discussed with Jamie Diamond. Yeah. And so the relationship between Jess Staley and Jeffrey Epstein was long and multifaceted and quite intimate, I think. And Staley was basically a lifetime J.P. Morgan employee until 2013. And he was the person who back in the late 90s, early 2000,

developed a very close relationship with Epstein, who at the time was this kind of up-and-coming client at the bank. And the relationship started off, I think, just purely in financial terms. Staley was trying to get to know Epstein because he was an important client of the bank and could make important introductions to other potential clients for the bank. But over the years, it evolved into something much more than a traditional client relationship, I would say. and the Staley became, I think, a close friend of Epstein. When Epstein was incarcerated in Florida in 2008 and 2009, Staley went to visit him. Staley also visited a number of Epstein's properties, including when Epstein was not even there.

And on at least one occasion, we know that Staley ended up having sex with a young woman whom he had met at Epstein's townhouse and who later alleged that Epstein had basically sex trafficked. her. And all the while, inside J.P. Morgan, when these concerns would arise about, you know, whether Jeffrey Epstein is involved in crimes and whether the bank is involved in facilitating or enabling those crimes, over and over we see Jess Staley, in some cases, joined with other executives, but always just Staley going to bat for Epstein, trying to kind of damp down these internal concerns, and to insist that this is someone the bank needed to continue doing business with. And he went to bat for Epstein over and over again. And it ranged from kind of interacting with low-level compliance officers to really senior people within the bank, like the general

council of the bank, who had grave concerns about Epstein and was persuaded ultimately to not really take a stand and insist that he be fired from the bank. And I think one of the ongoing mysteries here is where J.P. Morgan's CEO, Jamie Diamond, was in all of this. And Diamond is, he's been CEO for a long time. He is someone who likes to boast about his attention to detail. He is known as a bit of a micromanager who is really like on his subordinates, trying to know everything that's going on. And in this case, Diamond claims that he simply, he knew nothing about Epstein.

He didn't even realize Epstein was a client. He says, until after Epstein was arrested and jailed in 2019. and, you know, that is, first of all, a little bit hard to square with Diamond's repeated insistences that he knows everything that's going on inside the bank, but also with the fact that Jess Staley, under oath, has said that Diamond, that he talked to Diamond on a number of occasions about Epstein status as a client, and we also reviewed internal emails from the bank that appear to show with other employees of the bank mentioning the fact that Jamie Diamond is going to be involved in some of the decision-making around whether to keep Epstein as a

client. And I don't know what the truth is here, but it seems like there's kind of a binary choice. Either Jamie Diamond knew about Jeffrey Epstein as a client and has been lying about that under oath and in other forms, or Jamie Diamond didn't know Jeffrey Epstein was a client and somehow it was out of the loop on this really important client and on an issue that was really selling great divisions among some of his top lieutenants at the bank. And, you You know, we talked to David Boyes, the lawyer who has sued J.P. Morgan, among others, for its role in the Epstein saga. And he described both of those options. He said that neither of those options is good from Diamond's standpoint.

And, you know, I'm inclined to agree with that analysis. And what happened to Staley went on to Head Barclays and what happened there in Britain? Yeah, so after leaving J.P. Morgan, he became the CEO of Barclays. and he lasted in that role for several years until Jeffrey Epstein was arrested and charged and then committed suicide in jail, and a lot of questions began to emerge about what Staley had done for Epstein, both at J.P. Morgan and at Barclays. And an investigation later determined that Staley had been really dishonest with Barclays about the nature and duration of his relationship with Epstein. And so he was fired by the bank.

and later banned by British regulators from having a senior role in the UK financial services industry. And I think his career is pretty well done at this point. But, you know, aside from losing his job, my understanding is that he walked away with a huge fortune that he derived, in part over the years, because he was proving such an effective advocate and such an effective manager of the Epstein relationship at J.P. Morgan. The fallout of J.P. Morgan, you write, and the New York Times has been limited. In 2023, it paid $290 million to settle a lawsuit brought by roughly 200 of Epstein's victims and an additional $75 million to resolve related litigation brought by the U.S. Virgin Islands where many of Epstein's crimes took

place, right? He owned two islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Yeah, that's right. And that sounds like a lot of money. It is a lot of money in normal terms until you realize how much money J.P. Morgan earns. And in 2023, the year that they paid this roughly $300 million in settlement, they made profits of $50 billion with a B. And the payments they made to settle these lawsuits amounted to less than 1% of their profits. that year. And so I think one of the things that we, my colleagues and I have heard over and over as we've been reporting this story is that punishments like this do not, or they are unlikely to have a major deterrent effect. And what is really to stop a scandal like this from happening

in the future? And I don't know what the answer to that is, but certainly having to pay less than 1% of your annual profits as a penalty does not seem likely to have a huge impact. on the behavior of bankers or corporate executives in the future. And let me ask you, this latest news headline, and you may not be able to respond, the request by the Justice Department to a federal judge to reject NBC News request to unseal the names of two Epstein associates who both received wire payments of what, something like $100,000 and $200,000 from Epstein back in 2018 as part of his non-prosecution plea deal with federal prosecutors in Florida, Epstein help ensure that his associates would not

be prosecuted. Have you reported on this, or can you comment? Yeah, I mean, I've done some reporting on it. And again, there are a lot of unanswered questions here. We do not know the associates to whom Epstein was paying these six-figure sums in 2018. We do know, and he had left JP Morgan at that point and had become a customer of Deutsche Bank by then. So this is not a, as far as I know, it's not a J.P. Morgan issue. And I have no idea who those associates were. I mean, they could be his lawyers, they could be the guy who, the beneficiaries of his will. It could be women who he sex trafficked. All I know looking at this is that it is remarkable to me that the Trump administration, after rising to power in part based on his

assurance is that it would do everything in its power to provide transparency about the Epstein investigations is, again, doing the exact opposite of that and fighting to keep stuff secret. And again, I don't know maybe there is a good explanation for why in these particular cases they are trying to keep the secret, but certainly it appears to be part of a pattern in which Trump and his allies are doing everything in their power to keep this stuff hidden from public view. David Enrich, want to thank you for being with us. Deputy Investigations editor for the New York Times.

We'll link to your piece how J.P. Morgan enabled the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein. Coming up, ICE has launched a major operation in Chicago. Days after Trump posted a message declaring Shepocalypse Now, a reference to the Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now. We'll speak with the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Viet Tan Wend. Stay with us. No, can't o'yadook, not can't tithing fash,

just can't landa. No, no longer. No can't khakiw, not can't meagued, and I don't know what, Vietnamese musician Mike Hoi, performing at Joe's Pub in 2020. This is Democracy Now, DemocracyNow.org, the war and peace report by Mimi Goodman. Just days after President Trump threatened to wage war on Chicago, ISIS launched a major operation

to target the city's undocumented population. ISIS dubbed the effort Operation Midway Blitz. Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Trisha McLaughlin said, Chicago is being targeted in part because it's a sanctuary city. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker criticized the ice sweep, saying, quote, instead of taking steps to work with us on public safety, the Trump administration's focused on scaring Illinoisans. On Saturday, President Trump wrote in social media,

Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of War. That's a reference to his order to change the name of the Department of Defense Friday. Trump accompanied the message with an AI-generated image depicting himself as lieutenant colonel Bill Kilgore from the epic Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now. Trump's pictured in front of the Chicago skyline with helicopters, flames, and the phrase Apocalypse Now. He also wrote, I love the smell of deportations in the morning, a reference to one of the most infamous lines in the film, I love the smell of napalm in the morning. After facing widespread criticism, Trump then walked back the war threat. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court's allowed the Trump administration to resume indiscriminate immigration raids in the Los Angeles area. In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, quote,

We should not have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speak Spanish, and appears to work a low-wage job. We go now to Pasadena, California, where we're joined by Vietan-Politzer Prize-winning author and scholar, his most recent book, to save and to destroy, writing as an other. He's a professor at the University of Southern California, which is in Los Angeles. We welcome you back to democracy now. yet let's begin with this Supreme Court ruling that the ice raids can continue in Los Angeles. Your response.

Well, thanks for having me again, Amy. Of course, it's outrageous. It's a ridiculous enactment of racial profiling, which seems enormously hypocritical in an age when the Supreme Court ruled that race could not be considered for university admissions. But clearly here says that race and other signifying. fires of supposed foreignness can be considered for ICE to just pull over anyone who they consider to be brown and potentially a foreigner. And talk more about what this has meant for Los Angeles, the level of racial profiling. We heard just now what Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, the ability to stop people simply because

they're brown, the number of people who have been detained in raids. from the Home Depot, parking lots, and beyond. And Donald Trump is targeting Los Angeles in California because this is a city and a state in which multiculturalism and ethnic diversity have worked. California has the fourth largest economy in the world. We've incorporated large numbers of people from all over the place doing different kinds of jobs. And we've demonstrated that the American experiment in multicultural democracy and capitalism can't actually function. Donald Trump doesn't like to see this kind of thing. He wants to see a white supremacist, white nationalist version of capitalism, hence his targeting

of successful, democratically led, and oftentimes black-led cities. And so the targeting is really, obviously, a terrible thing. You know, many of us in California know people who are Latino, who are brown, who are immigrants, who are undocumented, who are undocumented, and so on. They are productive, helpful members of our society. and by terrorizing them, Donald Trump seeks not only to cow them and to drive them out of this country, but he also seeks to terrorize and to cow those who are friends and allies of these people as well. We're talking to Viet Tanwen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of several books,

including most recently, to save and to destroy writing as another professor of English at the University of Southern California. I wanted to talk to you about the social media post of President Trump. We just talked about it, where he wrote Chicago, about to find out why it's called the Department of War. Of course, referencing his order to change the name of the Department of Defense last Friday. Trump accompanied the message with this AI-generated image depicting himself as Lieutenant Colonel Bill K. Kilgore from the epic Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now. Trump pictured in front of Chicago skyline with helicopters, flames and the phrase Apocalypse Now. Also writing, I love the smell of deportations in the morning.

A reference to this, one of the most famous lines in the film. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Vietan Wen, when we saw this this weekend, we thought who best could talk about the significance of this film, especially, I mean, you're a college professor. You know, many young people have never even heard about it, a film from the 1970s. But this is a film you've often written about and spoken about that defined you as a film. child of Vietnam. Can you talk about the significance of this post, every dimension of it? This is such an absurd post, but it's also an incredible post because it compacts so much of

American history into a couple of lines. And so what's basically happening here is that Donald Trump is referring to an entire history that extends to the very origins of American society, origins that are rooted in policies of ethnic cleansing and genocide. We're seeing that, continuation of ethnic cleansing, of course, here in Los Angeles and elsewhere in the United States, but we've had a long history of deportations and ethnic cleansings that have been directed at indigenous peoples, at Mexicans, at brown people, and so on. And the connection with the Vietnam War is that by the time the United States got to fighting the war in Vietnam, it had this entire history of genocide built into its consciousness, its culture, its politics,

its military, so that when American soldiers went into Vietnam, the mythologies that they brought with them were basically the mythologies of the Western and of Indian wars and so on, which is why American soldiers referred to the land in Vietnam as Indian country. So in that moment when Colonel Kilgore is saying he loves the smell of napalm in the morning, it's obviously directed at Viet Cong guerrillas, but the smell of burning bodies is evoking the entire history of American troops going into native villages, burning them down, and massacring people, cleansing the land in order for American Congress. This is the kind of history that Donald Trump wants to evoke, wants to celebrate by using rhetoric like, I love deportations, but also turning the Department of Defense into the Department of War, one of the more honest things that he's done.

And so by evoking apocalypse now, he is evoking a long string of ideology, but also of pop cultural references, that he thinks celebrates American masculinity. and macho militarism. The irony, of course, is that this is a war, the Vietnam War, that the United States lost, in fact. But I think Donald Trump can get away with it because he understands something very basic about the development of American military power over the last few decades, which is the United States doesn't really have to win wars. We just go in and kill a lot of people, and even if we lose that war officially, we still

maintain American dominance and hegemony. And I think that's what he's trying to do right now. I want to go to another clip from the film Apocalypse Now, where you hear Marlon Brando's voice. He's playing Colonel Kurtz. We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won't allow them to write on their airplane because it's obscene. What he's saying, we train young men to drop. up fire on people, but their commanders won't allow them to write the F word on their airplanes because it's obscene. For those who don't know this story, if you can talk about the significance

of this, and then it's a bigger point that you make as a Vietnamese American is who is centered and who isn't, even though this is considered a great anti-war film by Francis Ford Coppola, As a Vietnamese refugee, you talk about what's missing as well. I mean, the movie is a satire of American militarism. It's definitely a critique of American warpower and so on. And it's a very powerful movie in that regard. That satire completely is missed by Donald Trump in embracing the figure of Kilgore, who's meant to be a satirized figure.

But one of the things that happens in Apocalypse now is that Francis Ford Coppola is drawing from this history of colonial genocide. Apocalypse Now is based on Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, which is a devastating condemnation of what the Belgians did in the Congo in the late 19th and early 20th century, killing millions of Black Congolese and their efforts to extract resources from that country. However, in both Conrad's novel and an apocalypse now, the drama is centered on white men. And what gets erased in the case of the heart of darkness is the subjectivity of the Congolese people and what happens in Apocalypse. now is that Vietnamese people are erased and silenced as well. So on the one hand, in these

narratives of liberalism in Joseph Conrad and Francis Ford Coppola, we see a condemnation of racism and war, but also something that's carried out at the expense of the so-called natives and savages themselves. And so that part of liberal narratives of anti-racism, which silences people of color and people from different countries, is something that Donald Trump has intuitively grasped. So that's one of the reasons why I think he's able to use Apocalypse Now to stage a narrative about deportation because in Apocalypse Now, you know, the Vietnamese people have basically been deported from their own narrative.

I wanted to go to the trip you're about to embark on Viet. You're coming to Boston. Then you're coming here to New York on September 21st. You will be at New York's Town Hall, along with another Pulitzer Prize winner, the Palestinian writer Mosab Abu Toha, also Asif Mandev and others. It's an event called Voices for Gaza. And so if you can put together all of this, what's happening in Los Angeles, President Trump declaring war on Chicago, these historic, I mean, the largest, raids on immigrants this country has ever seen, and how you relate that to what's happening right now in Gaza?

My understanding of American history is that it has been a narrative of white nationalism and white supremacy, which has been dependent upon creating and dehumanizing and demonizing various others throughout American history. That power of othering is still with us today. I've certainly experienced it as a Vietnamese refugee who experienced a full brunt of American military power and who came to the United States and saw some of the racism that's been directed at Asians, Latinos, black Americans, indigenous peoples, and war. And so when October 7th happened, what I saw was not simply the tragedy that took place on that day, but an entire

history of genocidal warfare and colonization that Israel had already been engaged in in Palestine. And I identified strongly with the plight of Palestinians because one of the first things that one of the Israeli ministers said after October 7th was that they were fighting human animals by which he meant Palestinians. And that idea of reducing other people to being less than human is one of the key narrative acts that justifies genocide. So I stood up as strongly as I could possibly could and spoke out in support of Palestinians and warned as strongly as I could that this war that Israel would embark in would be a war of genocide. So it's been my honor and my privilege to try to lend my full support to Palestinians, especially to Palestinian writers like

Mosup Abu Toha. And so on September 21st, it will be an event devoted primarily to Palestinian voices and writers, but with a few of us who have been allies to the Palestinian cause as well, we'll be there at Town Hall in New York City and all ticket sales. We'll go to help Palestinian children and orphans in Gaza. Viantan, I remember interviewing you right after the 92nd Street Y. You were invited and then it was canceled. Explain more about that. Well, that happened in late October of 2023. And as I said, when October 7th happened, I reacted very viscerally to those events. And I signed a letter soon after October 7th, along with 750 other writers and artists from around the world, warning about the possibilities of genocide taking place and calling for

a ceasefire. That letter was actually very controversial, and I probably made it more controversial show by posting about it on Instagram and bringing up this issue of human animals and also affirming my support for boycott divestment sanctions. I think it was that consolation of things that got me disinvited from the 92nd Street Y, which is a self-proclaimed Jewish cultural institution. Now, nearly two years later, I think we, the signers of that letter have been validated. It has in fact been a war of genocide. It's been impossible now two years later with so many experts weighing in to deny that a genocide is actually taking place. And so the calls for ceasefire are still important. And so is this demand of recognition of genocide as well.

And so, again, two years later, you know, the, we should listen to Palestinians. We should listen to writers. We should listen to artists. We should listen to scholars who've been dealing with these issues of othering and colonialism and genocide when they tell us what is actually taking place. The comparison you see between, well, going back to Vietnam, and as we speak now, Israel dropping pamphlets and bombs on the largest city in Gaza and Gaza City. The parallels are very striking. The United States, when it went into Vietnam, on the one hand, it was fighting to support an ally, but it was also fighting an enemy at the same time. And basically what the United States did as the journalist Nick Turst documented was to kill everything that moves.

Every dead Vietnamese was counted as a Viet Cong. And that is a genocidal policy that was certainly carried out throughout American history and fighting the Indian wars. And it's the same policy that Israel is carrying out in Gaza as well. Indiscriminate killing of Palestinians. Any dead Palestinian is considered to be a potential enemy. This kind of mindset where there is no distinction between enemy and civilian, is genocidal. It's certainly a policy of ethnic cleansing. It's hard to deny that what Israel is doing is a very deliberately policy at this moment of trying to get rid of the Palestinians

in Gaza. And so I see a distinct structural parallel and similarity between what Israel is doing in Gaza City at the moment and with Trump's rhetoric of deportation. If Trump had his way, he would literally try to deport every non-white person that he can, and he's getting off to a pretty strong start at this moment. We have to leave it there, Vietan Wen, Pulitzer Prize, an author and scholar. We will see you in New York at Voices of Gaza. That does it for our show. I'm Amy Goodman.