Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-09-15 Monday

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

Headlines for September 15, 2025; “Shame on Humanity”: Gaza Doctor Pleads with World to Stop Israel’s Genocide; “The Martyrdom of Charlie Kirk”: Journalist Chris Hedges on the Weaponization of Kirk’s Killing; Judith Butler: Jewish Prof. Among 160 Named in UC Berkeley “Antisemitism” Files Handed to Trump Admin

From New York, this is Democracy Now. I was sitting, preparing some food for the children. People came and said that we have to evacuate to school. We took our things and put them outside. Minutes later, they started to strike the school. Israeli forces destroyed dozens of residential buildings as well as schools over the weekend as Israel moves to seize Gaza City, where an estimated one million Palestinians are sheltering. We'll go to Gaza for the latest. Then, the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk.

That's the headline of the latest piece by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges. We'll speak with him about Kirk's assassination and the first. fallout in the wake of his murder as Trump intensifies his attacks on the left. The problem we have is on the left. And when you look at the agitators, you look at the scum that speaks so badly of our country, the American flag burnings all over the place, that's the left. That's not the right. Then when universities become informants, a practice from the McCarthy era makes an ugly return. That's the head. of a recent piece by University of California Berkeley professor Judith Butler.

I am one of 160 community members at the University of California, whose names are included in files, alleging anti-Semitism that were sent to the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. We've never seen the files. We've never had a chance to rebut the allegation. This is an act of cowardice and capitulation. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Israel continuing its campaign to erase Gaza City by systematically bombing residential high-rise buildings, schools, homes, and tent encampments. Targets struck on Sunday included the Islamic University and the Royal University and the Royal

Tower, which house media and U.N. offices. Israeli officials claim 250,000 Palestinians have left Gaza City in recent days, but residents of the city say there's no safe place to go as Israel moves to displace the city's entire population. I wish someone would look at us as a Palestinian people in a human way. In European countries, there are animal rights, taking care of the animals and the birds. No one is looking at it. after us, the people of Gaza. They are not looking for these children. Our children either die from hunger or strikes, or either they're displaced from the north to the south in harsh conditions. We are approaching winter in tents. Tents don't protect us in the summer during

the heat in the winter, nothing. Israel killed at least 53 Palestinians Sunday, another 25 so far today, including six-year-old twins. Meanwhile, the number of Palestinians who've starved to death has reached 422. We'll go to Gaza after headlines. On the diplomatic front, Arab leaders are holding an emergency meeting in Qatar today to discuss Israel's deadly strike last week, targeting Hamas leaders in Doha. Ahead of the meeting, Qatari Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abder Rahman bin Jassim al-Tani, condemned what he called Israel's barbaric attack.

This Israeli aggression will not lead to anything but aborting, de-escalating efforts and confirm the Israeli government's intentions to reject peaceful paths to resolving the Palestinian issue and to continue defying international will and the UN Charter as evidenced by repeated statements by Israeli officials regarding the annexation of Palestinian territories and the illusions of a greater Israel. Israeli's barbaric and demagogic practices will not deter us from continuing our sincere efforts with the Arab Republic of Egypt and the United States to stop this unjust war. Altani's comments came a day after he had dinner with President Trump in New York. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Marker Rubio is in Israel for a meeting as Israeli Prime Minister,

Benjamin Netanyahu. Rubio will then travel to Doha to meet with Gulf leaders. In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army raided the home of the Palestinian activist and filmmaker Baseladra, who won an Oscar for the documentary, No Other Land. Baseladra said, quote, the police, the army came when the settlers were attacking us. They did not stop them. One of the settlers chased one of the solidarity activists, and he beat her on the ground. The soldiers were watching didn't do anything, Adra said. The film No Other Land documented efforts by settlers to forcibly displace Adra's community

in the area known as Masafayata. In Utah, the 22-year-old man accused of assassinating the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday. Tyler Robinson was detained Thursday night after he reportedly confessed to his father who then reached out to a youth pastor who called the U.S. Marshals. Robinson is reportedly not cooperating with investigators and is being held under special watch. Charlie Kirk was fatally shot while speaking at a campus event. at Utah Valley University Wednesday.

Authorities are still trying to determine a motive in the killing. Tyler Robinson grew up in a deeply Republican family. Authorities say Robinson engraved messages into bullet casings with references to various online and video game memes. Utah's Republican governor Spencer Cox has claimed Robinson had leftist ideology but did not share any evidence. There's also been speculation Robinson may have been influenced by a far-right movement known as Groyper's, which is tied to the white nationalist

Nick Fuentes. Governor Cox said Tyler Robinson's roommate has been cooperating with investigators. Cox also said Robinson was in a romantic relationship with his roommate who is transitioning from male to female. This is Governor Cox speaking Friday. I hear all the time that words are violence. Words are not violence. Violence is violence. And there is one person responsible for what happened here. And that person is now in custody and will be charged soon and will be held accountable. Well, Utah Governor Spencer Cox said there's one person responsible for Charlie Kirk's killing. President Trump sent a very different message when he appeared on Fox News Friday morning.

How do we fix this country? How do we come back together? I'll tell you something that's going to get me in trouble, but I couldn't care less. The radicals on the right, oftentimes are radical because they don't want to see crime. They don't want to see crime. The radicals on the left are the problem, and they're vicious, and they're horrible, and they're politically savvy. Trump also called for Democratic donor George Soros to be jailed. Trump's top advisor, Stephen Miller, has also threatened to talk.

and dismantle progressive organizations after Kirk's killing. We'll have more on this story later in the broadcast. More than 100,000 anti-immigrant protesters marched to the streets of central London, clashing with police injuring at least 26 officers in one of Britain's largest far-right demonstrations in its history. The march was organized by the anti-immigrant activist Tommy Robinson and featured far-right politicians from Germany in France as speakers. Elon Musk also spoke virtually to the crowd, saying, quote, we must have revolutionary

government change, unquote. Several speakers paid tribute to Charlie Kirk. At the rally, the stand-up to racism campaign organized a counter-protest, attracting 5,000 people. A teacher at the counter-protest speaking to Reuters said, quote, the idea of hate is dividing us, and I think the more that we well. people, the stronger we are as a country, unquote. Elon Musk is also in the news today after his satellite internet service, Starlink,

suffered a global outage today impacting tens of thousands around the world, including the Ukrainian military. On Sunday, Ukrainian drones struck one of Russia's largest oil refineries, the Kirishi refinery in Russia's Leningrad region, causing a fire. It comes as Ukraine has been attacking Russian oil infrastructure for weeks. Meanwhile, Romania says a Russian drone entered its airspace Saturday. The Romanian Defense Ministry issued a statement saying that it, quote, strongly condemns the irresponsible actions of the Russian Federation, unquote. Last week, Russian drones also entered Poland's airspace before NATO jets shot them down.

The International Federation of Journalists has condemned Israel for killing at least nine Yemeni journalists in a strike last week targeting the offices of a newspaper controlled by the Houthi government in Sanaa. Some reports say as many as 25 journalists were killed in the strike, IFJ General Secretary Anthony Belanger, said, quote, targeting journalists is a grave violation of international law and attack on the public's right to know, unquote. On Sunday, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Christopher Lando expressed regret over the recent ICE raid that detained 300 South Korean workers at a Hyundai battery plant in Georgia. Landau met with Korean first vice foreign minister, Park Yunju, in Seoul, and discussed a new

visa category for Korean professionals. That's according to the South Korean Foreign Ministry. On Friday, the South Korean workers landed in Seoul to cheering crowds at the airport a week after being chained and handcuffed by ice. In a post on social media, President Trump wrote, quote, I don't want to frighten off or disincentivize investment, he said. On Friday, Sishilakarki, Nepal's former Chief Justice was sworn into office as interim prime minister. After more than 70 people were killed during anti-corruption protests led by the country's Gen Z movement, the protests were sparked earlier this month by a social media ban and escalated into attacks on politicians' homes, the parliament was also set on fire.

Harki becomes Nepal's first female prime minister. We are here to serve the country, and we will only stay here for six months. Not more than that. After completing all the tasks and responsibilities, we will be free, and we will hand it over to the new ministers in the parliament. We have made this promise. The Venezuelan government has accused the U.S. Navy of raiding a fishing boat in Venezuela waters. Personnel from a U.S. warship reportedly boarded the boat and detained nine fishermen

for eight hours. This comes just two weeks after the U.S. blew up a boat off the coast of Venezuela, killing 11 people who the U.S. claimed were drug smugglers. On Saturday, Venezuelan foreign minister Yvang Gil descried the U.S. action. demands the United States immediately ceases these actions that put the security and peace in the Caribbean at risk. In a midnight post on social media, President Trump vowed to call a national emergency and federalize Washington, D.C. After the district's mayor, Muriel Bowser, said U.C. local police would not cooperate with ICE. Last month, Trump deployed over 2,000 National Guard troops in D.C. prompting mass demonstrations by residents. It comes as President Trump told Fox News Friday, he'll deploy the National Guard to Memphis, Tennessee, saying, quote, Memphis is deeply troubled.

Speaking to CNN, the mayor of Memphis, Paul Young, said he's not happy with the decision. In other immigration news, ICE shot and killed a man in the Chicago suburbs, who authorities say was resisting arrest on Friday during a traffic stop. 38-year-old Silverio Villegas Gonzalez allegedly dragged an ICE agent with his car who later fired his weapon at the man. In a statement, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights said, quote, this killing is the latest in a mounting pile of evidence that Trump's mass deportation machine is completely out of control, unquote. Protesters denounced ISIS killing of Villas Gonzalez. This is not fair for our hardworking people who come out here to this country to earn a living. And I do want to say God bless all.

Hopefully it gets best wishes for everybody. Hopefully everything gets better situations. But we do need to tell us to stop scaring our people. Meanwhile, ICE agents in Chicago reportedly abducted, William Jimenez on Friday, Jimenez is a day laborer who's suing off-duty Chicago police officers working as security for Home Depot for abusing migrant day laborers. Jimenez's lawyer, Kevin Arreda, claims he was taken into ICE custody in retaliation for his lawsuit, saying Jimenez is, quote, again being profiled not only for being a Spanish-speaking person in another country,

but for being someone who exposed racism and abuse of power in the United States, unquote. Homeless advocates are denouncing Fox News host Brian Kilmead, who openly called for mentally ill on house people to be executed. Kilmead made the comment during an episode of Fox and Friends. For involuntary lethal injection or something. Just kill them. On Sunday, Kilmeid apologized on air for making what he called. quote, extremely callous remark, unquote.

New York Governor Kathy Hokel has endorsed Zoran Mamdani for mayor of New York City. Mamdani won the Democratic primary in June, but many establishment Democrats have yet to endorse him. Mamdani identifies as a Democratic socialist. Governor Hockel wrote online on Sunday, quote, New York City deserves a mayor who will stand up to Donald Trump and make life more affordable for New Yorkers. That's Zoran Mamdani. Hoko wrote. A major bike race in Spain was forced to prematurely end on Sunday when a massive

pro-Palestinian protest in Madrid interrupted the final stage of the Spanish Wailta. As many as 100,000 took part in Sunday's demonstration, which was organized in part to protest the inclusion of an Israeli team in the race. Meanwhile, in New Zealand, as many as 50,000 people took part in the pro-Palestine March for Humanity Rally in Auckland on Saturday. Protest organizers called on the New Zealand government to impose sanctions on Israel. And many of television's biggest stars displayed signs of support for Palestinians on Sunday at the Emmy Award ceremony. Several actors wore red artists for ceasefire pins, including White Lotus stars, Amy Lou Wall and Natasha Rothwell, Ruth Nega of Presumed Innocent and Chris Perfetti from Abbott Elementary.

The Spanish actor, Javier Bardem, wore a kofia and said on the red carpet, he, quote, cannot work with someone who justifies or supports the genocide, unquote. Hannah Einbinder, who won an Emmy for her role, criticized ICE and called for a free Palestine during her acceptance speech. I just want to say, finally, go birds, ice, and free Palestine. That's the hack star. Other Emmy winners included Stephen Colbert, whose late-night program was recently canceled by CBS, his show won for best talk series for the first time. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report.

I'm Amy Goodman. Israel's intensifying its campaign to seize Gaza City and forcibly displace its residents. An estimated 1 million people are believed to be sheltering there. Over the weekend, Israeli forces bombed more than 30 residential buildings as well as several schools and tent encampments. I was sitting, preparing some food for the children. People came and said that we have to evacuate the school. We took our things and put them outside. Minutes later, they started to strike the school.

We only could get what we're wearing. I'm sitting in a tent. Nothing left for my children. I have no pillow, no blanket, nothing. Should I sleep in the streets with my children? Where should I go? Targets struck on Sunday included the Islamic University in the Roya Tower, which housed media and UN offices. Israeli officials claim a quarter of a million Palestinians have left Gaza City in recent days,

but residents of the city say there's no safe place to go. My home, my safety, my life, my whole life has been spent in this house. It's the safety of my children. Now I can no longer feel safe for myself or my home. I don't know where to go. I'm standing here with nowhere to go. I have no place in the south, no place in Gaza. I have found nowhere.

Where do we go? Someone please tell us where to go. There is no safe place. Everywhere they say is safe, but the bombing continues and death is everywhere. Israel killed at least 53 Palestinian Sunday and another 25 so far today, including six-year-old twins. Meanwhile, the number of Palestinians who've starved to death has reached 422. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Marker Rubio is in Jerusalem to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The U.S. continues to stand by Israel despite calling Israel's targeted military strike on Qatar.

targeting Hamas negotiators last week. The U.S. has called it unhelpful. Five lower-ranking members of Hamas died in the attack in Qatar's capital, Doha. A Qatari security staffer was also killed. We go now to Khan Yunus in southern Gaza, where we're joined by Dr. Muhammad Sacher. He's director of nursing at Nasser Hospital. Thank you so much for joining us, Doctor. if you can describe what's happening right near Nassar Medical Complex,

if you can describe what's happening with the displacement of the population from Gaza City. Yeah, hi. Thanks for having me on your channel. For the current situation now inside Nassar Medical Complex, the current situation really is very catastrophic. Now, for medical stuff, as you know, very little amount of food are allowed to enter Gaza City. So most of the medical staff here work in a very bad condition. Most of them are really hungry and the amount of food is not enough. So all of this stuff suffering from moderate or mild man nutrition.

For, as you know, it has been a long time for more than 20 years working continuously. We are physically really tired and exhausted. And by the way, we can't tolerate any more burden on us. As you know, we are psychologically unstable because we see execution of civilians on a daily basis. Every day we receive in Nazi medical complex, nearly 100 civilians murdered, whether by tanks or gunshots or snipers. And for the medical stop themselves as well, we are unsafe and we are targeted sometimes even inside the hospital. Last month, the Israeli air forces attacked the hospital and killed four of our medical. staff. One was a doctor and the other a nurse and two administrative staff inside the

complex. So as I have just said, the situation we are working and is very catastrophic and Israel doesn't respect the international law and regulations, especially when they target us and kill us even inside the hospital. Let me tell you about the seating capacity of NOSRA medical complex. NOSRMEDICAL complex was designed to receive and deal with 300 and 50 PACE only. Now, the current patients inside the complex is 1,000 patients. So we have no beds. We have to put patients on the ground, no supplies, no instruments.

And the things will go worse when the... The Israeli evacuation orders, the Gaza city, to come here to Han Yunus concentration camp. So it will be more and more tragic to deal with such a high number of civilians and populations. Actually, let me say something important. The world must know. We are here deprived from everything, every human rights. For example, let me say that I don't have. have the right now to buy a shoes, you know, there are no shoes in the city, for example.

So, for me, let me say, for me, I have just one shoes sharing it with five sons, five of my sons. So if I have now, I have maybe $1,000, but I can't find just one single shoes in the whole city to So sometimes at night, I have to walk bare foot without shoes. Something is happening here must stop. This genocide must stop. We are deprived from every single human rights. Sister, let me just explain another thing important here. No goes inside the hospital.

Sometimes we stop the service of dressing because there is no medical goals to change dressing for patients. That led to spread of infection among many of our patients. Sometimes there are no thermometers. So we try to guess the temperature of patients by bulbation and touching the skin of patients in order to guess the temperature of patients. At the time, we don't have CTG machines for fetuses to estimate and measure their heartbeats. Other times, no CBC kids in order to continue investigations, lab investigations.

The things now inside Gaza Strip, and especially in Nose Medical Complex, is really catastrophic and violate every single human rights. And this is really against international laws and regulations. Yeah. Dr. Mohamed Sacher, you are the director of nursing at the Nasser Medical Complex. The Al Jazeera is reporting the Palestinian Health Ministry says at least three people died in the last 24 hours from hunger, bringing the total number of people dead due to starvation to 425, including 125 children. and we also have the reports Israeli forces killed

five people seeking food in southern Gaza. At least five Palestinians waiting for food were killed by gunfire south of Han Yunus. What does it mean to treat people who are dying

of starvation who have been bombed? I mean, the effect of malnutrition and hunger on the body? Yeah. As you know, to explain it more for your audience to understand what is happening here, first let's start with the distribution points, food distribution points. The Israeli army throw the cartons of food on the ground and asking the people to come.

When they take the cartons of food, they start shooting at them. That's why on a daily basis, we receive. 100 or 200s, wounded people, sometimes 300s and 400s, from that distribution sites. When people come to our emergency department, we have two critical crises. The first is the bullets which penetrated their bodies. The second is that the people are really physically deteriorated, you know, deteriorating. They are physically unfit. They are very, very man-nourished.

So you just see people skin on bones, you know? These people were seeking for just food to feed themselves and their children. And when they attack by missiles, tanks, missiles or snipers, pilots, they come here to our emergency department. So we have to deal with two challenges. The first is the injury and the second is the severe man nutrition they are suffering from. And by the way, maybe you don't have a comprehensive view what is happening here in Gaza Strip. Now we have three main concentration camps, and Eunice concentration camp and the middle concentration camp

and Gaza concentration camp. I'm from Kanyunis concentration camp. This camp is nearly 25 kilometers square, 25 only. The number of population inside this camp is more than 1 million people, more than 1 million people, moving only in 25 kilometers. And there is red line. if you cross this line, you will be directly by tanks and military aircrafts. So imagine one million or more than one million people in just 25 kilometers,

suffering from severe malnutrition, a lot of medical system, bread of infection, a lot of things. So now on Nazi medical conflicts, really we are in a critical stage now because we don't know how to focus on wanted, targeted people, mannourished populations, spread of infections. By the way, people here don't find anything to eat. If they find, they find some very minimum amount of food in a very high, cause. Really, these concentration camps kill people gradually, and we have made urgent appear to the international community. Please stop this genocide as soon as possible. This

is a fight not against Palestinians. This is a fight against humanity all over the world. This must end and stop soon. This is like a shame on humanity. to make camps like this, focusing people and concentrating people in like this way, more than one million in 25 kilometers, and killing them inside these camps by tanks and military aircrafts, killing them inside these camps, by snipers, killing these people inside this camp by preventing them from food access and medical access or health care taxes. This is insane. This madness must stop. A sister, I'm not just sad at what is happening here for Palestinians.

I'm really sad at Israel themselves, because their government is putting them at the darkest side of the history. This must stop. And the international community and Junior Council must question the Israeli government, please stop humiliating us. We are not animals to be collected in very poor concentration camps like this, killing us and destroying our houses. And by the way, you know what makes these camps when they destroyed our houses, when they destroyed our hospitals and health facilities, we have no homes, we have no houses, no infrastructure, nothing. So we escape to the west of the city. Now this camp is 25 kilometers.

We are not allowed to pass or cross this camp. If anyone crossed, he will be directly targeted. Sister, they have taken away every single human right from us. We are not allowed to eat. We are not allowed to dress. We are not allowed to buy shoes. We are allowed to eat a very minimum amount of food. Two months ago, we were completely dried from food.

But now, just very minimum amount of food. We are not allowed to wear shoes. We are not allowed to eat vegetables. We are not allowed to eat fruits. We are dying. Dr. Muhammad Sacher, I want to thank you very much for being with us, Director of Nursing at the Nasser Medical Complex near Han Yunus, in the south of Gaza.

Next up, the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk. We'll talk about the assassination of the conservative leader with the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges. Stay with us. Charding Gala which Rendsh Chardtigal in which live in

Chardee Gala Chardigal in which Rhyde Gala in there Bola, Sautreya, Cahat Bolae

Charitya, oh, Na'anakana, by Sunny Singh in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the war and peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. We turn now to the fallout in the wake of the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The 22-year-old man accused of assassinating Kirk is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday. Tyler Robinson was detained Thursday night after reportedly confessed to his father who then reached out to a youth pastor who called the U.S. Marshals. Robinson is reportedly not cooperating with investigators and is being held under special watch in Salt Lake City jail. Charlie Kirk was fatally shot while speaking at a campus event at Utah Valley University Wednesday.

Authorities are still trying to determine a motive in the killing. Tyler Robinson grew up in a deeply Republican family. Authorities say Robinson engraved messages into bullet casings with references to various online and video game memes. Utah's Republican governor, Spencer Cox, claimed Robinson had leftist ideology but did not share any evidence. There's also been speculation. Robinson may have been influenced by a far-right movement known as Gropers, which is tied to the white nationalist Nick Fuentes. This is Utah Governor Cox speaking Friday. I hear all the time that words are violence. Words are not violence. Violence is violence. And there is one person responsible for what happened here.

and that person is now in custody and will be charged soon and will be held accountable. While Utah Governor Spencer Cox said there's one person responsible for Charlie Kirk's killing, President Trump sent a very different message when he appeared on Fox News. How do we fix this country? How do we come back together? I'll tell you something that's going to get me in trouble, but I couldn't care less. The radicals on the right, oftentimes are radical because they don't. want to see crime. They don't want to see crime. The radicals on the left are the problem, and they're vicious, and they're horrible, and they're politically savvy. This weekend, Trump called

for Democratic donor George Soros to be jailed. Trump's top advisor, Stephen Miller, has also threatened to target and dismantle progressive organizations after Kirk's killing. Miller was on Fox News Friday. The last message that Charlie Kirk gave to me before he joined his creator in heaven was he said that we have to dismantle and take on the radical left organizations in this country that are fomenting violence. That was the last message that he sent me before that assassin stole him from all of us. And we are going to do that. Stephen Miller on Fox News. Supporters of Charlie Kirk have also launched sweeping campaigns to target people from making critical remarks about Kirk after his death.

NPR reports at least 21 educators have already been fired, put on administrative leave or placed under investigation by their employers. NBC News reports defense secretary Pete Hegseth has urged his staff to identify any military members who mocked or condoned the killing of Kirk. For more, we're joined here in New York by Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, former foreign correspondent for the New York Times for over two decades, an award-winning author, a regular columnist for Shear Post, where his most recent piece is headlined, The Martyrdom of Charlie Kirk. His most recent book, A Genocide Foretold, reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupy Palestine. Chris, welcome back to Democracy Now. Explain your headline and what you. your concerns are, the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk, about the horrific murder of Kirk. Well, every, you saw that his murder weaponized even before the suspect was apprehended

and the quote unquote radical left being blamed. So in every conflict that I covered, martyrs were kind of the lifeblood of violent movements. You hold up the martyr and any shirking from purging the society through violence of those individuals of groups who are blamed for killing, the martyr is a betrayal of the martyr. And we saw that happen instantly. That's how Kirk's casket goes on Air Force 2. He's awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The flags are half, I mean, and that's only accelerated. He comes out of the Christian nationalist movement, which I

wrote about about a decade ago in my book American Fascist, the Christian Right in the War in America. It's a movement I know very well. I'm also a seminary graduate. And I think we've reached a very frightening turning point. I think that he will, we've already seen

an assault on civil liberties, on institutions, universities, the media that are tasked with maintaining an open society. That will now be accelerated. I don't take any of this rhetoric lightly. I look at it as three phases. First, we saw those who protested the genocide attacked as anti-Semites, although a significant percentage, 20, 30 percent were probably Jewish. That was a way to shut down free speech. Then we saw undocumented workers being targeted and demonized as criminals and all this kind of

stuff as a way to build Trump's version of the brown shirts, this rogue paramilitary group ICE with all of these detention centers. I mean, the budget is now larger than all federal law enforcement agencies combined ICE. These detention centers are not going to be exclusively for undocumented workers. And now we're seeing the radical left demonized to shut down individuals and organizations that dissent from the rapid consolidation of this police state or authoritarian state. I want to go back to President Trump. This is the president speaking in Marstown, New Jersey, on the tarmac Sunday before boarding Air Force One. Well, the problem is on the left. If you look at the problem, the problem is on the left.

It's not on the right, like some people like to say on the right. The problem we have is on the left. And when you look at the agitators, if you look at the scum that speaks so badly of our country, the American flag burnings all over the place, that's the left. That's not the right. So that's President Trump. Before there is any evidence revealed, after Utah Governor Cox says we have to be very clear this is the work of one person. I mean, for example, when Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City building and killed over. 160 people. People didn't say they're going to go after white Christian men. But what about what Trump, what Stephen Miller is doing and saying they're going after leftist organizations, they're going talking about flag burning? When was the last flag burning? I don't remember one.

Well, it's all fictitious. They've already started going after these organizations. But this has given them a green light to lift all constraints. And we've seen, you know, a bill was the Florida, what was his name, Best or Most, I don't remember this in the House, where groups that supposedly provide material support to terrorism can have their citizenship revoked. Remember Tom Cotton right after 9-11, wanted to prosecute or go after mainstream media organizations, AP, CNN, the New York Times, for using pictures, graphic pictures from October 7th and from the genocide. So the process has already begun.

Universities such as Columbia have already capitulated, and CBS is about to be turned over to a rabid Zionist and Bari Weiss, if everything goes through. We've already seen that assault. But now, in the name of the martyr, Charlie Kirk, I think that they will carry out activities that will essentially in the end and look to Miller because Stephen Miller is the one who's kind of organizing all of this, just as he has with the assault on undocumented workers and on immigrants, they will begin to shut down organizations. I'm sure they're not very happy with democracy now.

They essentially intend to create a closed society, a police state, and authority, authoritarian state under the rubric with the kind of ideology of what I call Christian fascism. I mean, I label these Christian nationalists as heretics. Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale capitalized on Kirk's death to advocate for a takedown of the red-green alliance of communists and Islamists, who he claims have united to destroy Western civilization. He proposes an app where citizens can upload pictures of crime and homelessness in exchange for property tax rebates?

Yeah. Yeah, well, that's the kind of lunacy. You know, it's the old, you know, the Vatican and the Masons and the communists, you know, where these subterranean dark groups all come together. The kind of idea that there's a left, far left, radical left alliance with Islam is insane. It's absurd.

but we've left the rational universe for one of magical thinking. You quote in your piece, Elon Musk, who wrote on X, if they won't leave us in peace, then our choice is to fight or die. Yeah, that's one of the interesting things. All this came out on my substack, crusagetist.substack.com. So I found the quotes, again, remember, this was before the suspect had been apprehended. There was almost a giddiness to it.

You know, I'm certainly certain that there were people who were upset about his death, but they, Bannon and others, they, you know, there was almost an excitement about the launching, the war has already been launched, but really prosecuting this war on what's left of our anemic institutions tasked with defending an open society. You wrote in your piece, Kirk's killing is a harbinger of full-scale social disintegration. His murders given the movement he represented grounded in Christian nationalism, a martyr. Martyrs are the lifeblood of violent movements, any flinching over the use of violence, any talk of compassion or understanding, any effort to mediate or discuss is a betrayal of the martyr and the cause the martyr died defending.

Yeah, and from the moment he was killed, that was essentially the role that he was given in terms of perpetuating this assault. Can you talk about what happened over the weekend at a vigil for Charlie Kirk in Huntington Beach, California, when the chant broke out, white man fight back, the intersection of white supremacy and Christian nationalism that Charles. Charlie Kirk represented. Again, we talk about this as he was horrifically assassinated this past week. Yeah, well, that hyper-masculinity is key to the movement. And there's a great work by, I think, Thessowade called Male Fantasies, where he talks about the importance of hyper-masculinity to fascist movements. And Charlie Kirk, you know, he very much pushed this.

He pushed Trump, for instance. He was one of the principal agents of the Trump cult, fostering the Trump cult. And that hypermasculinity is very much part of the Christian right. When I did my book, you would actually see pictures of kind of a very muscular Jesus. They embrace the jihad or the crusade against Muslims during the wars in Iraq, writing Bible verses on guns and this kind of stuff. But that hyper masculinity is key, and it appeals to disenfranchised white. males. I mean, most of the country at this point, especially young people are disenfranchised, but it plays very well to white males. Before we go, you sat here watching Dr. Suckard, who was the head

of nursing in Gaza, Nasser Hospital, extremely gaunt. Our radio audience couldn't see that. And you talked with me at the break about you haven't been a reporter in Salvador for the New York Times and who you met there. Not the Times. But I wasn't with the New York Times in Salvador, but I was there for five years, and I shared my apartment with one of the founders of Med San Domingo, Alina Margolis. She was in the Warsaw Ghetto. She was Mary DeMaric Edelman, who was the deputy commander of the Warsaw Ghetto, and every story she told me about the Warsaw Ghetto fits at this point with Gaza, including the forced starvation and baiting people in the ghetto to get on the transports by giving them two kilos of bread and marmalade, which is exactly.

they're using food, poultry amounts of food as a bait to lure starving Palestinians to the south of Gaza and putting them into these concentration camps. Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, award-winning author and activists, a regular columnist for Shear Post. His most recent piece is headline, The Martyrdom of Charlie Kirk. His most recent book, A Genocide Foretold, Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine. Up next, we go to Professor Judith Butler. Their latest piece, when universities become informants, a practice from the McCarthy era, makes an ugly return. Professor Butler's name was one of 160 given to the Trump administration by UC Berkeley in connection with, quote, anti-Semitism complaints.

Stay with us. I've been a lonely girl. I've been a lonely girl, but I'm ready for the world. Oh, I'm ready for the world. I've been a heart for hire. I've been a heart for hire. And my love's on the funeral pyre. Oh, my love's on the funeral pyre.

When will you, when will you help me out? You can't even pick me out of the crowd. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Hungry Ghost by Linda Segarra of Hooray for the riffraff in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman. We end today's show looking at the Trump administration's escalating crackdown on academia and free speech. University of California, Berkeley, said Friday, it's provided Trump officials with the names of at least 160 students, faculty, and staff, complying with a federal investigation into a legislative. anti-Semitism on college campuses.

On September 4th, UC Berkeley's top lawyer, David Robinson, sent a letter to each person whose name and information have been shared with the federal government. The letter said in part, the Education Department's Office of Civil Rights, quote, required production of comprehensive documents, including files and reports related to alleged anti-Semitic incidents, unquote. The latest comes after UC Berkeley Chancellor, Rich Lyons, was grilled by Republican lawmakers in Congress in July on anti-Semitism. This is Republican Congress member Lisa McLean of Michigan questioning lions.

So why do you think Jewish students don't feel safe at your university in which you're in charge of? Just curious. Well, I think part of safety for most people is some of it is physical, some of it is more emotional. And am I being harassed, but not necessarily being confronted. potential violence. So I've admitted already there is anti-Semitism on campus. What was Republican Congressmember Lisa McLean of Michigan questioning U.C. Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons in July? The Trump administration's targeted dozens of colleges across the country an aggressive crackdown on Palestinian solidarity activism and peaceful protests,

threatening to cut off federal funding to academic institutions, persecuting in particular international students involved with the pro-Palestine movement. Scholars and others have likened these attacks to McCarthyism. Last week, a federal judge in Boston handed Harvard University of victory saying the Trump administration's freeze on billions of dollars in federal research funding was illegal. In her ruling, Judge Allison Burroughs said she found it, quote, difficult to conclude anything other than that the Trump administration used and anti-Semitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically motivated assault on this country's premier universities and did so in a way that runs a foul of federal law, the federal judge

wrote. For more, we're joined here in New York by Judith Butler, philosopher, political commentator, gender studies scholar. Judith Butler is among the UC Berkeley faculty whose names were handed over to the Trump administration. Their distinguished professor in the graduate school of the University of California, Berkeley, and the Hannah Arendt Chair at the European Graduate School. They're on the Academic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace. Judith Butler is the author of numerous books. Most recently, Who's Afraid of Gender? And their new piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education is titled,

When Universities Become Informants, a practice from the McCarthy era makes an ugly return. Welcome to Democracy Now. It's great to have you with us. So your name is one of 160 that Cal, that UC Berkeley handed over to the Trump administration? Yes. It's good to be here, Amy, and thank you so much for the coverage of Gaza that you've been providing so consistently from October 7th on and before.

And it's extremely important for all of us that you continue to do so. Indeed, Gaza is the background for this particular issue at UC Berkeley because the students, the faculty, the staff who have opposed genocide or who have supported Palestinian rights and freedoms have been consistently accused of anti-Semitism, even though there is no good evidence that anti-Semitism is rampant on campus. to take a position against genocide is certainly not an anti-Semitic thing to do. Most Jews are against genocide, and we were taught to be against genocide, and we were taught as well that never again is a slogan that should apply to all people.

But a genocide can't take place without suppressing political speech, and without suppressing educational efforts that will explain what genocide is and how it's happening now. So part of what we're seeing is the accusation of anti-Semitism being used as a cudgel to suppress speech to threaten people. And it is, of course, appalling to me as a UC Berkeley faculty member who put 30 years into that institution or almost to see that the administration would hand over names and file. when we ourselves, many of us, at least, most of us have never been apprised of the allegation. We still don't know what the allegation is. We don't have any access to the file. So the internal...

Was it the first time you learned that your name was handed over on Friday when you got the letter from the Cal lawyer? Yes, it's the first time I learned that there might have been an allegation against me, and I still don't know what the allegation is. So some students have gone through investigations. they know what the allegations are, and their files were forwarded. But most of us learned that there is an allegation, that it was forwarded, and we also learned that we have never known what the allegation is. We still don't know.

We have no right to know. And the reason for that is that the internal protocol of the University of California, it has an office for the prevention of harassment and discrimination, it stopped, it ceased to operate. rate in light of this investigation. This investigation from the Department of Education took precedence over internal protocols. So we don't have any rights to know the allegation against us. And how does it put you at risk? Well, I am probably less at risk than most of the other people who are named, which is one reason I've gone public with this. But there are

students named, who are international students, who are on visas. There are lecturers named who do not have protections under academic freedom, who also sometimes are on visas. They can be detained. They can be abducted. They can be, as we know, from Tufts, from Colombia, they can be stopped on the street, they can be detained, they can be deported, they can be, they can lose their job, they can lose their place in the university, become expelled. I wanted to play a clip before the end of the show. I mean, the coming together of all

of what happened last week, the assassination of Charlie Kirk. In late May, he posted this exchange with a student on his official YouTube channel. The humanities as they're configured are wretched to the core with anti-Western teaching,

anti-American literature. What do you mean? Anti-Western teaching? An emphasis on Herbert Marcusea and Angela Davis and Kimberly Crenshaw and Judith Butler and what Derek Bell. What's wrong with Angela Davis? She's a great woman. With Angela Davis, the outspoken vocal communist? Yeah. She's a great woman.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's why kids shouldn't go to college to learn from communists. That was Charlie Kirk, who we just have 30 seconds for your response. Well, I'm very proud to be put in a club with Angela Davis and Kimberly. Krentshaw. I mean, that's just beautiful. And I, you know, I stand by them. And hopefully we're all able to continue educating and lecturing without further political repression. I want to thank you, Judith Butler, for being with us. We're going to do part two after the show and posted at Democracy Now. Judith Butler is a philosopher and professor at the University of California, Berkeley,

will link to their new piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education headlined, when universities become informants. A practice from the McCarthy era makes an ugly return. That does it for our show. Very happy birthday to Sam Alcoff. Democracy Now produced with Mike Burke, Renee Feltz, Dina Guster, Messiah Rhodes, Nermaine Sheik, Maria Teresana, Nicole Salazar. I'm Amy Goodman.