Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-09-16 Tuesday

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

Headlines for September 16, 2025; ICE Kills Immigrant Father After Traffic Stop, Detains Day Laborer Who Sued Chicago Police; Block the Bombs to Israel: Rep. Delia Ramirez Denounces Genocide in Gaza; Bishop William Barber Condemns Charlie Kirk Murder and the Right’s Religious Nationalism; U.S. Acts as “Judge, Jury & Executioner” in Venezuelan Boat Strikes, Killing at Least 14

From New York, this is Democracy Now. The department that is responsible for protecting the people from foreign terror. has become the Department of State Terror. They're unconstitutional. They're unaccountable. They're violating people's rights to due process. In Chicago, an ICE agent shot and killed a man last week during a traffic stop. So Vario Villegas had just dropped off his child at school.

We'll speak with Chicago Congress member Delia Demeres. then ICE detains a Chicago day laborer after he sued a group of off-duty Chicago police officers who were working Home Depot security. Was it retaliation? Then to Bishop William Barber. There was a brutal, ugly, on-camera assassination of brother Charlie Curtis.

All of us should denounce it. But, if you didn't get bothered by the political death that's happening in this country, the political violence, and the public violence, until the other day, this must be challenged too. Bishop Barber says political violence has no place in a democracy. Neither does religious nationalism, he says. And finally, to Venezuela. As it did in September 2nd, the Trump administration has once again

attacked the Venezuelan boat in international waters, violating all existing laws and declaring itself judge, jury, and executioner without providing the least amount of evidence. We'll speak to Venezuelan historian Miguel Tinker Salas. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. A United Nations inquiry has found Israel's committed genocide during its nearly two-year assault on the Gaza Strip. Earlier today, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory said in a 72-page report,

Israel's government is responsible for four of the five acts prohibited under the 1948 genocide convention. The report holds three Israeli leaders responsible, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former defense minister Yoav Galant, and President Isaac Herzog. Navy Pillay, who heads the commission, drew parallels between Israel's assault on Gaza and the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Genocide is occurring in Gaza. In the Rwandan genocide, the group were the Tutsis, and here the group are the Palestinians. The findings could be used by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court for the UN's International or the UN's International Court of Justice.

Meanwhile, Israel's military says it's launched a major ground offensive to seize Gaza City and displace its one million residents. Gaza health officials report at least 68 people have been killed by Israeli air strikes since dawn today, most of them in Gaza City. This is Fatima, an elderly resident of a tent camp, close to the Al-Gafari building. in western Gaza City, which Israel bombed into Rubble Monday. I cannot stand on my legs out of fear. Enough hunger, thirst, and fear.

When they did this, I collapsed completely. I cannot walk. The Palestinian civil defense reports Israel's blown up over 50 Gaza high rises in recent weeks. In Geneva, Francesca Abenazi, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, said Monday Israel's military. He's destroying entire neighborhoods and the remnants of buildings where people were seeking shelter. It's trying to forcibly evacuate the 800,000 Palestinians who were seeking refuge there. But the question is, why? Why? Because this is the last piece of Gaza that needs to be rendered unlivable

before advancing the ethnic cleansing of that piece of land. And then probably they will, move to the West Bank. Israel's defense minister said, Gaza is burning. Lebanon's health ministry says an Israeli air strike on a residential building, injured 12 civilians in the Nabatia region of southern Lebanon Monday. Four children, seven women were among the wounded. Israel's repeatedly attacked Lebanon despite a ceasefire deal signed in November.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio's in Doha today for talks with Qatar's Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Pani, in the wake of Israel's deadly strike last week, targeting Hamas leaders in Doha. Rubio's trip comes after leaders in the Gulf Cooperation Council said Monday that agreed to activate a mutual defense pact in response to Israeli aggression. Meanwhile, Axios reports, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed President Trump last Tuesday morning that Israel planned to attack Hamas leaders in Qatar nearly an hour before the strike took place. That report contradicts White House and Trump claims that Trump was notified only after missiles were in the air, giving him no opportunity to oppose the strike.

President Trump said Monday the U.S. had carried out a strike against a second boat. He alleged was carrying drugs from Venezuela, killing at least three people on board. Trump made the announcement on social media and posted a video of an apparent airstrike showing a speedboat erupting in flames. This follows a strike earlier this month on another boat, also allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, which reportedly killed 11 people. Speaking to the New York Times, Rear Admiral Donald Goethe, a retired top judge advocate, said, quote, Trump is normalizing what I consider to be an unlawful strike, unquote. Here's Venezuela's President Nicholas Maduro speaking shortly before the second strike. This is not tension.

It is outright aggression, judicial aggression when they criminalize us, political aggression with their daily threatening statements, diplomatic aggression, and ongoing military aggression. Venezuela is empowered by international law to comprehensively confront. front this aggression. It is not tension. It is aggression. We'll look at Trump's attacks on Venezuela later in the broadcast with Venezuelan historian Miguel Tinkarsalis. FBI director Cash Patel says investigators have found DNA evidence linking 22-year-old shooting suspect Tyler Robinson to the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in Utah last week. Utah County prosecutors will formally arraign Robinson today. They're planning to seek the death. penalty. On Monday, Vice President J.D. Vance vowed to dismantle institutions on the political

left that he claimed are promoting violence and terrorism. Vance made the remarks while hosting Kirk's podcast, The Charlie Kirk Show. Of course, we have to make sure that the killer is brought to justice. And importantly, we have to talk about this incredibly destructive movement of left-wing extremism that has grown up over the last few years. And I believe leave is part of the reason why Charlie was killed by an assassin's bullet. We're going to talk about how to dismantle that. Joining Vance's call for retribution were White House advisor Stephen Miller, spokesperson Carolyn Levitt, and Health Secretary RFK Jr. Since Kirk's killing, scores of politicians, public figures, and private sector workers have faced firing,

suspensions, or investigations over their comments about the assassination. Among them, the Washington Post's last remaining full-time African-American opinion columnist Karen Attia. In a post on Substack Monday, Attia wrote, quote, last week, the Washington Post fired me. The reason? Speaking out against political violence, racial double standards, and America's apathy towards guns, she wrote. In Utah, a law allowing people with permits to openly carry guns on college campus, is being questioned in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination. Before the bill's passage last month,

firearms had to be concealed on college campuses in Utah. Meanwhile, Florida's attorney general says people can now openly carry firearms in public after the state's appeals court struck down a 40-year ban on the practice. President Trump signed an order Monday authorizing the deployment of National Guard troops to Memphis, Tennessee, in support of a new federal task force to combat violent crime in the city. Trump's order came just days after the Memphis Police Department reported crime is at a 25-year

low with robbery, larceny, and burglary all at record lows over the past eight months. Tennessee Democrats gathered in Memphis Monday to condemn Trump's crackdown. This is State Representative Justin Pearson, who represents Memphis. Today, it is a conversation about crime. In 14 months, it will be a conversation of, about protecting the vote at the voting booth. And three and a half years, it's going to be about a presidential election and the need to protect it.

And what happens when we go to the polls and the National Guard is there and all they're doing is asking you, are you sure you want to vote? This isn't just a slippery slope. This is a dangerous impediment on our democracy. Meanwhile, President Trump said Monday that New York Governor Kathy Hokel's endorsement of Zoran Mamdani in the New York City mayor election was court. Quote, a very bad one for New York City, unquote. Trump suggested he would consider holding back federal funds from New York City if

Mamdani is elected. After headlines, we'll look at Trump's escalating immigration crackdown on Chicago with Congressmember Delia Ramirez. Trump has also threatened deploying U.S. troops to Chicago. A New York Times reporter has revealed how a member of the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates invested two. billion dollars in the Trump family's cryptocurrency company just days before the UAE received access to rare artificial intelligence chips. Back in May, Sheikh Tanun bin Zayed al-Nahehan invested

$2 billion into World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency startup run by the Trump and Whitkoff families. Steve Whitkoff is President Trump's special envoy to the Middle East. Two Later, the Trump administration approved the sale of hundreds of thousands of AI trips to the Chips to the Emirates, despite concerns that the chips could be shared with China. The Times report did not directly link the two deals, but cast suspicion on the timing. Ryan Cummings, Chief of Staff at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy, said, quote, if this is true, this is the largest public corruption scandal in the history of the United States. United States, and it's not even close, he said. The Trump administration said Monday, it's reached a deal with China to keep TikTok operational in the United States after Trump threatened to shut down the popular social media platform

saying it poses a national security concern. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson said Trump will speak with Chinese leader Xi Jinping Friday to finalize the deal. It's not clear who the U.S. viral be, but it's widely expected to be led by Oracle co-founder and chair Larry Ellison, who last week briefly surpassed Elon Musk as the world's richest person. Larry Ellison has a decades-long history with the Republican Party and has frequented Trump's Mar-a-Lago for dinners and has met Trump in the Oval Office. He's also an ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu donating money to Israel's

military through the nonprofit Friends of the Israel Defense Forces. This comes just months after the Trump administration cleared the way for an $8 billion merger between Paramount and Skydance, which is run by David Ellison, son of Larry Ellison. According to the Wall Street Journal, Paramount Skydance is exploring a bid for Warner Brothers, Discovery, which would put two of Hollywood's most powerful legacy studios under the same owner. Meanwhile, Paramount Skydance is reportedly in talks to hire Barry Weiss as editor-in-chief or co-president of CBS News. Weiss has opposed diversity and inclusion programs as an ardent supporter of Israel's war on Gaza. Her publication, The Free Press, has called widespread reporting on famine conditions there a myth.

Senate Republicans have confirmed one of President Trump's top economic advisors, Stephen Myron, to the Federal Reserve Board. In an unusual arrangement, Myron will only take a leave of absence from his role as chair of the Council of Economic Advisors instead of resigning from his post. Myron says he intends to return to the White House after his term ends. The move allows Myron to attend the Fed's two-day meeting to set interest rates, which starts today. Meanwhile, U.S. Appeals Court blocked Trump's attempt to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook before today's interest rate meeting. In an opinion, appellate judge Bradley Garcia wrote, quote, before this court, the government does not dispute that it provided Cook no meaningful notice or opportunity to respond to the allegations against her, end quote.

President Trump has repeatedly demanded the Federal Reserve cut interest rates fast and is threatened to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Fired federal prosecutor Maureen Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, is suing the Trump administration for her sudden termination in July. As a U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Comey had worked on several high-profile cases, including against convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirator Yelaine Maxwell. Comey's lawsuit claims she had been fired for, quote,

her father's protected speech or because of her perceived political affiliation and beliefs or both, unquote. The lawsuit also notes that the far-right activist Laura Lumer had called for Comey's firing on social media. And in El Salvador, protesters took to the streets Monday to demand the release of activists and human rights defenders jailed by President A.E. Bukele, a staunch ally of President Trump. The protest came as El Salvador marked its 204th Independence Day celebrations.

This is opposition lawmaker Claudia Ortiz. El Salvador is on the path to an authoritarian system. An authoritarian system where the state is more important than the individual. And that should not be the case. The state exists to serve the individual, their dignity and their freedom. The state must provide legal certainty. But in El Salvador, the opposite is true. And those are some of the headlines.

This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman in New York with Democracy Now's Juan Gonzalez in Chicago. Hi, Juan. Hi, Amy, and welcome to all of our listers and viewers across the country and around the world. Just days into Trump's deployment of hundreds of federal immigration officers to Chicago, ICE agents fatally shot Silverio Villegas Gonzalez after the 38-year-old father panicked and began to drive away in his car trying to evade arrest. Minutes earlier on Friday, Villegas Gonzalez had dropped off his children at school. Ice claimed he dragged an ice agent with his car.

The officer then fired his weapon. Villegas Gonzalez was unarmed and had no criminal record. He was born in Michoacan, Mexico, and worked as a cook. The killing came as the Trump administration intensifies its immigration crackdown in Chicago under so-called Operation Midway Blitz, which DHS assistant secretary, Trisha McLaughlin, claimed would target, quote, the worst of the worst. The Cato Institute revealed earlier this year that 65 percent of immigrants arrested in Trump's raids had no criminal, convictions, and over 93% were never convicted of violent offenses. Protesters gathered in the Chicago suburb of Franklin Park over the weekend, demanding justice for Villegas Gonzalez.

This is not fair for our hardworking people to come out here to this country, to earn a a living, and I do want to say God bless all. Hopefully it gets, the best wishes for everybody. Hopefully everything gets better situations. But we didn't even if I stopped scaring our people. So Viguez Gonzalez's family has organized a fundraiser to help cover the costs of his funeral and burial. In a statement they wrote, he was, quote, someone who always extended a helping hand, shared a smile freely, showed up for those he loved, no matter of the circumstance.

As ICE agents swarm the streets of Chicago, advocates also reported the abduction of William Jimenez-Gonzalez on Friday. He's a day laborer who's suing off-duty Chicago police working as security for Home Depot for abusing immigrant day laborers. His legal team says he was taken into custody by ICE in retaliation for his lawsuit. This is Miguel Alvalho Rivera, Executive Director of Latino Union of Chicago, speaking Saturday at a press conference. In the initial stages of preparing the lawsuit, we made sure William and the other workers understood the potential risks of going public about what they had experienced. Once people know who you are and that you're standing for justice, they might bother you more than before. took a deep breath. And in our group's meeting, he said, I know. But I'm not only doing this to just get justice for myself and my compas. I'm doing this because I don't want anybody else

to ever have to live through what I have lived. This all comes as President Trump is moving to deploy National Guard troops to Memphis with threats that Chicago will be next. For more, we're joined by two guests in Washington, D.C. Representative Delia Ramirez, Democratic Congress member from Illinois, is with us. She's the first Latina Congress member to represent Illinois. And in Chicago, we're joined by Kevin Herrera, legal director of Raise the Floor Alliance, an attorney for William Jimenez Gonzalez. Congress member, let's begin with you.

And the killing of Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, he was stopped in a traffic stop after bringing his kids to school. Explain what you understand happened next. First of all, what happened to Silberio is absolutely devastating. What we understand is that the ICE report that they released and the footage we have seen does not match. Ice is saying that the agent had been dragged for a long distance. The footage shows that it was less than 100 feet. The footage also shows that there was an unmarked SUV that barricaded Silberio. I mean, the point is, eyes stopped a man right after he dropped off his child at school because he's brown, because maybe he looked like he worked a minimum wage job, and then shot him to death.

And Congresswoman, the boss of Silvedio in the hero, in the hero shop where he worked, claimed that he worked 11 hours a day, that he was, a model worker, and your response to this continued criminalization of what is essentially many hardworking immigrants here in the country? I mean, Juan, not only that, what people haven't talked about that, not only was your father to a seven and a three-year-old, he had full custody of these children. These children were left orphans because of ice and the action they took that morning. is bone chilling. People are asking in Chicago and certainly all over the country, if I get stopped because I'm brown, if I get stopped dropping off my child, will my child see me get shot

by ice because there's no justice, no accountability in this precise moment in what they're doing? And that is a test. And I think truly devastating of our justice system that there are agents who can do whatever they want and they don't have to abide by any enforcement and accountability. And what's been the response to the Chicago community from the grassroots organizations to City Hall to the governor in terms of these attacks and the threats of President Trump to bring in the National Guard into Chicago as well? Well, first one, we need a thorough investigation of what happened. The footage, the witness as we have talked to do not match what the ICE reports show. I think in order for people to feel

like justice has been served, we need to know what exactly happened, the protocols, what training or lack of these agents had. How many agents were there? I think it's really important because people are asking themselves if Silvedio could get shot, what will happen to me? And so I will say to you that people on the ground around the city, and certainly we've seen around the country, They are saying we want to see justice for Silberio. We want to know the truth. And organizations around the city are doubling down, providing protection, rapid response, showing up. Senator Karina Villa in West Chicago, another part of my district, where a number of agents showed up and started surrounding factories and schools, literally showed up and said to ICE, you do not get to be here.

Show me warrants if you want to arrest someone. So that level of organizing with the local electives, the grassroots organizations, That is what people are counting on to feel like there's some sense of community coming together to protect them. But that's why I'm talking about filing legislation that begins to defund ICE, but also starts putting parameters of accountability here in Congress because we cannot allow what's happening to Silberio or children who are being left in a car as they take their mother and father on a main street as we saw in Chicago as well this weekend. I'd like to bring in Kevin Herrera, also the lawyer for William Jimenez-Gonzalez.

if you could talk about the circumstances of your client being abducted by ICE agents on Friday? Sure. Mr. William Jimenez-Consalès is a brave, kind, hardworking man here in Chicago. And on Friday, he was on his way to the barbershop with his wife, Marty, having worked a full week to get in, you know, a little self-care and relaxation. They were stopped by ICE agents on their way into the barbershop. Those ICE agents told him his full name, asked him to confirm that he was indeed William Alberto Jimenez-Gonzalez, and he confirmed that fact. When he chose to do so, they abducted him, took him into custody, and then he disappeared from contact with myself, with his wife, for two days.

Mr. Jimenez-Gonzalez, we believed, was in Braaview facility. I went there that same day on Friday to try and find him in the suburbs of Chicago. I received no acknowledgement at that correctional facility or the transfer processing center, I guess it is. And when I tried to speak to guards and tell them I was an attorney with a client inside, they wouldn't acknowledge my presence. In fact, they waved their hands in my face. A day later, we gathered with Representative Ramirez, who's on the call, as well as Representative Chui Garcia and Latino Union and supporters from his community.

to call for information about him, to call for his release in front of that Broadview facility. Moments later, we received a phone call, letting us know that he was in Broadview, but we got nothing more for the rest of the day. I filed a petition for habeas corpus at about 1230 at night that night, but the following morning, I was told that he was moved out of state. So that's where we sit with Mr. Jimenez-Gonzalez. Kevin Hedera, can you explain his, is it a class action lawsuit against police? who were being security for Home Depot and what that lawsuit is about?

Sure. We believe Mr. Jimenez-Gonzalez has received special attention from ICE, from the federal government because of his role, not in a class action, but as a plaintiff among four other day laborers, as well as an organizational plaintiff Latino Union, which we filed in August 24, or 2024, against Home Depot. This, city of Chicago and off-duty police officers. Mr. Jimenez-Gonzales was one of among several individuals who was pulled into Home Depot while they were off of Home Depot property by private security guards. And we've mentioned before that Mr. Jimenez-Gonzales acts as a day labor, so he was seeking work from customers in the public outside of Home Depot. But once he was

pulled inside, he's taken to a back room, beaten, and then made to sign a paper saying that he had committed trespass. So the functions of this operation, by off-duty police, working his Home Depot security, was to essentially force people who were undocumented into the criminal legal system by forcing them to sign papers. Throughout the process, The allegations have been that this was an abuse via the assault. This was an unlawful deprivation of rights under civil rights laws which don't allow for false arrest. And also civil rights laws that don't allow for false allegations of crimes. What's ironic is that the ICE press releases around Mr. Jimenez-Gonzalez's arrest

have pointed to his criminal record of trespassing, which stems from these abuses at the Home Depot. as a reason and justification for his apprehension and disappearance. Congress member Delia Ramirez, you're calling for the defunding of ICE? I am. I think it's really important for us to understand. $150 billion were just inserted into this organization, into this terror organization. That would be as big as the fifth largest army in the world. They have no guardrails.

There are no controls. They can do what they want. People, the family of Silberio, are asking, Who is investigating what happened to him? What will justice look like? And there's no guardrails. I have said it before. It is time for us to start defunding them

and also start establishing accountability that is so desperately needed right now. You have to go, Congressmember Ramirez, but I wanted to ask you about this latest news. United Nations inquiry has concluded Israel's committed genocide in Gaza. This is Navi Pillay, who headed the commission. In our report, the Commission found that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces committed and are continuing to commit

the following underlying acts of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, one, killing members of the group, two, causing serious bodily or mental harm, to members of the group, three, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its. physical destruction in whole or in part, and four imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. Congress member Delia Ramirez, you have called for, you has recently held a news conference with Mahmoud Khalil and others, calling for an arms embargo against Israel.

I'll explain. Yeah, well, first of all, Israel is committing a genocide, and I think it's indefensible for anyone to in this moment try to make an excuse of what's happening and allowing it to happen under our watch. I have a bill. It's a specific concrete bill that blocks bombs to Israel. It is one of the first bills in its nature where now we have 47 members of Congress who have joined the bill and it says we are going to withhold weapons.

We're not going to allow Donald Trump and Bibi Net in Yahoo to just easily make a transfer of these weapons that we know have violated international law and killed babies. This afternoon I will be having a deep discussion with a number of my colleagues. calling for them directly in a meeting, urging them to join this bill immediately and bring it to a committee hearing in armed services in the jurisdiction of the bill. Yeah, I just wanted to ask Kevin Herrera, in the lawsuit that your plaintiffs filed, they talked about as well the way that Venezuelans were singled out by these off-duty police, that they picked up the Venezuelans and beat them and had them arrested, but not other day laborers.

Could you talk about that as well? Yes, that's correct. Based on the facts that we've heard from each of our plaintiffs, the off-duty police officers and Home Depot security who dragged those individuals into the back of the Home Depot and abused them, also used nationalist epithets regarding their ethnicity, specifically accusing them. of being Venezuelan, of being recent arrivals, of being someone that the government didn't want there. One of our clients who's Colombian told them that he was Colombian, and they said he was lying and proceeded to hit him again. So with William, one of the satisfacts of his case is that he was profiled initially during the first trauma that he experienced at the Home Depot. And now, over a year later, he's been profiled again via the ways in which ICE is selected.

people based on the color of their skin, based on their language and how they speak it, whether they speak with an accent. And here, apparently, based on their ability to speak out and call out injustice and racism in the United States, William was double profiled. And now he's suffering consequences within the ICE detention system after he'd already been through so much at the Home Depot. Kevin Hedetto, we want to thank you so much for being with us. Of course, will continue to follow this case, legal director of Raise the Floor Alliance. He's an attorney for William Jimenez Gonzalez speaking to us from Chicago. And thank you also to Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Chicago, the first Latina Congress member

to represent Illinois. And this sad news just in, the acclaimed Oscar-winning actor Robert Redford died early this morning at his home in Utah. He was 89 years old. He founded the Sundance Film Festival, which will be for the last time in Utah this next year, and then move on to Boulder. Again, the Oscar-winning director and actor, Robert Redford, has died at the age of 89. to see all of our interviews with Robert Redford at Democracy Now, as we attended the Sundance Film Festival over the years, go to Democracy Now.org. Coming up, Reverend William Barber, talking about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Christian nationalism, and more. Stay with us.

In the hog of thee forsaken, got no reason to cry. He got to chew the angels, falling from on high, waiting for no answer, baking wawful pie. Pie of eyesight, pie blue-black. Oh, that pie, the pie of pie and pie. In the hog of thee forsaken, he will leave you one more chance, which if you won't be taken, he'll leave it for the end. Sings out in the wilderness,

sings for friend and foe. He sings of these and those times as well as the times to go. The Hog of the Forsaken by the late folk legend Michael Hurley performing in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. Prosecutors are expected to file charges today in the murder case of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who is fatally shot last week during a campus event at Utah Valley University.

The alleged shooter, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson of Utah, is currently in custody and may be facing the death penalty. He'll be arraigned today. Charlie Kirk was a well-known figure in the MAGA movement, a close ally of President Trump, through his organization. turning points USA. He's credited with mobilizing young conservative voters expanding Republican turnout in 2024. He also reached a wide audience with his podcast, The Charlie Kirk Show. Kirk strongly identified as a Christian and didn't believe in the separation of church and state. This is Kirk speaking in 2022. Of course, we should have church and state mixed together. Our founding fathers believed in that. We can go through the details of that. They established literally a church in Congress.

While the motives for the murder are not known at this time, President Trump and his allies are accusing the political left of fomenting violence. President Trump was questioned about this by a reporter at the White House yesterday. Given the killing of Melissa Horton, the attack on Paul Pelosi, the attack on Gabby Giffords, the attack on the Pennsylvania governor's mansion, why make the case that violence is only on one side? I didn't say it's on one side, but I say the radical left causes tremendous violence, and they seem to do it in a bigger way, but the radical left really has caused a lot of problems for this country. I really think they hate our country.

Last year, a unit of the Department of Justice published a major study on domestic terrorism. It found, quote, since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, unquote. The DOJ removed the study after the Charlie Kirk killing. For more, we're joined by Bishop William Barber, President of Repairors of the Breach, and Founding Director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School, also national co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign and leader of the Moral Monday's movement, co-author of the book White Poverty, how exposing myths about race,

and class can reconstruct American democracy, joining us from Raleigh, North Carolina. Welcome to Democracy Now. Your response to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Bishop of Barber. I pause for a minute, only because of the last statement that you made where you said that they removed the study where the facts did not line up with the narrative that the president and Stephen Miller and others were seeking to put out. And I just said, I'll come back to that, but I just had to stop for a moment. I want people to hear that who are listening in.

You know, this past week, there was a brutal on-camera assassination of brother Charlie Kirk, and we must all despise it. As one, I've known what it means to live with people who send your threats and want to see your demise. And because we're human beings, we should be. despise violence against any other human being. We should despise that it left him dead, his wife, broken, heartbroken, without a husband, his children, without a father.

And all of us should be bothered. All of us should denounce political violence and pray for the family and stand against this viciousness and violence. murder. We've had too much as yesterday. We had a moral Monday on September 15th, remembering that after March in Washington, 17 days afterwards, four girls were blown up in a church in Birmingham, what they called Birmingham at that time, with a white supremacist trying to stop the civil rights movement. And Dr. King said at that time, he raised the issue of not just who killed her, but what killed her.

And so we should all be, be, be, be deeply moved, deeply bothered. But here's the other side, and to your audience. If you didn't get bothered by political death until the other day, this must be challenged, too. The prophets in the Bible and even in the Jesus in the New Testament, they talk about how our trouble in nations is rooted in political violence. So if we, if you're bothered by what happened last week, you can't be quiet and not cry out against what happened to some politicians earlier this year or in Minnesota. If you're bothered by that type of what happened last week,

you have to cry out also against the 800 people who die every day from poverty. and over 200 some thousand who die every year from policies that cause violence among the poor. You have to cry out against the hundreds of thousands that die needlessly, die needlessly during the height of COVID and still die from the lack of health care, the lack of health care in a nation where politicians in the middle of the pandemic refuse to ensure health care. And one study said over 350,000 people died not from COVID, but from the lack of health care. You have to cry out against any kind of political violence. You have to cry out against the violence perpetrated against the homeless and accented by policies that say lock them up

rather than build housing or when a Fox News host says, just kill them. Just give them a lethal injection. You have to cry out against threats of political violence in all of its form. The president saying I can stand in the middle of the Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and I wouldn't lose any follows. You have to stand against the violence we see happening in Gaza and the Congo and Yemen. America has been facing a turning point in this society for some time. And the question is, when will America say that death and violence is no longer an option? Not just as terrible as it was. We have to have a real, real serious moral debate about political violence in this nation. Reverend Barbara, I wanted to ask you during a recent speech at a Senator Bernie Sanders rally in North Carolina,

you called Christian nationalism, quote, heresy by another name. Could you talk about that? Well, the reason I called it is because of what the scriptures say. If you go to the ancient scripture Isaiah 58 that is lifted up by Jews, Muslims, and Christian, it says that the kind of religion, the kind of fasting that God requires is not just saying that everybody pray. I'm paraphrasing.

It says the kind of religion that the Lord wants is to speak truth to the nation, to tell the nation that's sin, to cry out against oppression, against paying people less than what they deserve, against those things that hurt and cause more homelessness. Throughout the scriptures, there are more than 2,000 scriptures. You go to the New Testament,

it says a nation will be judged by how you treat the least of these. And what happens with so-called religious nationalism is that it attempts to lift the flag above the cross. It attempts to suggest that one political side, or one political party or one political framework is, in fact, God's way, when in fact the scriptures are clear about that. And what heresy is when you take something that is truth and you try to twist it, when you try to twist faith to support political violence, when you try to twist faith, fake faith

to give you the right to denounce even those who are trying to live out the call of love and justice. We're not, and this is not the first time, we've had a debate with a kind of religious nationalism. Religious nationalism was what undergirded the slave masters. They created a religion that said their slavery was all right. It was the kind of religious nationalism that was formed to come against Franklin Donald Roosevelt when he called for the New Deal. There was a religious nationalism that came against Dr. King and many others who were standing up for civil rights. We've always had this debate in this nation.

we need to have it even the more today. Because on the one hand, you cannot claim that you believe in a God and a Christ of love and justice and mercy and grace and

truth. And then you push policies that pray, P-R-E-Y on the very persons and the very communities that the scriptures, that the example of Jesus and the prophet tells us we should not only pray for, P-R-A-Y for, but we should also be lifting up and helping up and protecting.

On Monday, Vice President J.D. Vance hosted the Charlie Kirk show and interviewed Stephen Miller, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy at the White House. Vance asked Miller to elaborate on how the administration would be working to prevent what he called the, quote, festering violence that you see on the far left in reference to the assassination of Kirk. We are going to channel all of the anger that we have over the organized campaign that led to this assassination to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks. So let me explain a little bit of what that means. We've got 30 seconds. It's a big quick, Stephen.

The organized docks and campaigns, the organized riots, the organized street violence, the organized campaigns of dehumanization, vilification, posting people's addresses, combining that with messaging this design to trigger insufficiency. violence and the actual organized cells that carry out and facilitate the violence. It is a vast domestic terror movement. And with God is my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people. It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie's name. So that was Stephen Miller talking to J.D. Vance who was hosting Charlie Kirk's daily podcast

because Kirk was assassinated. We just have 30 seconds, Bishop Barber. But as they talk about the left as terrorists and taking down the network in Charlie's name, can you respond? Three things real quickly. First of all, when people of faith or Christian, we're supposed to do things in Jesus' name,

not in somebody's name. And that Jesus would not be taught what he's talking about there. Secondly, you just said at the beginning of the program that they had documentation of what's really going on, factual evidence, and they removed it from the website because they don't want to deal with the truth. And instead, they want to use a tragic violent death that all of us should be against and should be concerned about and use that to stoke more

division, possibly more violence, more ugliness. And that is wrong. It is undemocratic. It is unjust. And it does not line up with their oath to establish justice, to promote the common defense to promote the general welfare and to ensure domestic tranquility and equal protection under the law. What Steve Miller should be working on is stop terrorizing immigrants, stop pushing policies of health care that are going to cause people to prematurely die, stop being against living wages, and stop trying to undermine equal protection under the law. That's what you ought to be doing. And we ought to do that in the name of all that is holy and good and gracious, and we ought to do it in line with our deepest political, constitutional values

and our deepest faith values. Bishop William Barber, want to thank you so much for being with us. President Repairors at the Breach, National Co-Chair of the Poor People's Campaign. Coming up, President Trump announces the U.S. bombed another Venezuelan boat, killing three people. Stay with us. Raised on MTV I've seen all them kids

So the pipe pads None of them look like me So I started Looking around For the light out of the dim The first thing I heard It made sense was the word with Mohammedi's steel upon him.

How should I do? Lae la, la, la, la, la, la, there's no god. John Walker's blues by Steve Earl performing a Democracy Now. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the war and peace report. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. On Monday, President Trump announced the U.S. bombed another boat. in international waters near Venezuela, this time killing three people.

He claimed the targeted boat was carrying drugs from Venezuela, posted video of a speed boat erupting in flames from an apparent airstrike. Two weeks ago, the U.S. bombed another boat in the region killing 11 people. Trump also claimed that boat was carrying drugs, though some have speculated the passengers, 11 people on board, may simply have been migrants. In a third incident, the U.S. Navy recently raided officials. boat in Venezuelan waters. Personnel from a U.S. warship reportedly bordered the boat, then detained nine fishermen for eight hours. The escalating U.S. military action against Venezuela

comes after President Trump signed a secret directive approving the Pentagon's use of military force in Latin America, supposedly to target drug cartels. On Monday, War Secretary Pete Hegseth, issued a warning to drug cartels, writing on X, quote, We will track them, kill them, dismantle their networks throughout our hemisphere at the times and places of our choosing, Heggseth wrote. In recent weeks, the U.S. has sent multiple warships to the Caribbean. The U.S. military has also been carrying out military exercises in Puerto Rico. Last week, Heg Seth and Air Force General Dan Cain, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

made a surprise visit to Puerto Rico. Trump has also ordered the deployment of 10 F. 35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico. We go now to California, where we're joined by Miguel Tinkarsalis, emeritus professor of history at Pomona College in Claremont, California, the author of The Enduring Legacy, Oil, Culture, and Society in Venezuela, as well as the book Venezuela, what everyone needs to know. Professor Miguel Tinkercas, welcome back to Democracy Now.

What does everyone need to know about one attack after another on Venezuela, Boats, at this point, killing, what, 11 people in the last few weeks? We have a very clear example of political theater, an attempted provocation, an ongoing effort at regime change, and the strategy of trying to use the military to interdict drug trafficking, which has failed incredibly in Mexico, Colombia, everywhere else the U.S. has applied it. So if we look at this, in the context of what's going on right now, undermining it. underscoring most of it is attempt

at regime change, some tensions within the White House or within the administration between realists who want to actually engage with Venezuela and exchange oil, as we saw with a Chevron license, and others led by Marco Rubio, who have taken us back to the Cold War and violent

regime change in Latin America. And Miguel, could you talk about particularly the role of Rubio in this? Because obviously with two top posts, a secretary, State and National Security Advisor. He is a very influential person in the Trump administration. And obviously, this doubling of the reward for Maduro and the accusations by the U.S.

government that he's the head of the so-called Caltel de los Soles. It reminds us all of what happened with Noriega decades ago in Panama. But it also reminds me of Iraq. And again, the whole notion of weapons of mass destruction. that weren't there. In Venezuela, the use of Cartel de los Soles can actually be traced back to 1993 and the role the CIA played in trafficking over a ton of cocaine from Venezuela with several Venezuelan generals before Chavez into the U.S. as an effort to try to track Colombian cartels, which was a complete failure. And again, it reminds us that Marco Rubio

plays a fundamental role because he also represents in large part the Venezuelan opposition in South Florida. And here we have a case of someone like Amichel in the case of Iraq, informing U.S. policy indicating that there's going to be pressure or an explosion in Venezuela if Trump does these actions. And it hasn't happened. But they are nonetheless looking for cracks within the Venezuelan military. They're looking for fissures. But Rubio plays a key role as an interlocutor between the right wing in Venezuela and the U.S. administration and an effort at violent regime change. I wanted to ask you as well about these attacks on boats.

The first boat that was attacked where 11 people were reportedly killed, there have been reports in New York Times and other media that this boat had actually turned around and was headed back after it noticed that there was a U.S. planes were tailing it. Your response to these, in essence, extrajudicial killings? Well, this is, again, where the Trump administration established itself as judge, jury, and executioner. There is always a lot of traffic between Sukre, the state of Sukre and Venezuela, and the island of Trinidad. Many of these individuals were trafficking between the two countries.

To think that drug traffickers are going to put 11 people on a boat where that space is critical for actually trafficking other material illegal materials or drugs is absurd. So more than likely, they were trafficking undocumented immigrants going to Trinidad, as they have historically since the 18th and 19th century. So in this context, it was an extrajudiciary killing. There's been no evidence. And even if there was evidence that the case of trafficking does not merit execution. As the Coast Guard has done in previous occasions, they interdict, they board the ship,

they arrest the individuals, they provide the evidence. we have no evidence. And the notion that trafficking from Venezuela is it runs against the very notion that the U.S. military assessment in April of 2025, where it said that less than five to seven percent of drug trafficking occurs through Venezuela, while Trump is putting the military in the Caribbean Sea, most of drug trafficking over 90 percent takes place in the Pacific. So it's illogical to think that a flotilla off the coast of Venezuela is going to stop drug trafficking, whether it's cocaine or otherwise. And again, to Trump's point yesterday, Venezuela does not have a source of fentanyl.

Fentanyl is the domain of the Mexican cartels. So again, he is misleading the population, is misleading the public, and indicating that these were drug traffickers with no evidence whatsoever. And finally, your assessment of the continued claim of the United States that this so-called gang in Venezuela, Tren de Aragua, is a terrorist organization? Well, I think that calling drug traffickers or any gang terrorist

has a political purpose. If you label them terrorists, then you lay the groundwork for a political intervention, military intervention, or an effort in regime change. We saw that in the case of Panama. We saw that in the case of other countries. We saw that debated in Mexico where Trump told Mark Espers that he wanted to launch cruise missiles

cruise missiles into narco laboratories. Again, the notion of attacking a sovereign country, attacking its citizens, is contrary to international law, to the law of the sea, and it's a direct violation of principles held for over several decades. I mean, a judge recently ruled that because we're not at war with Venezuela, they can't just wholesale the Trump administration deport or remove Venezuelans. Do you think that President Trump is trying to provoke Venezuela into doing something so the U.S. will be at war? And do you see this as a distraction, perhaps from the Epstein files or whatever President Trump doesn't want us to focus on at home?

I wrote about that in an op-ed last week with a colleague in La Jornada, in which we argued that the loss at the 5th District, court puts the Trump administration in a bind. They want to deport 650,000 Venezuelans. They use the enemy aliens act as the pretext. The court rejected it. So now he has a choice of going back to the fifth district or the Supreme Court. It's a case of Wag the Dog. If we all remember the movie in 1997, where you create a war, you create a conflict in order to distract attention from what's happening in the U.S. So there is a national component, a U.S. component to this conflict. there's a Venezuelan component, but they dovetail nicely around the issue of the deportations as Trump seeks to distract the tension from the Epstein case and from the economy and from

other issues that are occurring in the U.S. Finally, Vice President J.D. Vance dismissed accusations that the first attack on the boat that killed 11 people, may have been a war crime if civilians were on board. Vance wrote on X. I don't give rhymes with hit. what you think, he said. I don't give what you call it using the expletive. He was responding to Republican Senator Rand Paul, criticizing Vance's comment saying what a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is

to glorify killing someone without a trial. You have 10 seconds, Professor Tinkasales. Again, the U.S. puts itself above the law, above international law, and places itself as an judged jury and executioner without ever providing any evidence. Professor McGill Tinker Salas, Emeritus Professor of History at Pomona College in Claremont, California.

You can go to our website for our interview with him on Spanish at DemocracyNow.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez for another edition of Democracy Now.