Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-10-16 Thursday

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

Democracy Now! Thursday, October 16, 2025

From New York, this is Democracy Now. I'm staying here. There's no water, no life, but I'm staying on the rubble of my home. I'm living over my home, and I will not leave my home, even if it's the last day of my life. Displaced Palestinians are returning to their old homes to find nothing but ruins. We'll go to Gaza to speak to save the children as Israel continues to severely limit aid trunks into the Gaza Strip. Then as the U.S. government shutdown enters its 16th day, the Trump administration's giving a $20 billion bailout to Argentina's right-wing president, Javier Milley. We're going to work very much with the president. We think he's going to win.

He should win. And if he does win, we're going to be very helpful. And if he doesn't win, we're not going to waste our time because you have somebody whose philosophy has no chance of making Argentina great again. As the Supreme Court appears poised to further weaking the Voting Rights Act, we will talk to the ACLU and dozens of Pentagon reporters from almost every. major network, including Fox, have turned in their press badges instead of agreeing to sweeping new restrictions on what they can report on. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the war and peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. Israeli officials say they'll further delay the reopening of the Rafah border crossing between

Egypt and the Gaza Strip, as Israel continues to severely limit humanitarian aid to more than two million Palestinians still suffering from hunger and malnutrition, as well as severe shortages of medicine, clean water, and other basic goods. Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports Israeli fires killed at least three Palestinians so far today despite the ceasefire deal that went into effect last week. Israeli officials have threatened to end the truce if Hamas doesn't return all the bodies of the dead Israeli hostages. On Wednesday, Hamas said it had turned over two more bodies, bringing the total number to nine, but said it would need specialized equipment to search through the rubble to find the bodies of 19 remaining captives. Many believe killed by Israeli strikes.

The Israeli military is not allowing in that specialized equipment. Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians who were forced by Israel to flee their neighborhoods are returning to find their homes in rubble. This is displaced as a city resident, um, al-Abel al-Fiumi. There is no work, no food, no drinks, no housing, and now winter is coming. By God Almighty, I'm telling you, I swear we don't have blankets. I have nothing, nothing at all. I left, and my house was destroyed, and I'm still in the same situation.

and now we're suffering. Where are we supposed to live? Where are we supposed to go? What are we supposed to do? There are about 36 of us here, me, my grandchildren, my daughters-in-law, and my children, and we don't know where to go or where to turn. The popular Palestinian leader, Marwan Barguti, is suffering rib fractures after being beaten unconscious in an Israeli prison. The Palestinian Prisoner's Media Office said Wednesday. his son Ara Barguti said the assault took place as his father was being transferred between prisons in Israel. According to Ara Barguti, the beating allegedly took place after far-right Israeli National Security Minister Tamar Ben-Gavir visited Marwan Barguti in prison in August and showed him a picture of an electric chair telling him he deserved to be executed. Marwan Barguti has been in prison for 20 years, serving five life sentences.

Israel prevented his inclusion on the list of Palestinian prisoners to be freed as part of the ceasefire deal. In Spain, hundreds of thousands of workers and students walked out of schools and workplaces Wednesday in support of the Palestinian people, calling on the Spanish government to sever ties with Israel. Huge crowds marched in Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao, Sevilla, and Madrid. My conscience no me would never be in house. My conscience wouldn't allow me. me to be home. It's taken so long. It's been two years for people to mobilize and say, stop the genocide. Spain should cut economic and diplomatic ties with the Israeli government.

They speak nice words, but until we break ties, Israel will keep on doing whatever it wants. The Swedish activist, Greta Thunbury, has provided details about the abuse she and other participants of the global Samud flotilla suffered in Israeli detention after they were abducted on the high seas while attempting to bring food and medicine to Gaza. Tunberg describes a visit by Israel's national security minister, Itimar Ben-Gavir, to the Ketsiodt prison where the activists were being held. She says, he shouted, you are terrorists, you want to kill Jewish babies, and those who shouted back were taken aside and beaten. Tunbury says she was repeatedly kicked by guards, forced to undress, and was held in an insect-infested cell.

where she was deprived of food and water. She says she was repeatedly called a whore in Swedish by the Israeli guards who scrawled the word and other profane graffiti on her suitcase. Dumbdi said, quote, if Israel, with the whole world watching, can treat a well-known white person with a Swedish passport this way, just imagine what they do to Palestinians behind closed doors, unquote. President Trump says he's authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela. This comes, as the U.S. says, it destroyed five boats in the Caribbean Sea,

allegedly carrying drugs, reportedly killing 27 people. Four of those boats allegedly came from Venezuela. Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Trump said, quote, we are certainly looking at land now, because we've got the sea very well under control, unquote. In response, the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro lashed out at the possibility of further U.S. intervention. No to regime change, which reminds us so much the endless failed wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and so on. No to CIA orchestrated coup d'Aas, which recalled the 30,000 disappeared, and the CIA-backed coups against Argentina, Pinochet's coup, and the 5,000 young people who were killed or disappeared. Dozens of reporters handed in their access badges,

and walk out of the Pentagon Wednesday afternoon, instead of agreeing to the Defense Department's new press policy, the policy states media outlets and reporters cannot obtain any information that the Pentagon does not explicitly authorize. About 40 to 50 journalists from major news outlets left together before the 4 p.m. deadline. Jack Keene, a retired U.S. Army General and analysts for Fox News, Defense Secretary Pete Hedgesse's former employer said, quote, they want to spoon-feed information to the journalist, and that would be their story. That's not journalism, he said. Only the One America News Network agreed to sign on to the Pentagon's new press policy.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared ready to strike down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. During oral arguments, justice has expressed skepticism over whether Section 2 of the landmark 1965 law should be allowed to continue. Section 2 outlaws the creation of election districts that dilute minority groups voting power. This comes as Republican state lawmakers in Texas, Missouri, and Utah are pushing ahead with mid-decade redistricting efforts in 2025 ahead of next year's midterm elections. Other redistricting battles are underway in California, North Carolina, and Ohio as Republicans seek to hold their House and Senate majorities. The federal government shutdown has entered its 16th day on Wednesday, judge temporarily halted the Trump administration from laying off 4,000 government workers across eight agencies siding with unions. In her ruling, Judge Susan Ilston wrote that the White

House Budget Office and Office of Personnel Management have, quote, taken advantage of the lapse in government spending and government functioning to assume that all bets are off, that the laws don't apply to them anymore, and they can impose the structures that they like, unquote. The ruling came as the Senate failed to pass a funding bill for the ninth time on Wednesday. In immigration news, the Trump administration is preparing to deport a man arrested by ICE on the same day he was freed from a Pennsylvania prison after serving 43 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit. On October 3rd, 64-year-old Sabramanyam Vedam walked free from Huntington State correctional institution, where he'd been held for over four decades after his conviction

for a 1982 murder was vacated. His freedom came three years after the Pennsylvania Innocence Project uncovered evidence prosecutors had buried an FBI report that would have exonerated him. He was immediately arrested by ICE agents acting on a decades-old deportation order. He's now being held at an ICE jail in central Pennsylvania and set to be deported to India. that M's niece told the Miami Herald, quote, He left India when he was nine months old. He hasn't been there for over 44 years,

and the people he knew when he went as a child have passed away. His whole family, his sister, his nieces, his grandnieces, were all U.S. citizens, and we all live here, she said. The Trump administration's considering a plan to radically curtail refugee admissions to the United States while giving preference to English speakers, white South Africans, and Europeans who oppose migration. That's according to documents obtained by the New York Times, which reports the proposals would transform a program aimed at helping the most vulnerable people in the world into one that gives preference to mostly white people who say they're being persecuted. Among the beneficiaries would be members of the Alternative for Germany Party, known as AFD, whose leaders have revived Nazi slogans,

minimize the Holocaust and promoted anti-immigrant hatred. Members of the Democratic Women's Caucus on Wednesday marched through the Capitol and to Speaker Mike Johnson's office with representative elect Adelita Grajava demanding she be sworn in. Grahava won a special election in Arizona more than three weeks ago. She would be the final vote on a discharge petition to release the Epstein files. On Tuesday, Grahava reported she finally had access to her congressional office. but that the phone lines aren't working and there's no computers or internet in the office. Meanwhile, convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein's co-conspirator, Ghislane Maxwell, is reportedly receiving preferential treatment at a minimum security prison in Bryan, Texas.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Maxwell met with several visitors in the federal prison camp's chapel back in August, while hundreds of prisoners were placed on lockdown and forced to stay in their dormitories. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the war and peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. And I'm Narmine Sheikh. Welcome to our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. Israel is threatening to relaunch its war on Gaza just days after the U.S.

broke its ceasefire took effect. Israel has accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire deal after failing to return over, turn over the remains of all 28 deceased hostages in 72 hours. Earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, quote, the fight is not over yet. He said Israel is determined to secure all of the remaining bodies. Meanwhile, defense minister Israel Katz has reportedly instructed the Israeli military to develop new plans to defeat Hamas.

On Wednesday, Hamas said it had turned over two more bodies, bringing the total number to nine, but said it would need specialized equipment to search through the rubble to find the bodies of the 19 remaining. captives. Israel has not allowed the specialized equipment into Gaza. Speaking at the White House, President Trump acknowledged Hamas is facing a difficult task. Well, they're looking for them. Absolutely. They're looking. So we have the living hostages all back. They return some more today. It's a gruesome process. I almost hate to talk about

it. But they're digging. They're actually digging. There are areas where they're digging and they're finding a lot of bodies, then they have to separate the bodies. You wouldn't believe this. This is, and some of those bodies have been in there a long time. And some of them are under rubble. They have to remove rubble. This all comes as Israel's military continues deadly attacks on Palestinians. Al Jazeera reports Israeli fire killed at least three Palestinians so far today. Meanwhile, aid groups say far more food and aid is desperately needed as Israel continues to severely limit the number of aid trucks into the besieged territory. We go now to Dera Balach in Gaza, where we're joined by Rachel Cummings, Save the Children,

International's Humanitarian Director and Team Lead in Gaza. Rachel, describe what's happening on the ground, even as the ceasefire has taken effect. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, in Gaza now, there is a sort of cautious optimism since Thursday when the ceasefire was announced, but of course the needs of children and their families has not changed since that time. What we need is to be able to run our nutrition centres,

our health clinics, provide the learning opportunities, the child protection services and of course, life-saving interventions including water. To allow us to do that, we need humanitarian supplies to enter into Gaza alongside commercial supplies with certainty and at scale.

And Rachel, if you could say, Hundreds of thousands of Gazans now are attempting to return to what was once their home. Is aid reaching them as they make this journey? And many of them, of course, finding that there's nothing left of their homes. You know, the scale of the destruction and devastation across the whole of Gaza is extraordinary. Yesterday, I drove from Derobella through Canunas. And every single building is damaged or destroyed. and people are living under the rubble.

And, of course, as you said, hundreds of thousands of people are in desperate need of shelter of essential supplies. We're soon to be entering into winter. It's getting quite cold now in Gaza, and people have completely inadequate shelter to protect them from the elements. People need shelter tents.

They need blankets. We need all of these items, including basics like children's clothes, children's shoes, to protect people in this winter period. But no, we do not have enough supplies entering Gaza. And as I said, these need to come in at scale and consistently. And if you could say, Rachel, you know, Anarwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has said they have a three month supply of food for everyone in Gaza. And they're just waiting, just outside Gaza, and they're just waiting to get in. Do you know what the status is

of Anurwa? I mean, are they still banned from work? working there? And when will these trucks get in? UNRWA continue to provide services, health, essential services, health, education services in Gaza. Save the children, along with many other humanitarian actors in Gaza, have supplies on the other side of Gaza and are trying to navigate the complexity of bringing these supplies in. We've been very fortunate with our partnerships with the United Nations with UNICEF with WHO to allow us to continue providing the services in our health centres and our nutrition points by receiving supplies from them inside Gaza

for the last since March actually. So what we need, again, is these humanitarian supplies, owner supplies, other supplies, to enter to Gaza. We have them outside. We know, as humanitarian agencies alongside the UN, how to do safe and dignified distributions. And this is what's needed now, again, at scale and consistently Can you talk about what has happened with the, to say the least, controversial, shadowy Gaza humanitarian foundation where so many people, men, women, and children who were seeking aid were killed on their way to getting food?

Is it operating at all right now, the U.S.-backed Israeli group that was solely allowed to provide aid? How is all the aid? How are the international groups resuming control of distributing food? So my understanding of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is it is no longer operating. We've heard reports that some of their sites have been dismantled and closed down, but I have no other information than what's publicly available. In terms of humanitarian organizations and the UN, of course, who are still able to bring in supplies.

And we've seen this increase in the number of supplies that have been able to enter since the ceasefire was announced on Thursday. We have very strong relationships with communities. Save the children's been working in Gaza since the 1950s. We know our communities and how to serve people in Gaza. And really the critical element of that is the relationships that we have and the communication and the trust that we are holding with the communities.

So if we're able to bring in our supplies, communicate with the communities that these are coming, the distribution is going to be safe. And therefore, what we need to ensure, of course, during distributions of any kind is that the most vulnerable people, the child-headed households, the pregnant women, the elderly, the disabled, are prioritized because we know through many, many experiences that these are the most vulnerable in these times. And Rachel, finally, if you could just comment on a report, the Guardian reporting, saying that it's not enough to just count the number of trucks getting into Gaza because not all the trucks are carrying aid that is helpful to people in Gaza on Wednesday. The Guardian reported that commercial operators are sending convoys of trucks full of chocolate, fizzy drinks and snacks, which have, of course, very little nutritional value. Do you know anything about this? And also, who are these commercial operators? Well, we see this in the markets in Gaza. Throughout this war have responded whenever supplies, whether commercial or humanitarian, enter into Gaza.

And now the markets are responding to that entry of supplies and we see chocolate and cans of drinks in the market. But we also see nutritious food. We see rice, we see flour, we see food and we see vegetables. But what we need, of course, in addition, to the humanitarian and commercial supplies entering into Gaza is services and children need essential services, including the health centres, the nutrition centres, but also learning and child protection. You know, we're now at this cautious optimism where children are able to start

building hope and hope for the future. The bombs have stopped dropping for the first time significantly in two years, and that allows us, as an organisation like St. the children to work with children to build hope for the future with the services that we're providing. Rachel Cummings, want to thank you for joining us, Save the Children International's Humanitarian Director and Team Lead in Gaza, Indira Balah. As we turn now to Han Yunus, we're joined by Maureen Kaki, head of mission for Glea International, a medical solidarity organization that sent doctors to Gaza.

Maureen has been in Gaza since June of last year. She's recently been assisting international doctors with translation for Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails. This is one newly released Palestinian, Majit Abbott, who is detained nearly two years ago. The situation is extremely, extremely hard for young men, no food, no drink, no medical care. They face constant oppression, torment. I wish everyone would pay attention to their situation. May God protect everyone. Thank God.

It's an indescribable feeling. So, Marine Khaki, if you can talk about the people you have translated for, what is very clear from the images we're seeing of Palestinians who have been released from Israeli prisons, what some 1,700 apparently in Gaza more released. in the Occupied West Bank is how thin they are, almost skeletal, though they are all wearing those heavy gray sweatshirts. Describe the experiences that you have heard of these people.

Yeah, Amy, it was really, really tragic to listen to the things that they had to share. Some of the, I mean, some of it they didn't have to share. Some of it was visually represented on their body. and the way you were describing. But three folks that we saw and talked to in particular had fresh gunshot wounds from as late as three weeks ago that were all in their leg, in their thigh. It was like the same place. They had every single one that I spoke to had described the same experience of the fact

that since the ceasefire was announced, they were only allowed toilet water to drink. They were not given any food. Some were beat by Israeli forces as early as two hours before their arrival into Gaza while they were waiting on the bus. Everybody described torture, both like brutal sort of beatings to different parts of their body, but also sort of, quote unquote, soft forms of torture where they were forced to kneel or sit in an uncomfortable position for several, several hours at a time. It was, yeah, it was really horrifying what they had to share. And Maureen, if you could give us some details, who are the prisoners that you've been talking to? What kinds of facilities were they held in?

And were most of them held under administrative detention? Had they been charged? Had there been a trial? Or were they just awaiting trial? Yeah, thank you for that question. So none of them had been charged. This was all actually, they were all being illegally detained, like under the practice that you named Israel's administrative detention. which, and they all described the fact that they were not given any kind of lawyer.

They weren't given any kind of communication to the outside world. And in fact, Israelis were telling some folks that their whole family had been killed, and in some cases that wasn't true. In some cases, they just didn't get any news at all, and they came back to learn that their family had indeed been killed by Israel. And so these are people who, I mean, there was a range of folks. There were young men as young as 21 years old, I explicitly remember, and then elder men as old as mid to late 50s. And most of the people that I spoke to were just taken from their homes after their homes had been attacked by Israeli fire at some point.

And then they were either injured or disoriented and taken from their homes or the places that they, they were when they were attacked. And so, yeah, yeah, I mean, there's no, there's no, there's no, they're, they're, they're, they're, they were taken hostage by the Israeli military. So again, of these well over a thousand men, um, close to 2000, were not charged, the ones that were released in Gaza. No, no, they were, they were being illegally imprisoned as captives, um, by, by the Israeli military and then the Israeli government.

And where were they held, Maureen? There were different prisons that they were at in occupied Palestine and in Israel. The conditions under which they were held, so scabies was so rampant in prison Palestinians that the Ministry of Health had actually prepared care packages that included scabies treatment for everyone because that's how much of a blanket problem it was. So they were held in confined, cramped spaces where other Palestinians, like you, you guys had mentioned before from the West Bank are also held under administrative detention, including children.

One of the men that we just showed who was weeping on the ground on his knees had just learned that his wife and children had been killed in an Israeli air strike. He was holding a little bracelet he had for, I believe, his two-year-old. Had they had any information as they were being held about what was happening on the ground? They were not. The gentleman you're talking about, actually, he was one of the first people to come through. I was in the room when he received the news.

And they were not. I asked them, actually, one of the things I was doing was offering my cell phone so they could call their families. And often, because there were so many people in the area, and because Israel had ruined the infrastructure, it was hard to get cell reception. and so they told me, can I send a message? And if they call you back once I leave, can you just tell them that I'm physically okay

and that I will find them? So there was no communication being allowed to happen at all, at all, in the entire time that they were held captive. Some of them were held captive for as little as three months and some of them for several years. Maureen Kaki, we just want to end by asking why you are there. You are head of mission for Glea International. You've been in Gaza for well over a year.

You actually come from Texas. Yeah, I'm Palestinian-American, and so this is a personal struggle for me in the sense of, you know, our people are one people, whether it's the West Bank where I'm from, or in Gaza or in occupied Palestine. And so it matters to me that I can serve my people in this way, even if it's as small as it is. But the other thing is that I am a tax-paying American citizen. And I feel absolutely disgusted by the fact that our country continues to use taxpayer dollars to fund Israel's occupation and violence against Palestinians. And so for me, it was an easy decision to try to do this kind of work to kind of not to offset the violence that I contributed to financially in the U.S., but to find some way that I could ease my own guilt in that sense.

And, yeah, it's been the greatest honor of my life to be able to be here in Gaza and do the little that I can to help. Maureen Kaki is head of mission for Glea International. She is speaking to us from Gaza coming up. As the U.S. government shutdown enters its 16th day, the Trump administration is giving a $20 billion bailout to Argentina's right-wing president, Javier Millet. Stay with us. My sound with his hushu'n't have a hudoon, my l'o'n't no one has a nighi, a sound of my russon to the vujo,

and a light new in its'i'i'a'i, Souti me and do for do So tally maluchin I. Souti, so tis of me and a june and rejoin will wendish

there to say ia. So tea, so tis, so t me, Sotty Khyl Mephrieh by Tunisian-American Emel Methluthi,

performing in our Democracy Now studio. You can watch her full performance and interview at DemocracyNow.org. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the war and peace report. I'm Amy Goodman with Nerman Sheikh. As the U.S. government shutdown enters its 16th day, the Trump administration is threatening to lay off 10,000 government workers and cut more funds to democratic-led areas. Meanwhile, President Trump has offered a $20 billion bailout for Argentina, and the total size of the bailout could reach $40 billion.

On Tuesday, Trump hosted Argentina's far-right president, Javier Mele, at the White House. Trump said the U.S. would only help Argentina if Millet's Party won legislative elections later this month. We're going to work very much with the president. We think he's going to win. He should win. And if he does win, we're going to be very helpful. And if he doesn't win, we're not going to waste our time because you have somebody

whose philosophy has no chance of making Argentina great again. Trump said the bailout was, quote, just helping a great philosophy take over a great country. Millet is a close ally of the Trump administration. earlier this year, Millet attended the conservative CPAC conference in the U.S., where he gifted billionaire Elon Musk a chainsaw. Critics of the U.S. bailing out Argentina point out Treasury Secretary Scott Besson's friends who lead financial firms, including BlackRock, Fidelity, and Pimco, are heavily invested in Argentina and would benefit financially. We're joined now by Pablo Calvi. He is a writer and journalist from Argentina, Associate Professor at Stony Brook University's School of Communication and Journalism,

and the Associate Director for Latin America for the Marie Colvin Center for International Reporting at Stony Brook. Calvi previously worked for the Argentine newspaper Claren. Last year, he wrote a piece for Jacobin titled, In Argentina, Javier Millet's shock therapy is wreaking havoc. So you have thousands of workers being furloughed and fired here in the United States. But President Trump says he's giving $20 billion in a bailout to the Argentine president, hosting him at the White House. The significance of this and what Milley is doing in Argentina. Well, thank you for having me first.

It's important for Milay to maintain stability of the Argenti Pesso, so he needs some type of reassurance. And the 20,000 that the Treasury is holding is not giving the money to Argentina as keeping it, plus the potential 20,000 from private funds is geared towards weathering potential fluctuations in the peso and keeping inflation at bay. So it helps a lot for the Malay government to reach the midterm elections in good shape. Now, why is Trump doing this? There's at least, to me, three potential explanations. One is the geopolitical one.

If you think after 2001, after September 11th, there's no clear focus on that in America. We enter that phase that experts called benign neglect. The United States focused preeminently in the Middle East. So the war on drugs ended and the war on terror started. So with that constant flow of money that was going to Latin America, particularly Colombia, ended. Now you have left-leaning president Gustavo Petro in the United Nations advocating for the creation of an international military organization

to curb the genocide in Gaza, so you see that Colombia, who was a historically very strong ally of the United States, is not there anymore. And Trump, I think, sees the opportunity to create a geopolitical ally with Argentina. And the second part, I think, is purely economic. I think it's a little bit overlooked. But if you look at the proximity of the people who are with Trump, you see a lot of tech people, J.D. Vance, basically, a mentor by Peter Thiel. Elon acting as the matchmaker between Trump and Amilay. You have the CEO of Oracle, which now owns TikTok, and the Ellison's, right, and his son. Larry and David Ellison out on CBS, paramount.

Yes, exactly. So there's a lot of connections with the tech industry. And, you know, it's been overlooked a little bit, but a few days ago, Sam Altman announced that he was going to invest $25 billion in an AI center in Patagonia, right? So there's a number of things that have to do with AI, crypto, that require enormous amounts of energy, that require vast amounts of land, water, the precious Earth as minerals that you're not going to get, the U.S. is not going to get from the Ukraine anytime soon. Argentina has them, lithium. So all those things, and I think that the tech industry is supporting that second take on what could happen if Argentina was closer to the United States.

And I think the third point, the third leg of this equation to me is the ideological affinity that Trump and Milley has. have. Millay is a little bit of a mini-me of Trump, although he looks a little bit more like Austin Powers, but he's like his... He's a mini-Trump? He's a little bit of a mini-Trump. They are different in the sense that Trump is more nationalist-coded, and Milay is still a globalist. He wants investments to come to Argentina, but they're both populists. They are both bombastic in their own ways.

So I think that there's a lot of similarities. Millay is a, I think, is a fanboy of Trump. So there's some affinity there. Well, also, you know, it seems for a U.S. president to condition a bailout on the electoral prospects of the person who is in power is. I think perhaps unprecedented. I mean, Trump did something similar in Brazil, but kind of against the administration and power because of the ongoing case against Bolsonaro. He imposed tariffs and so on. But first, if you could comment on that, I mean, there are, I think, two instances.

The Americans bailed out Mexico and also South Korea, but that was, of course, to stave off economic collapse, and there were conditions, but they weren't those conditions. If you could respond to what many are saying, that in fact, this plan could totally backfire because people in Argentina don't want the U.S. to meddle in their internal affairs. And a vast, I mean, over a majority of Argentinians, 60 percent, actually don't support Trump. Yeah, I think that it could backfire in Argentina as is backfiring here in the States, right? He's, uh, Trump is heavily criticized for using money that he could be using here. and allocating it to Argentina.

I don't see too many scenarios in which this bailout benefits anybody other than Milay, Trump, and the sectors that surround them, right? I don't see that the bailout would benefit the Argentine people or the American people, for that matter. I mean, this is amazing what is happening around the world. You have the New York Times Exposé on Steve Whitkoff and his son, the headline, As Whitkoff pitched Mid-East piece, his son pitched mid-east investors, and that one begins. As Steve Whitkoff, President Trump's envoy to the least conducted delegate ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas's son Alex was on another mission,

quietly soliciting billions of dollars from some of the same government, whose representatives were involved with peace talks with his father. Then you have the Trump family since he came into office. I think Eric Lipton of the Times estimated very conservatively they made some well over $3 billion around the world using Trump and the presidency. And now you have from the New York Times major hedge funds, including those led by friends of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, could benefit financially from the bailout funds and investment firms,

including Black Rock, Fidelity, and Pemco, heavily invested in Argentina. The final comment on this, as you're saying, it's not only Trump, it is Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, who was right there yesterday, this week when Millet was sitting in the White House. And Bessent is trying to tone down the conditionality of the loan because that would not benefit the transaction. If Trump rocks the boat a little bit, then... It could bring the investment to $40 billion, not $20 billion from the government and then from private investors to $40 billion. Yeah, and if there's inflation in Argentina, everything is all for not, right?

So I think that Besson is trying to calm the rumors of the conditionality of the loan a little bit. I think that, again, I don't see many people benefiting from this. Well, I want to thank you, Pablo Calvi, for joining us, journalist from Argentina, Associate Professor at Stony Brook's University's School of Communication and Journalism. We'll link to your Jacobin article in Argentina, Javier Malay's shock therapy is wreaking havoc. And folks can go to our website at DemocracyNow.org to see our interview with Professor Pablo Calvi at Democracy Now.org.

Coming up, the Supreme Court appears poised to further weaken the Voting Rights Act back in 20 seconds. Oh, my men's phlegm, and Israel is thee. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. Mezal it, Tunisian American Emel, that's Emel Methluthi, performing in our Democracy Now studio. To see all her performance and interview, go to DemocracyNow.org. She's touring through Europe next month.

This is Democracy Now, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermin-Shikh. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court appeared ready to further weaken the Voting Rights Act by striking down a key provision meant to ensure equal representation for black voters. The case was brought by a group of self-described non-African American voters who argue Louisiana's 2024 congressional map is unconstitutional because it includes an additional majority black district, which is meant to remedy a likely violation of the voting rights.

Act. The court's six conservative judges expressed skepticism that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act should be allowed to continue. Section 2 outlaws the creation of electoral districts that dilute minority groups voting power. This is Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The issue, as you know, is that this court's cases in a variety of contexts have said that race-based remedies are permissible for a period of time. sometimes for a long period of time, decades, in some cases, but that they should not be indefinite and should have an endpoint. The Supreme Court's ruling in this case could greenlight Republican gerrymandering

ahead of the 2026 midterm election. For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we're joined by Megan Keenan, staff attorney at the ACLU Voting Rights Project. Talk about the significance, Megan, of this case. What exactly does it mean in a country that even right now, most people under 18 are people of color? By the end of the decade, more than half the people under 30 will be people of color. Can you talk about what this means for this country, those who will govern and those who will be governed?

Absolutely. The stakes of this case are enormous. This is a case about whether districts that represent, all Americans fairly will remain possibly possible in this country. And I want to be clear that districts in which minority voters have an opportunity to elect candidates of their choice have not come about by accident, and we cannot take them as a given in this country. Those sorts of districts have come around as a direct result of the Voting Rights Act that we

are here to protect in the Calais case before the Supreme Court. Again, if you could explain the 2023 Allen v. Mulligan case, and its significance to the one that's now ongoing? Sure. Just two years ago, the Supreme Court considered whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was constitutional and whether it should continue to be used in the way that it has for the last four decades. Unambiguously, the court said, yes, it is constitutional, and we are allowed to remedy discrimination in the political process in the way that Congress set out.

Just two years later, a group of voters has asked the court. court reconsider that decision. And we think that it shouldn't and that it should continue to follow the law just as it did in Allen v. Milligan. And could you explain why this re-argument has potential implications, not just for Louisiana, but across the country? Sure. So the question in the case that was presented here was whether the use of race to remedy a proven violation of the Voting Rights Act is constitutional. That has implications for the congressional district in Louisiana that we're defending most directly, but it, of course, reaches much more broadly to whether we can remedy discrimination, both in voting cases across the country and also in other anti-discrimination

statutes. We cannot ignore the role that race plays in the system and expect to be able to remedy discrimination at all. For people who are watching globally, can you explain what this voting rights case is all about where it comes from in 1965, why Section 2 is so important and what the ACLU is arguing? Absolutely. We have a wretched history of racial discrimination in voting in this country that stretches very far back. In 1965, Congress took stock of that history. They looked at how voting discrimination has evolved over time, that it started with literacy tests and grandfather clauses to keep black folks out of the political process. But once those things were struck down,

legislators found new ways to keep black voters from exercising their full access to the franchise. Taking all of that history in stride, Congress passed a complex, rigorous test to suss out when discrimination is happening in the political process and how to remedy that discrimination. That test is the Voting Rights Act, and it has continued to retool that as recently as the 80s, And for 40 uninterrupted years, we have applied this rigorous data-driven test to figure out when discrimination exists and how to stop it. That's the test that's at stake in this case.

And what did the Supreme Court justices the questioning indicate to you from Kavanaugh to Roberts, who has long wanted to gut the Voting Rights Act, across the board? To be sure, they want to make sure that this system is working well and working fairly. But one thing that we at the ACLU took away from the argument was something that Justice Kavanaugh said. He said that there is complete agreement on the court that equal opportunity is still the goal, that ridding the political process of racial discrimination is still the goal. If that's true, then we know clear as day from the record that we built in Louisiana, we have not yet achieved those goals and that the Voting Rights Act is still as necessary as ever. So I just want to comment at the end here that you have this case that could, to say,

the least, even further dilute the voting power of people of color in this country. And then you have at the same time Adelita Grajava, who was elected by an overwhelmingly Latino population of 700,000 in Arizona. And the Speaker of the House is refusing to seat her so that this population of 700,000 are not even represented. in this country in Congress. Megan Keenan, we want to thank you so much for being with us, staff attorney at the ACLU Voting Rights Project, part of the council team for the Robinson interveners in Louisiana versus Kelle. This is Democracy Now, DemocracyNow.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Nerman Shea. Dozens of reporters handed in their access badges and walked out of the Pentagon

Wednesday instead of agreeing to the Defense Department's new press policy. The policy states that media outlets and reporters cannot obtain any information that the Pentagon does not explicitly authorize. About 40 to 50 journalists from major news outlets left together before the 4 p.m. Deadline. In a joint statement, NBC News, ABC News, ABC News, CBS News, CNN and Fox News, all said, quote, we join virtually every other news organization in declining to agree to the Pentagon's new requirements, which would restrict journalists' ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues. The only news outlet to agree to the new Pentagon rules is the far-right One America News Network. For more, we go to David Scholes,

director of Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale University. He advised the Pentagon Press Association and how to handle the Pentagon's new rules and has worked on several precedent-setting cases on the public's right of access to government documents. Professor, welcome to Democracy Now. David Chulles, welcome. So at 4 o'clock yesterday, you have all these journalists turning in their badges and taking out their equipment from their offices and walking outside. Explain exactly what Hegseth, who most recently worked for Fox News, now the Defense Secretary, what he has demanded. Yes. Well, thanks. Good morning. This is really a watershed moment because what the Pentagon is doing is imposing a set of policies that essentially would regulate how the press can do its business. There's two, at least two really important things that they're trying to do. The Pentagon is trying to do. One is it has specifically said that it's impermissible to solicit information from people who work at the Pentagon. The policy originally said something like the unauthorized acquisition of information is grounds to lose your press pass.

Well, you know, what they call solicitation, we call news gathering. That's something that's protected by the Constitution, and reporters have to be able to gather in information, ask questions, seek out the news, if we're to have a free press, which is exactly what the First Amendment guarantees to us. That was one. The other is that he's asked them to sign a document expressing in writing their understanding of a statement that's asserted that the unauthorized disclosure of classified and unclassified information from the Pentagon can cause harm to national security. Well, that is a statement that is just untrue. We know that there's a lot of classified information that can be disclosed. It might be embarrassing, but it's not harming the national security. And to require reporters to sign that is essentially to say to them that if you excuse me, if you disclose something without authorization, you're subject to prosecution under the espionage act, which makes it a crime to disclose.

information that can cause harm to the United States. So it's outrageous in several respects. And I would just like to underscore how extreme this is, the watershed moment that we're at. You know, the Trump administration has made the suppression of speech that it doesn't like, a governing principle since it took office. It's done a number of things, based those lawsuits against the media, the targeting of regulatory sanctions against speech that the president doesn't like access restrictions to the White House and others. But this goes a step further. It's not just a restriction on access. It's saying if you want access, you have to gather the news the way we think it should be gathered. And the American

media, to their credit, has said, that's not how things work here. We have a free press. And if you are going to kick us out of the building, we'll do it from outside the building. And David, if you could talk about the other steps that the Pentagon has taken to limit media access, I mean, the defense secretary, Pete Hegeseth, has held only two formal press briefing since he assumed office. And the Pentagon had previously placed restrictions on where reporters could go. And Hexeth has also initiated investigations into leaks to the media. So if you could elaborate all of this together, what does this mean about reporting? on what the Defense Department is doing.

Yeah, well, you're quite right. This is kind of the culmination of a whole series of steps that kind of display the desire of the Pentagon officials to control what is said about them. A few press conferences using polygraphs against people inside the Pentagon to find out where leaks are. And even these new regulations, the new policy that they have imposed, they tried to justify by saying it's, you know,

common sense, we have to protect national security. But we should be clear, there is no need for this, that the access rules that govern the Pentagon have been in place since the building was built during World War II. Through administrations of both political parties over decades, this system has worked, and there has been no risk to the national security. One of the things that the Secretary Hegseth did back in the spring is he was surprised that a reporter was in the hallway outside his office. They were allowed to use the all ways to get around. They couldn't get into classified areas, but they could walk around.

So the first thing he did was limit access that sort of three quarters of the building is now off grounds for physical access, which means that the baristas who push coffee carts around and delivery people and a number of other people who have no security clearance can continue to roam the halls, but reporters couldn't. And that was the beginning of this whole process that has led us to where we are today. It's just, it's unnecessary, it's alarming, and it shouldn't be happening. David, you advise the Pentagon Press Association. why did they turn in their badges? Why didn't they simply say, no, we're going to remain Pentagon reporters, and we're not going to agree on these limitations? And finally, if you can talk about some of the great reporting in the past, Sy Hirsch, Shun Milai, Collateral Murder,

the showing of the Iraqi prisoners in Baghdad with the U.S. soldiers being tortured. Certainly none of these got prior approval. from the Pentagon. Yeah, no, you're exactly right. And that's why the press in mass, in unison, almost, you know, there was one organization that essentially is a propaganda outlet for the administration. But everybody else said, no, if we are a free press, we're not going to go along with this. You say, why didn't they just stay there?

Well, they're not going to, you know, physically stay in a place where they're told that they can't stay. I think there are legal remedies to be pursued, and I suspect that there will be more developments on this in the near future. The courts are still open to hold officials to account when they exceed their constitutional authority, and I think that's what's going on here, and I suspect that we haven't seen the end of this. Well, David Schultz, want to thank you for being with us, director of the media freedom and information access clinic at Yale University. A happy belated birthday to Juan Gonzalez.

Juan is in Delaware where today has been there for two days giving speeches. You can check our website at DemocracyNow.org. I'll be in Santa Fe, New Mexico tomorrow on October 17th at the Lensick Theater, where the film, steal this story, please, will be premiering in New Mexico, be there at 6 o'clock and being involved with the Q&A after with the Oscar-nominated director, T.Lesson. On Saturday, I'll be at the Woodstock Film Festival in Woodstock, New York, at the Woodstock Playhouse at 3 o'clock. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermine Shea for another edition of Democracy Now,democracy.org.