Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-10-22 Wednesday

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

Headlines for October 22, 2025; “Nobody’s Girl”: Virginia Giuffre’s Memoir Details Sex Abuse by Epstein, Maxwell, Prince Andrew; Colombia’s U.S. Ambassador Denounces Trump’s Deadly Strikes on Boats in the Caribbean; Tensions in Latin America Rise as U.S. Threatens Venezuela & Colombia

From New York, this is Democracy Now. It was a wicked time at my life. It was a really scary time in my life. I had just been abused by a member of a royal family. So when you talk about these chains, you know, yeah, I wasn't chains who sink, but these powerful people were my chains. I didn't know what could happen. Those are the words of the late Virginia Joufrey, who survived sexual abuse at the hands

of Jeffrey Epstein and Gilein Maxwell. Virginia died by suicide in April. But before her death, she wrote a 400-page book detailing how as a teenager, she was trafficked to Prince Andrew. and other powerful men, including an unnamed former prime minister who raped her. As Republicans refused to release the full Epstein files, we'll speak to Amy Wallace, who collaborated with Virginia on the book, Nobody's Girl. This book is about the fetishization of young women.

This book is about powerful people who get to hurt people less powerful and not pay any price for it. I think that's why so many people are clamoring for the Epstein file release because they're sick of it. Then we look at the escalating tension between the U.S. and Colombia. After Colombian president, Gustavo Petro condemned the U.S. for blowing up boats in the Caribbean. I am making no mistake by speaking to the world from Colombia, because what I am demonstrating is that Colombia is the heart of the world. An aggression against Colombia is aggression against the heart of the world. I call on the world to help us. We'll speak to Colombia's ambassador to the United States, who was recalled to Bogota

after President Trump threatened to cut off aid to Colombia and impose new tariffs. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the war and peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. Israel's continuing its deadly attacks in Gaza, despite the U.S. brokered ceasefire. Al Jazeera is reporting hospitals in Gaza received 13 bodies over the past day that Palestinians say they've seen no real change in their lives since the ceasefire. The Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunus is reporting Israel's handed over 30 bodies and remains of slain Palestinians. Hamas has handed over the bodies of 15 Israeli hostages as part of the ceasefire deal.

On Wednesday, a funeral was held for 54 unidentified Palestinians returned by Israel. It comes as the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, says the amount of aid currently entering Gaza is a, quote, drop in the ocean of what's urgently needed. Here's Abir Atifa of the World Food Program. Since the ceasefire started on the 11th of October, we've now have over 100 and, over 533. trucks into Gaza, supporting bakeries, nutrition programs, general food distributions. So far, we've had over 6,700 tons of food. That's enough for close to half a million people for two weeks. Daily deliveries continue, and they are now averaging around 750 tons.

That's much better than what we had before the ceasefire, but it's still well below our target, which is around 2,000 tons every day. The Palestinian Prisoner Society says Israeli forces have detained 45 people, including a child, and raids since last night in the occupied West Bank. The group describes Israeli forces have vandalized homes and repeatedly assaulted detainees and their relatives. It comes as the UN Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territory is warning about an alarming rise in Israeli settler violence against Palestinians.

as the olive harvest season gets underway. So far this year, there were over 750 Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians, which is a 13 percent increase from last year. On Tuesday, a panel of judges from the Philadelphia-based Third Circuit Court of Appeals appeared skeptical of the Trump administration's attempt to re-arrest and deport Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil. The Columbia University graduate was the first pro-Palestinian campus protest. tester to be jailed by the Trump administration over his advocacy work. Khalil's lawyers have filed appeals to prevent the Trump administration from detaining him again. Yesterday, Khalil spoke to supporters outside the federal court.

I have to anything like this shows how my case is actually just like a test for everyone's rights here across the country. The federal government shutdown has entered its 22nd day. earlier this week, the federal judiciary ran out of funding to support the work of nearly 30,000 staffers and 94 district courts. Some of these courts are furloughing staff for the first time in 30 years. It comes as several states are warning they'll be forced to suspend supplemental nutrition assistance program that snap benefits by November 1st if the shutdown continues impacting an estimated 42 million people nationwide. Meanwhile, at a white house Rose Gordon lunch for Republican senators yesterday, President Trump unveiled a new nickname for

Russ vote, the White House Budget Chief, who has been spearheading cuts to programs nationwide amidst the shutdown. And I will say this, that we have Darth Vader. You know Darth Vader, right? Darth Vader is a man who, I think he's sitting right, is that Darth? Stand up, please, Darth Vader. Stand up. Does everybody know?

This is, they call him Darth Vader. I call him a fine man, but he's cutting Democrat priorities, and they're never going to get him back. A January 6th rioter who was pardoned by President Trump has been re-arrested for allegedly threatening to assassinate House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries. Christopher Moynihan reportedly sent text to an unidentified recipient, including, quote, Hakeem Jeffries makes a speech in a few days in NYC, I cannot allow this terrorist to live. And quote, I will kill him for the future, unquote. Moynihan is among the 1,500 people who participated in the January 6 riots,

who were later granted clemency by Trump when he returned to office. In a highly unusual move, President Trump's demanding the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in compensation for the federal probes against him. Many of the senior DOJ officials who would be needed to approve such a payout previously worked for Trump, including the deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, his former private attorney. The White House said they would, quote, follow the guidance of career ethics officials, but Attorney General Pam Bondi fired the agency's top ethics advisor in July.

Arizona Attorney General Chris Mayes is suing Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson for refusing to swear in Representative-elect Adelaideh Grijalva. In the filing, Mays wrote, quote, constitutional rights cannot be used as a bargaining chip, unquote. Mays is asking the court to force Speaker Johnson to swear in Grahava or designate someone else to do it. By refusing to seat her, Speaker Johnson is depriving 813,000 residents living in Arizona's 7th District of Congressional representation. Grahava says she believes Speaker Johnson's refusing to swear her in to Congress because she would be the final vote on a discharge petition to release the Epstein files. We'll have more on that after headlines. President Trump's nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, Paul Ingracia, withdrew from consideration Tuesday following widespread backlash over a slew of racist and anti-Semitic texts. And Gracia texted a group of Republicans that he has a, quote, Nazi streak, adding that

the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday should be, quote, tossed into the seventh circle of hell, unquote. After the texts were made public by Politico Monday, several Republican senators said they would not support his nomination, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune. As immigration raids ramp up across the country, ICE agents in Los Angeles shot and wounded two people in a botched operation Tuesday. The agents reportedly shot an immigrant from Mexico they were attempting to arrest. A bullet then ricocheted and wounded a U.S. Marshal. The person ice targeted has been identified as Carlitos Ricardo Parias, who is a popular TikTok streamer with over 100,000 followers and often documents ICE raids. He now faces criminal

charges. Here in New York, dozens of federal agents, many of them with face coverings, flooded lower Manhattan Tuesday afternoon as they targeted immigrant street vendors, most of them from Africa. As news spread of the raid, several people took to the streets in protest. An expose by the Washington Post has revealed Secretary of State Marco Rubio agreed to return nine leaders of the MS-13 gang in U.S. custody to El Salvador in exchange for President Naiv Bukele's government to allow the U.S. deport and detain hundreds of immigrants at the Seikot mega prison complex. Some of the people Rubio promised to return were U.S. government informants who were under the protection of the Justice Department. Buceli's request came amidst mounting

reports of secret deals between his government and MS-13. U.N. experts say U.S. strikes against Venezuela and international waters amount to extrajudicial executions. It comes amidst new reporting that the CIA has played a central role in collecting and sharing the bulk of the intelligence used by the Trump administration to carry out its deadly extrajudicial military strikes in the Caribbean. That's according to reports from the Guardian, which spoke to sources close to the operations who said the CIA is providing real-time information collected by satellites and signal intercepts to target boats they believe are carrying drugs. CIA agents then make the recommendation to strike the vessels with missiles. The U.S. has blown up at least seven boats in the

region, killing over two dozen people without providing evidence that the vessels are in fact used for drug trafficking. Meanwhile, President Trump's continued his attacks on Colombia and Venezuela. This is Venezuelan defense minister Vladimir Petrino. Colombia must know it can count on the Bolivarian National Armed Forces. The people of Colombia must know that they have on their side moral and physical support and deployment of our force and our territory to defend against all threats, all threats that loom over the border. Russian air strikes killed seven people, including two children in Ukraine today. It comes as President Trump announced his upcoming summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest has been canceled, telling reporters he did not want to, quote, have a wasted meeting. Both Trump and European leaders are calling on Russia to accept a ceasefire along the current front lines. So far, the Kremlin has rejected those calls. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky says it isn't surprising Russia's refused to negotiate. Instead, Russia is once again doing anything to avoid diplomacy.

And as soon as the question of long-range weapons for us for Ukraine moved away, Russia almost automatically became less interested in diplomacy. Former French President Nicolas Sokharzy turned himself into prison authorities on Tuesday to begin serving a five-year sentence. Last month, he was found guilty of criminal conspiracy for illegally receiving millions of euros from the late Libyan leader Moa Madhadiqadha to fund his 2007 campaign. Sarkozy is the first former French head of state in the modern era to be convicted of a crime.

In Colombia, an appeals court has overturned the conviction of former president and U.S. ally, Alvado Uribe, for witness tampering and bribery. Uribe had been sentenced to 12 years of house arrest for allegedly bribing in prison members of paramilitary groups to retract damaging testimony, exposing Uribe's ties to right-wing U.S.-back paramilitary groups. Udibe ruled Colombia from 2002 to 2010, during which time there were thousands of extrajudicial killings of civilians who were then purposely mislabeled as rebel fighters in what became known as the false positive scandal. We'll talk more about this later in the broadcast. And indigenous leaders from across Latin America have embarked on a flotilla from the banks of the Napa River and Koka, Ecuador, as they sail to Belém, Brazil for the UN Climate Summit set to begin next month. Members of the Yakutama Amazon Flotilla are demanding an end to fossil fuels, protections for indigenous territories and ecosystems from oil, mining, and industrial agriculture, and a ban on fossil fuel extraction in the Amazon rainforest.

Democracy Now will be in Belém broadcasting from the COP 30. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now.com.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman in New York, joined by Democracy Now's Juan Gonzalez in Chicago. Chicago. Hi, Juan. Hi, Amy, and welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. Arizona Attorney General Chris Mayes is suing Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson for refusing to swear in Representative-elect Adelaide Grijalva, who is elected a month ago in a special election to represent

more than 800,000 people of the greater Tucson area. Grahava says she believes Speaker Johnson is refusing to see. her because she would be the final vote necessary on a discharge petition to release unclassified records about convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. Last week, the House Oversight Committee released a new set of Epstein documents, including call logs that included someone listed as Donald Trump. As all of this unfolded Tuesday, an explosive memoir where it was released by Jeffrey Epstein's survivor, the late Virginia Roberts,

Joufrey, titled Nobody's Girl, a memoir of surviving abuse and fighting for justice. Virginia was the first survivor to come out publicly against Epstein. In the book, she details how he groomed her along with his co-conspirator, Gilairene Maxwell, who met Virginia while she worked at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking. Droufrey writes, quote, In my years with them, they let me out to scores of wealthy, powerful people.

I was habitually used and humiliated, and in some instances, choked, beaten, and bloodied, I believed I might die as a sex slave, she said. Virginia also details how she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew, three times beginning when she was 17. Virginia also said she was beaten and raped by a well-known prime minister. Virginia Joufrey died reportedly by suicide earlier this year in Australia at age 41. Nobody's Girl was completed just before she died.

In the books forward, her collaborator, Amy Wallace, describes an email from Virginia shortly before she died that read in part, quote, the content of this book is crucial as it aims to shed light on the systemic failures that allow the trafficking of vulnerable individuals across borders. It's imperative that the truth is understood and that the issues surrounding this topic are addressed both for the sake of justice and awareness. In the event of my passing, I would like to ensure that nobody's girl is still released, she said. For more, we're joined here in our New York studio by Amy Wallace, the ghostwriter of Virginia Roberts Jouffre's posthumously published memoir this week, Nobody's Girl, a memoir of surviving abuse and fighting for justice. Amy Wallace's op-ed in Sunday's New York Times is headlined, Why Virginia Roberts Joufrey would not stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein.

We welcome you to Democracy Now. This book is utterly painful, the cover of photograph of a young Virginia disappearing, fading. If you can start off by talking about this horror that she underwent, that is rocking both Britain right now and the United States. In the U.S., it may well be why Congress has not resumed working. And, of course, right now you have the situation just before the two of your book was released. Prince Andrew has voluntarily given up his titles because of what's being released in this book. why don't you start off by talking about how Virginia Joufrey came to work at Mara Lago as an underage young woman

and then ultimately was trafficked by both Maxwell and Epstein. Yeah, well, she was 16 years old. She was working a summer job at Mara Lago. She was working in the spa. So there was a particular section of the hotel that she worked in. Her father worked at Mara Lago as a maintenance man, and he helped her get the job. A man who abused her as well. A man who abused her as well, which she reveals in this book for the first time.

And we can talk about that more. But, yes, she was about a couple weeks into the job, but she loved working there. It was a beautiful place. She felt really privileged to be there. And a posh British woman walks in with an amazing outfit and very attractive. I think Virginia writes that her handbag cost more than my dad's truck. There was a class issue here, clearly. And the woman sees her reading an anatomy book and says,

oh, are you interested in massage? And Virginia says, well, I don't really know much about it, but I'm so inspired by the spy. I would love to learn. And she is asked to then go that day to Epstein's house. She goes because a woman has asked her, and she thinks it's going to be safe. And that very day, hours later, Gillen Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, sexually abused her for the first time.

And at that point, she was in the net. And how did she go from Mar-a-Lago to then being close to and in the circle of Epstein? Well, I think, you know, there were different victims that were treated differently. there were some girls that went one time to the house in Palm Beach and then were never seen again. And then there were other girls who were in the sort of inside circle. And Virginia lived very close by when she first met him. She lived in Loxahatchie, which is a sort of more rural poorer area. She lived with her parents in a trailer in the back. And he liked her. I think that he could spot. He and Gillesne both were very good at sniffing out girls who had already been

abused and who were more vulnerable to being manipulated. And so he quickly absorbed her into his world, told her to quit her job at Maralago. He would rent her an apartment. He didn't want her living with her parents anymore because he wanted her to come and go at all hours. He didn't want her parents to be suspicious. So very quickly, she gets pulled in. She gets pulled in. and then they say, you know, you don't have a passport. We need to get you one of those. And Galen Maxwell helps her fill out the application. And then they take her to London.

That's really one of her first major trips. Certainly, she'd never been abroad before. They take her to London. And that's where she's first trafficked to Prince Andrew. She had already been, by that point, traffic to other friends of Epstein and Maxwell. So it was a pretty quick sort of, I don't know. itinerary on her going into the depths of hell. She quickly becomes one of their people that travels with them all over the world. Now, in the book, she does not name many of those who she

says sexually assaulted her, but you know all of them because you fact-checked them. Is there anything you have to say about that or the reason those names were not disclosed? Yeah, I think Virginia is pretty eloquent about this in the book, but any survivor of sexual abuse understands that coming forward you have sort of a cost, reward ratio that you're weighing. You know you want to hold these people accountable for what they did to you, but you also know that's going to come at a cost, your privacy, obviously, but also in the case of Virginia, some of these men had threatened her, some of these men had threatened her physically. She'd had death threats that the FBI found credible and called her and she and her family rented a camper van in Australia where they lived

and fled into the wilds of Australia for three weeks to try to figure out what to do next. So there were real risks and legal risks. There were people that said to her basically doesn't matter what you say or what's true, we're going to keep you in court for the rest of your life if you don't take our names out of your mouth. So there was, there were a lot of decisions that she had to make about what names were going to go in. There are new names there, but there are, as you say, there are names left out. I guess what I would add to that is that this book was never intended to be a list of names. If you want a list of names, you can go to the Epstein files, and they are there, not just Virginia's names, and I know all of the ones that she told

the FBI repeatedly, but other victims have bravely come forward. And this investigation has been going on for many, many years since the first time that Epstein was arrested and charged back in 2008. There's a lot of information there. And so to put the, this is what my op-ed in the New York Times is about, to put the burden always on victims, the weakest among us who've already been hurt, to make them repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat on demand, instead of of having law enforcement do its job. And I think that's why a lot of the American public is calling for the release of the Epstein files.

In the book, Virginia writes that she was beaten and raped by a well-known prime minister. I think the British version of the book says, Minister. This is Prime Minister. Who is she talking about? Well, I can't reveal any of the names that are not in the book.

I mean, and I'll tell you a couple of reasons why. One, this is Virginia's book, and these were decisions that she had to make for her safety, but also the safety of her family. And just because Virginia has gone does not mean her family is not in danger. Some of these people are scary. So I respect her choices. So, I mean, I guess that's the short answer. It's her book, and we're not going to go any farther than that.

There are names that she has named in public depositions. There are four document dumps. I've read all of them. And there are names there. The names have been released by others at times. So the names are out there. But again... One of the names that is mentioned in these document dunks is the former Israeli Prime

Minister, Ehud Barak, who is close to Jeffrey Epstein. Yes, his name is mentioned in the document dumps. Let me ask you about what's happening right now with Prince Andrew. He is voluntarily, supposedly, on the eve of the release of Nobody's Girl, voluntarily given up his titles. But the king could strip him of his title, right? His father. I mean, his brother.

His brother. He clearly, and she describes the encounters with him, She describes being raped by him the third time in an orgy and Jeffrey Epstein's island in the Caribbean with young women, girls who couldn't even speak English because they were from another place if she said Jeffrey liked them that way because they were easier to deal with. But he clearly knew her age, right? Because at the beginning when he was with Gilein Maxwell, is that Jeffrey Epstein who took the famous picture with Glein in the back? background and Andrew with his brother Prince Andrew still with his arm around Virginia. Yes. I mean, the back story around that photo is that Virginia always traveled with a point and shoot disposable cameras because she was about to be going around the world. She'd never

traveled in this way. She was not a person of means. Her family was not wealthy. So she traveled with these with these little, you know, disposable cameras. And when Gillen had woken her up that morning and said, you know, get up sleepy head. We're going to have an amazing day. You're going to meet a prince today. And she took her shopping and she bought her outfits. And Virginia chose the outfit that is in that picture. And so when he comes, when the prince comes and she's introduced to him, she realizes, and we say this in the book, you know, my mom would kill me if I met a prince and didn't get a picture of it. So she runs into her. her room and she gets her camera and she hands it to Epstein and Epstein takes the picture.

I mean, remember, this is a young woman. She is 17 at that point. When she was a child, she watched Cinderella, the movie Cinderella on repeat. Meeting a prince was a big deal. These were supposed to be the best of us. Why did Prince Andrew know her age even before she said it? Well, there was a game that Gillen Maxwell played where she would often ask people to guess the ages of the girls. And in this particular case, as we relate in the book, book, she says to Andrew, guess her age, and he guesses correctly, 17, and then explains why he did so well at this game, because he says, you're around the age of my daughters. I think his daughters were a little bit younger. So the key thing there is he knew how old she was.

And, you know, I think if you could line up all the men that Virginia was trafficked to and ask them why they did it. I think some of them will probably try to use as an excuse. Well, we didn't know they were underage. In this case, we have a direct connection between his consciousness of her age and the reality. And that's just sort of an amazing detail in the book. And we should say, Prince Andrew denies all of this, but I'm going to give it to one. He has settled a lawsuit when she sued him for raping and battering her. He settled. that lawsuit. For millions of dollars. I don't know the amount. Juan. I wanted to ask you about Galane Maxwell. She was not just a procurer of victims as well.

She was a direct abuser of these women as well. Can you talk about that? Absolutely. I'm not quite sure how the narrative on Gillen Maxwell has somehow shifted, even though she's been convicted in a court of law, of being a key member of this sexual trafficking scheme, somehow people have started to think that maybe she was like just a receptionist or, you know, she was keeping the date book. This is a woman who abused girls herself, didn't just procure, which is evil enough, using her gender to lure girls into this net. She did that. Poor girls, particularly. There were a few that weren't, but most were poor. But then she not only participated in the initial sort of initiation of these girls into the massage room and all the sex and abuse that came there,

But she would then demand that they service her sexually. She would hurt them during sex. I mean, Virginia tells a story about being hurt with a ghastly sex toy that Gilles was using on her and intentionally hurting her because she was dissatisfied or angry at her in some way. So this woman is a sexual abuser herself. And this book makes that clear. We have to wrap up because I know you have to go. But I do want to just ask, when Virginia was alive before she took her own life, she had three children and talks about writing this when her baby girl was born wanting to turn around to being a survivor and to being a role model for others to speak out.

President Trump, when he was running for office, ran on one of his platforms was to release the Epstein files. What would it mean to Virginia today if these Epstein files were released? That it wasn't on people like her and all the other victims, but the files themselves to speak. I was with her in October in Australia. This is right before the presidential election. And she was thrilled that the former president who was running for president, who she hoped would win the presidency. Why? Because he had promised to release these files.

And why was that important to her? Because it validated the experience of not just her, but so many others. And I'm glad that you mention her children as well. Because one of the things this book does is it shows it's not just a catalog of horrors. It's a woman who is terribly abused as a child, escapes from that terrible abuse valiantly, forms a family, which is in itself a triumph. and then becomes an advocate. So it's the entire arc of her life, and it's a woman in full, a complicated woman in full who is not just the things that were done to her. She was a person

of open heart. She wanted to make the world a better place for all of us. She was really looking out for all of our children, not just hers. We want to thank you so much for being with us. We hope to have you back. I want to end with the words of Virginia Roberts Joufrey herself. She writes, I yearn to for a world in which perpetrators face more shame than their victims do and where anyone who's been traffic can confront their abusers when they're ready, no matter how much time has passed. If this book moves us even an inch closer to a reality like that, if it helps just one person, I'll have achieved my goal. Those are the words of Virginia Roberts Choufrey, Amy Wallace, ghost writer of her. memoir, nobody's girl, a memoir of surviving abuse and fighting for justice. We will also link to your piece in the New York Times why Virginia Roberts Joufrey would not stop talking about Jeffrey

Epstein. Coming up, we look at the escalating tension between the U.S. and Columbia after President Gustavo Petro condemned the U.S. for blowing up boats in the Caribbean. Stay with us. I've been a lonely girl I've been a lonely girl I've been a hard for hire and my love's for hire and my love's on the funeral pie Oh, my love's on the funeral pyre

When will you, when will you help me out? You can't even pick me out out of the crowd. Hungary Ghost by Linda Sagara of Hoorah for the Riffraff, performing in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the war in peace report. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. A group of United Nations experts say U.S. strikes targeting boats in the Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela amount to extrajudicial executions. In recent weeks, the U.S. has struck seven boats claiming they were being used to traffic drugs. But the U.S. has offered no proof to back up its claim. The U.N. experts said, quote, these moves are an extremely dangerous escalation with grave implications for peace

and security in the Caribbean region, unquote. This comes as President Trump's authorized the CIA to carry out lethal, covert operations inside Venezuela. The CIA's also reportedly played a central role in the boat attacks as well. Tensions are also escalating between the U.S. and Colombia after the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, accused the U.S. of committing murder for killing a Colombian fisherman in one attack in mid-S. President Trump responded by calling Petro a lunatic and a, quote, illegal drug leader, unquote. Trump also threatened to cut off foreign aid to Colombia, and raise tariffs on Colombian goods.

Petro then responded by writing, trying to promote peace in Colombia is not being a drug trafficker, unquote. This is Petro speaking Tuesday. I am making no mistake by speaking to the world from Colombia, because what I am demonstrating is that Colombia is the heart of the world, and aggression against Colombia is aggression against the heart of the world. I call on the world to help us.

Before I called on the world to help Palestine, now us, because they want to attack us and they are mafia members and Trump is believing them. We're joined right now by three guests. Guillaume Long is former Minister of Foreign Affairs for Ecuador. He's a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Earlier this year, he wrote a peace in the nation, headlined the Trump administration unabashedly embraces the Monroe Doctrine. He'll talk about an Ecuadoran survivor of one of the bombings. We're also joined by Manuel Rosenthal, a Colombian physician and activist with more than 40 years of involvement in grassroots political organizing with youth, indigenous communities, and urban

and rural social movements. He's been exiled several times for his political activities. Manuel is part of the group Pueblos and Camino, or people on the path. But we begin with Daniel Garcia-Pena, Colombia's ambassador to the United States, who was just recalled to Bogota as tensions rise with the U.S. He previously served as Colombia's High Commissioner for Peace from 1995 to 98. Garcia-Pena also taught political science at the National University in Bogota, Colombia. We welcome you all to Democracy Now. Ambassador, let's begin with you. Why don't you lay out why President Petro has recalled you from the United States? First of all, good morning, and it's great to be here with you all. No, it has to do with

the statement on the part of President Trump this weekend that, first of all, accused of President Petro of being the head of a drug cartel threatened that, that if Colombe did not stop the flow of cocaine, that he would do it himself, statements that are completely unacceptable. And President Petro recall me because that's a mechanism that exists in diplomacy when situations like this arise so that I can sit with the president as I have done in these days with him to analyze what is happening in Washington and how we can navigate these turbulent waters because, well, first of all, these statements on the part of President Trump

are simply unacceptable, but secondly, they ignore the fact that there is no country in the world, and I say that unequivocally, in the world that is more to fight drugs than Colombia under the leadership of President Petro. So that is why I'm here in Bogota and we'll continue to seek ways

that we can send that message to Washington so that these kinds of false statements can be corrected. And Ambassador Garcia-Pena, Colombia has long been one of the major recipients of foreign aid from the United States and the United States is his main trading partner. What do you think is behind this now Trump administration hostility toward your country? Well, it's hard to know for sure or to speculate, but I think that without a doubt it has

to do with these latest actions on the part of the Trump administration to use the military force in its supposed attempts to fight drugs, the bombing of these boats that are supposedly transporting cocaine that violate international law. law that is completely counterproductive because if you were able to identify a boat the supposedly transporting cocaine, what we do, and we have done, and we continue doing that on a daily basis with the United States is to intercept it, to first of all, verify that if they are truly smuggling drugs, and to capture those that are on those boats to see if you can get information about who the higher-ups are, because the people that are on those

boats are not the drug traffickers, they're employees of the drug traffickers, and so it is completely ineffective to simply bomb them. So we have been very adamant, and President Petro has stood up to say that these are violations of international law, and that they go against the logic of how law enforcement should deal with these situations. So it appears that the the position of our president of President Pedro to call out the United States on these actions, I think that is part of the reason why President Trump is upset. And could you comment on how U.S. policy has changed toward Latin America, especially with Secretary of State Marco Rubio being so much in charge of what, of U.S. policy

in that region? Yes, well, without a doubt, there's the new administration and Secretary Rubio has identified the Latin America as a key area for what they call the America First policy. And it has been seen in several ways, first of all, the issue of immigration and how they are dealing with the flows. the presence of what are called illegal immigrants in the United States. It is now seen with this new emphasis on the use of the military in the war on drugs. We're also seeing it not only with Latin America and Colombia, but with the world with the threats of the terrorists on the trade issue. So it's been in many fronts in which the policies of this administration

work a great difference from previous administrations. in fact, even from the first Trump administration, where some of these things did appear, but not with the emphasis and not with the intensity that we're seeing now. I can see a lot of people are trying to reach you, but I'm glad we are able to speak to you. You have, I mean, in the last days, I've been listening to a lot of officers, former officers with the CIA saying, if they are using CIA intelligence, this is not evidence. Trump has admitted to both the CIA covert actions in Venezuela, but also that the CIA is being used in tracking boats. I also, you also have people like the Republican,

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who is raising a red flag saying these are straightforward extrajudicial killings. And I wanted to ask you about Alejandro Carranza. He's the fisherman whose loved ones say he left home on Columbia's Caribbean coast to fish in open waters days later, and I'm reading from CBS, he was dead. One of at least 32 alleged drug traffickers killed in U.S. military. strikes. From Santa Marta, Northern Columbia, Caranza's family is questioning White House claims that he was carrying narcotics aboard a small vessel that was targeted last month. Can you tell

us about Caranza and what exactly this attack was? And then the next one, this submersible, that killed two people and there are two survivors that were repatriated to Ecuador and to Colombia. You know, that's a great question because it indicates how when you blow boats up, whether the evidence or to find out exactly what was on the boat or what they were doing, well, it disappears along with the boat in the middle of the ocean. So what we have been demanding is information, is to, and then not only Colombia, Senator Rand Paul is right on the money to demand from the administration, these kinds of explanations, because even if they were, in fact, carrying drugs, the procedure is to capture

them, to seize them, to arrest them, to find information about who was behind them and not blowing them up. So what we are seeing here is something that is really going beyond what has been the normal procedure and what the international law establishes. But the case of the two of the Colombian, the Ecuadorian that were repatriated is very indicative of the fact that there's a great legal doubt about how these operations. can actually be carried out. The Colombian and the Ecuadorian that survived the attack were on a Navy ship,

and they were really were in a quandary. They had no, they were, they didn't know what to do with them because even though the Trump administration claimed that this is an act of war, that they should be treated as enemy combatants, there's absolutely no substance to that, to that claim. and so they were had that to be repatriated because they were simply unable to find legal way of maintaining them or as enemy combatants as they originally said or just as drug traffickers if they were accused

but there was no legal basis for this. So that's, I think, a clear indication how there are questions and very severe questions about what is happening. There's a speculation, I don't want to go into them, but there's a speculation about the resignation of Admiral Hosey, the head of Southcombe. This was all in the U.S. media that supposedly his withdrawal also has to do with how the U.S. military and the U.S. Navy has also had questions about the legality of all of this. So I think that the matter goes beyond simply a situation specific of these individuals that were that you mentioned.

It's a broader question about how the use of force, the elimination of these boats of these people that are supposedly carrying drugs, is really walking a very fine line between what is legal by international standard, but also by U.S. standards. We also want to ask you about what's happened with Uribe, the appeals court overturning the conviction. of the former Colombian president. But we're going to go to break. And in addition to Ambassador Daniel Garcia-Pena, who is now speaking to us from Bogota, because President Petro has recalled him to Colombia from the United States because of President Trump bombing boats in the Caribbean, we are also going to be joined by Guillermo Long,

who is a former minister of foreign affairs for Ecuador and will be joined as well by Dr. Manuel Rosenthal, Colombian physician and activist. Stay with us. I don't I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to make a year The wind

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I'm like I'm a Quinto Quinto Quilllelele Lelele If you're coming in our Democracy Now studio, this is Democritman with Juan Gonzalez, we're continuing to look at the escalating tension between the U.S. and Colombia President Gustavo Petro condemned the U.S. for blowing up boats in the Caribbean. This week on truth social, President Trump called Colombian President Petro an illegal drug dealer. He's also called

him a lunatic, speaking on Air Force One. You look at the fields. The fields are loaded up with drugs, and they refine the drugs, and they make tremendous amounts of cocaine, and they send it all over the world, and they destroy families. No, Colombia is out of control, and now they have the worst. president they've ever had. He's a lunatic who's got a lot of problems, mental problems. Still with us is Ambassador Danielle Garcia-Pena, Colombia's ambassador to the U.S., who Petro just recalled as tensions rise between the U.S. and Colombia. We're also joined in Colombia by Manuel Rosenthal, Colombian physician and activist for 40 years of involvement in grassroots

political organizing with youth, indigenous communities, urban and rural social movements, been exiled several times for his political activities. And we're joined by Guillaume Long, Ecuador's former Foreign Affairs Minister, senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. I wanted to go first to Guillaume Long in this segment because in one of these latest bombings of a what's called a submersible, two people died and then two people, a Colombian and Ecuadoran survived. The U.S. says they're killing drug traffickers, but then they just release them. If you can explain what you understand happened and the significance of overall

these bombings of boats from Colombia to Venezuela. Thanks for having me on the show. Well, I mean, there's very little information. This is the whole point. And I think Ambassador Garcia-Pena was very clear in saying that we do not have information. The United States has not provided information on who the people, its bombing, actually are. And in the case of the latest bombing, you mentioned, including a Colombian and an Ecuadorian citizen, you know, there was no evidence provided that they were dealing in drugs. They were drug traffickers. In fact, as you rightly said, the Ecuadorian citizen was returned to Ecuador and Ecuadorian authorities did not prosecute that citizen, despite the fact that the

Ecuadorian government is very close to the Trump administration. There's a real political alliance between the Naur administration in Ecuador and the Trump administration in the United States. In fact, even the prosecutor general in Ecuador has been seen as perceived as very close to the United States as playing ball with the U.S. war on drugs, with now plans to reintroduce a U.S. military base in Ecuador and so on and so forth. So there isn't the same political tension between Ecuador and the U.S. that you do see between Colombia and the U.S. But despite this, Ecuadorian authorities did not prosecute the Ecuadorian person that was handed over by U.S. authorities. So you would think that if it had been the slightest element of evidence, they would have really prosecuted that person, put them into jail, so on and so forth.

So there's none of this. And I think this speaks very loudly about what the broader phenomenon has taken place in the Southern Caribbean. It's essentially a bombing campaign that's for show. We haven't been given any evidence of whether these boats that have been bombed are actually carrying drugs. We also know, I mean, the whole hypothesis of that coastline, particularly Colombia and Venezuela coastline, in particular the Venezuelan coastline, the Caribbean coastline of Venezuela, being like the key conduit for the trafficking of drugs to the United States. That whole hypothesis has been largely debunked. The Trump administration has been speaking of the Cartel de los Soles, the cartel of the Sons,

which experts have, I think, successfully and convincingly argued is actually a fictional, doesn't exist, and certainly Venezuelan authorities are not at the head of that cartel. And we know that the bulk of the cocaine being trafficked into the United States is not leaving from that coast. It's not leaving from Venezuela. Most of it is leaving from Pacific ports, particularly on Pacific ports in Ecuador, but also probably Pacific ports in Colombia, but the bulk of it Pacific ports further down south, actually, in Ecuador and in Peru, very much so in Ecuador, in containers, lots of them, banana containers, so not on small ships, but on larger ships as part of the export business of a number of very legit companies. And yet much of the effort of the U.S. administration has not been targeting those containers, those ships, those courts, but rather these small ships that have been bombed in the Caribbean. So the whole thing really appears to not really be about targeting drug trafficking.

There's been lots of hypotheses that have been out there, presented out there, including regime change in Venezuela and now significant pushback against the government in Colombia, which we know. Trump administration doesn't like, and there's been a history in the last six months of tensions between Colombia and the United States, starting with protesting deportations of migrants back when Trump was elected, but of course Petro's policy on Gaza, his membership of a hate group, which he co-chairs with South Africa to hold Israel accountable for its crimes under international law. So there seems to be a much bigger political context, if you like, behind this than really going after drug traffickers, which seems to be the last of, you know, not at all the main goal of the U.S. administration, I would argue. Yeah, I'd like to bring in Dr. Immanuel Rosenthal

into the conversation. This whole issue, these attacks on the boat started targeting Venezuelan, supposedly drug dealers. Now we've gotten attacks that have been felt by citizens of Colombia and Ecuador, in the early days of the Trump administration, you had all his threats toward Panama. And of course, we have now the stationing of 10,000 American soldiers in Puerto Rico for potential action in Latin America. What is the Trump administration doing to the entire Caribbean region in your view? First of all, I agree with what has been said, and particularly what Guillem was saying, and I will summarize the answer, Juan, by saying this is a pretext.

The entire drug war on drugs issue has been for the longest time, and I live in Kauka, in northern Kauka, one of the areas that is producer of coca, producer of marijuana, within the global context. and we know for a fact and we've known for years and it's been exposed now with this attack on boats and this entire militarization of the Caribbean and the way President Trump speaks out that actually the drug issue is policy. On the one side, there's a promotion of the production of drugs

because it produces massive amounts of transfer of value towards the north. The profit of drug trafficking flows towards the north. Mafias, financial institutions, etc., but the numbers are out there. One kilogram of coca in Colombia is $3,000 at most. The same kilogram in the US is $20,000 and it's $150,000 in Europe. I'm just voting by memory from a UN report. So this is big business and it's accumulating so long as it is illegal. And then the other side of the equation is the war against that, to remain, to maintain it illegal, to target peasants now the people on boats that are transferring that. And then it actually serves one purpose.

People say the war on drugs is a failure. It is a failure as a war on drugs. But it is a tremendous success in what it includes. intends to do, which is helping to address the global and the US capital crisis, the crisis of stagnation of the economy for the crisis that leads to seeing or perceiving that there is excess population, that there is excess capital that has to be destroyed, and that there are deficits of resources, such as mining, oil, particularly and others. So the war on drugs, what it does is eliminate excess and then address the deficit by targeting on

territories. One could ask the question, and Gilom is here and would know better than me. Why is the Noboa family and Noboa president and the banana plantations that he mentioned, and we all know, have been involved in drug trafficking or should at least be investigated seriously, not touched, and yet the target is President Petro, who one can say anything good or bad about his policies, but he is not a drug trafficker, and his approach to the whole drug issue is the exchange of the drug production for good conditions and living conditions for people. So when you put tariffs on these, on legal products, then you're forcing people into the drug trade and then you kill them.

We have to leave it there, but we're going to do an interview in Spanish with all three of our guests. Dr. Manuel Rosenthal, thank you for joining us from Kauka, Colombia. Former Foreign Minister, Guillaume Long, thank you for joining us from New Delhi, India, former foreign minister from Ecuador. And we want to thank the ambassador as well, Danielle Garcia-Penia. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. Thank you. Thank you.