Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-11-03 Monday

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

Headlines for November 03, 2025; “Denying People the Right to Food”: Millions Could Go Hungry as Trump Admin Holds Up SNAP Benefits; Trump Throws “Great Gatsby” Party at Mar-a-Lago as Food Stamps End for Millions; “Our Time Is Now”: Zohran Mamdani’s Mayoral Campaign Inspires NYC’s Working-Class South Asians; Trump Threatens to Go “Guns-a-Blazing” into Nigeria over “Killing of Christians”; Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka on Denial of His U.S. Visa & Trump’s Threat to Strike Nigeria

From New York, this is Democracy Now. Okay. This program is a blessing. It's a very blessing to know that they are helping us and helping our kids. in helping us to be able to feed our children when we don't have jobs right now. Just hours before some 42 million people lost food benefits in what could be the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, President Trump held a lavish Great Gadsby Halloween Party at Marlago. We'll speak with the head of the International F. Scott Fitzgerald Society about the Great Gatsby,

A book about unaccountable power and cruelty. But first to Mariana Chilton, author of The Painful Truth about Hunger in America. Next, tomorrow is Election Day. We'll bring you a report on the South Asian grassroots movement that's hope fuels Zohran Mamdani's historic run for mayor here in New York City. From the get-go, our communities were going to be a big part of its base. Just 24-7, they're thinking how to do. win. They are not only just volunteer. They build actually movement. I think the fact that the campaign

spoke to the very material issues of working class people as first and foremost has really made a very significant difference. Then President Trump threatens to bomb Africa's most populous country, Nigeria, accusing the government of failing to protect Christians, will speak with the Claimed Nigerian writer Wolle Shoyenka, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, who was denied a visa into the United States by the Trump administration. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now. DemocritoryNow. Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. The U.S. federal government shutdown has entered its 34th day.

Two federal judges ruled Friday the Department of Agriculture must partially disperse funds for SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and ordered the Trump administration to provide an update by today. Food banks and nonprofits nationwide are scrambling to meet the needs of 42 million Americans, including 16 million children whose SNAP benefits were cut off over the weekend. On Friday, President Trump held a lavish great Gatsby-themed Halloween party at Marlago, just hours before tens of millions of people lost SNAP benefits. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy wrote on social media, quote, The way he rubs his inhumanity in Americans' face never ceases to stun me. He's illegally refusing to pay food stamp benefits while he throws a ridiculously over-the-top Gatsby party for his right-wing millionaire. and corporate friends, unquote, will have more on the great Gadsby and what it means for today after headlines. Meanwhile, nearly 13,000 air traffic controllers are working without pay due to

the shutdown. CNN reports there have been 98 staffing trigger reports at airports since Friday, meaning air traffic controllers had to alter operations due to staff shortages. Israel's continuing to carry out attacks in Gaza shelling eastern areas of Darabala and the New Sadat's refugee camp. Israel's killed at least 226 Palestinians since the U.S.-backed ceasefire went into effect October 10th. Officials in Gaza have accused Israel of also violating the ceasefire by allowing into Gaza just 24 percent of the aid trucks promised under the deal.

On Sunday, Hamas returned the bodies of three more Israeli soldiers who were killed during the October 7th attack. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces and settlers killed two Palestinians earlier today. Israel also detained at least 15 Palestinians in overnight raids. On Friday, mourners gathered near Ramallah for the funeral of 15-year-old Yemen Samad Hamid, who was killed in an Israeli raid. This is Laila Khanam, the governor of Ramallah. The genocide continues not only in Gaza, but in all of Palestine, because they want to say to all the world, we are in control, we occupy all the world, not only Palestine. There are daily executions. This is a child who was executed like our children, our women, our elders, were executed in cold blood because those who do not fear punishment will misbehave. The world should take a stand.

Former top lawyer for the Israeli military has been arrested for her role in the leak of surveillance video that showed Israeli soldiers gang raping a Palestinian prisoner at the Svetemann prison last year. The military lawyer, Major General Fatomere Yushalmi, was arrested after being reported missing on Sunday. She resigned last week. Five of the Israeli soldiers seen in the video were criminally prosecuted. At the time, Israeli finance minister, Bezalal Smotrich, said these soldiers should be treated like heroes, not villains, unquote. Israel is threatening to step up its attacks on Lebanon. Earlier today, Israeli defense minister, Israel Katz, accused the Lebanese government of delaying efforts to dismantle Hezbollah. Overnight, Israeli drone strikes killed four people in southern Lebanon. On Saturday, the U.S. bombed another boat in the Caribbean, killing at least three people.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed the boat was carrying drugs but once again offered no proof. The U.S. has now bombed 15 boats killing at least 64 people over the past two months. UN human rights chief, O'Kha Turk, has denounced the U.S. attacks. Turk spokesperson Rabina Shamsani spoke Friday. These attacks and their mounting human costs are unacceptable. The U.S. must halt such attacks and take. all measures necessary to prevent the extrajudicial killing of people aboard these boats, whatever the criminal conduct alleged against them.

In related news, the Washington Post reports the Justice Department has told lawmakers that the war powers resolution does not apply to the boat strikes because U.S. service members have not been put in harm's way. Former State Department lawyer Brian Finnecane told the Washington Post, quote, it's a wild claim of executive authority, unquote. This comes as the U.S. continues to amass more ships and aircraft near Venezuela. During an interview on 60 minutes, CBS's Noro Donald questioned President Trump about Venezuela. On Venezuela in particular, are Maduro's days as president numbered?

I would say, yeah. I think so, yeah. And this issue of potential land strikes in Venezuela, is that true? I don't tell you that. I mean, I'm not saying it's true or untrue. President Trump is threatening military intervention in Nigeria, accusing the government of failing to protect Christians. In a post-untruth social, Trump wrote in part, quote, The USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance Nigeria,

and they very well go into that now-discraised country, guns are blazing. If we attack, it'll be fast, vicious and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our cherished Christians, he said. Defense Secretary Pete Higgseth replied to the post by writing, yes, sir. Unquote. Speaking to reporters yesterday aboard his plane, President Trump again vowed to take action in Nigeria. They're killing record numbers of Christians in Nigeria, and they have other countries very bad also. You know that part of the world very bad. They're killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers. We're not going to allow that

to happen. But organizations monitoring violence in the region say there's no evidence to suggest Christians are killed more than other religious groups in Nigeria. This is Malik Samuel, a senior researcher at Good Governance Africa. This is not a Christian genocide because the facts don't support it. If you look at the areas where this conflict is rife, even if you take Borno state alone, you look at the northern Borno, many of these communities are Muslim-dominated. So most of the victims of Boko Haram violence are mostly. Later on the broadcast, we'll speak with the Nobel Literature Prize winning Nigerian writer Wolle Shoyenka.

He was just recently denied a visa back into the United States. The head of the Red Cross says history is repeating itself in Sudan's Darfur region after reports of mass killings by the rapid support forces, RSF paramilitary group, in the city of El Fasher. It comes as Sudan's government says the RSF has killed at least 2,000 people since the paramilitary group. has seized control of Alfasher, but witnesses say the death toll could be much higher as tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped in the city. The mayor of Evanston, Illinois, has opened two investigations into the actions of federal immigration agents. On Friday, one agent was filmed repeatedly punching a man in the head while he was pinned to

the pavement. Moments earlier, an agent pointed a gun at a group of bystanders. Put the gun away. Are you going to shoot people? Evanston Mayor Daniel Bliss denounced the federal agents. ICE agents have assaulted Evanston residents, beaten people up, grabbed them, abducted them, taking people off the street once again because of the color of their skin. It is an outrage.

Our message for ICE is simple. get the hell out of Abinstone. On 60 minutes, CBS's Nora O'Donnell questioned President Trump about federal immigration agents using violent tactics. More recently, Americans have been watching videos of ice, tackling a young mother, tear gas being used in a Chicago residential neighborhood,

and the smashing of car windows. Have some of these raids gone too far? No, I think they haven't gone far enough because we've been held back by the judge. by the liberal judges that were put in by Biden and by Obama. You're okay with those tactics. Yeah, because you have to get the people out. Trump's popularity ratings are at an all-time low.

A mayor in Mexico was shot and killed in a crowded plaza during Day of the Dead celebrations on Saturday. Carlos Alberto Manzo Rodriguez, the mayor of Udupuan in the western state of Michoacan, had been an outspoken critic of drug cartels and organized crime. And the United Nations Security Councils adopted a U.S. back resolution supporting Morocco's autonomy plan for Western Sahara as the basis for negotiations in the territory's political future. Morocco's occupied Western Sahara for half a century. Ten countries joined the United States in supporting the measure. Russia, China, and Pakistan abstained.

Algeria did not cast a vote. The Polisario Front, the Sahrawi Liberation Movement seeking independence, denounce the vote saying it would not take part in, quote, any peace process or negotiations based on proposals that aim to legitimize the Moroccan military occupation, unquote. To see our coverage of Western Sahara over the years, go to DemocracyNow.org. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.

The U.S. federal government shutdown has entered its 34th day. Two federal judges ruled Friday. the Department of Agriculture must partially disperse funds for SNAP. That's the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and ordered the Trump administration to provide an update by today. Food banks and nonprofits nationwide are scrambling to meet the needs of 42 million people whose SNAP benefits were cut off over the weekend, including an estimated 16 million children. This all comes as President Trump held a lavish great Gatsby Halloween party at Maralago just hours before the tens of millions of people lost SNAP benefits, which we'll talk more about in a minute.

But first, we're joined by Marianna Chilton, Professor of Practice in the Department of Nutrition at the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She's a nationally recognized leader in child hunger in America, author of the painful truth about hunger in America. Welcome to Democracy Now, Professor Chiltern. If you can start off by talking about what tens of millions of people in this country face today, and particularly the 16 million children who've lost their SNAP benefits. What does this mean?

It means that we are headed for a public health and an economic crisis. It's important to remember who participates in SNAP and what SNAP actually achieves. First of all, SNAP supports that 90% of the people who are on SNAP benefits are American citizens. And the rest 10% are immigrants who are here legally and who have been here for over five years. The vast majority of SNAP participants are children and with working parents and the elderly and the disabled, veterans, and active duty military. So this affects all different types of people in our society. And it's going to be devastating if the Trump administration refuses to disperse the SNAP benefit dollars that are there. It's important to remember that SNAP does three things.

First of all, it prevents hunger. SNAP was created to prevent malnutrition and children dying of starvation. Back in the 60s, pediatricians and nurses were discovering that children were dying of starvation and that pregnant moms were losing their children or giving birth to preterm babies. And they worked with members of Congress to develop the modern SNAP program. And thanks to SNAP, we do not have children dying of hunger. Secondly, it promotes health and well-being of children. It keeps them out of the hospital.

It actually also helps them to stay in school, and it helps them with their school performance in math and reading. Thirdly, SNAP stimulates the economy for every $1 that's spent on SNAP benefits, $1.50 to $1.80 is stimulated in local economies. So if we don't get SNAP back and running, up and running, we're really headed for a major public health and economic crisis. So you have these two judges who said by Wednesday, SNAP benefits must be partially returned. What does it mean to say the money for SNAP is going to run out?

You also have President Trump saying food stamp benefits paid November will unfortunately be delayed. The Trump administration is currently breaking the law. Snap is an entitlement program, and it is written into statute that no matter what is happening in Congress. Even if Congress is shut down, there are contingency funds to ensure that no one goes hungry in America. Snap is a fantastic public assistance program. It's one that people look to around the world as the most effective public assistance program that prevents hunger, and it was built to withstand any kind of political footballing or crisis, and it is meant to respond to all kinds of economic downturns, whether that's a national

economic downturn or when families are falling onto hard times. So the fact that the Trump administration is withholding this money, they are actively breaking the law and they are denying people the right to food. This all comes as the Trump administration announced it's ending the U.S. annual report on food insecurity and hunger in America. How important is this report, Professor Chilton? Well, this report is based on years and years of data collection. The food security measure has been in operation for more than 25 years, and it was developed by scientists and social workers who were discovering food insecurity and hunger in their communities, and they developed a measure to look at that.

And that was the way that we could see how well snap and other nutrition assistance programs like school breakfast and lunch, and the WIC program, which funds food, for pregnant and lactating mothers and young children under the age of five, it was a way for us to see how well our programs were working at preventing hunger. So it's an extremely important measure based on scientific expertise, and it has withstood multiple rounds of scientific investigation, poking at it from all sides, and it has withstood all types of peer review. So the fact that the U.S. government is no longer utilizing that measure

or not allowing those numbers to be released should be deeply concerning at the same time that they're withholding funds from SNAP. Snap is really a way it helps to hold up our democracy. It is an entitlement program, again. And it's really important to think about why it is that they're doing this. They are actively trying to cause harm and chaos to the American people. And this is something that I talk about in my book is the experience of disrespect, the experience of violence and discrimination.

Those are at the root of food insecurity and hunger. And right now, the Trump administration has given. us a master class and how to generate more hunger in our society. This is why SNAP needs to be continued and released. Another thing that's really important to remember is that SNAP supplements wages. And the reason that we have SNAP in the first place is that when people are working, they're not making enough money because employers like Amazon and Walmart are refusing to pay living wages. So let's really not just focus on the Trump administration, but let's look at giant employers and see what it is that they can do to ensure that there's a living wage where people

do not have to participate in SNAP and do not have to rely on Medicaid. There's no one I've met in the 25 years that I've been working on food insecurity that wants to be on the SNAP program. They want to make a living wage and feed their families and their communities in a way that is dignified and respectful and that actually builds solidarity. Something that's so important to remember is that the way you build democracy is to make sure that everyone has healthy and nutritious food on the table. And let's remember that the Democrats are saying that they will not agree to ending the government shutdown unless the Republicans agree to SNAP and health care.

And this weekend, many people learn their out-of-pocket costs for Obamacare will go up over 100 percent, on average, 26 percent, and also enhanced tax credits expiring. The significance of losing health care, because if you can't pay for it, you lose it, and losing food assistance. We have 30 seconds. Remember that food assistance promotes health and well-being. So if you're cutting SNAP benefits, you're going to make people sicker, more likely to miss jobs, more likely to miss school. Parents are less likely to be able to show up to work. and they're going to be not as healthy.

Without health insurance, it's going to cause a major cascade effect. It will be a public health crisis without SNAP benefits and Medicaid benefits. And we really need to focus in on employers paying a living wage. Professor Marianna Chilton, I thank you so much for being with us, Professor of Practice in the Department of Nutrition School, Public Health and Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, author of The Painful Truth About Hunger in America. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman.

On Friday, President Trump held a lavish great Gatsby Halloween party at Marlago, just hours before the estimated 42 million people lost SNAP benefits. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy wrote on social media, the way he rubs his in humanity in Americans' face never ceases to stun me. He's illegally refusing to pay food stamp benefits while he throws a ridiculously over the top Gatsby party for his right-wing millionaire and corporate. friends, unquote. And a piece for the Financial Times headlined how Gatsby foretold Trump's America. The University of London literature professor Sarah Churchill writes, quote, the novel's prescience lies not in foretelling specific events, but in diagnosing a culture where power enjoys impunity and cruelty rubs out its traces. A society run by careless people, the unheeding brutality of so-called world builders, has returned most recent.

in the dark fantasies of Trumpism, and in Silicon Valley's fatuous motto, move fast and break things, she wrote. For more, we go to Montgomery, Alabama, where we're joined by Kirk Kernan, professor and chair of the English department at Troy University. Montgomery is where Zelda Fitzgerald was born. The professor teaches F. Scott Fitzgerald, the great Gatsby, served on the board of the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum in Montgomery. now executive director of the International F. Scott Fitzgerald Society.

We thank you so much for being with us. Professor Kirk Karnett, as you saw this party play out in Mar-a-Lago as millions could literally move into hunger in America. Your thoughts? What did the great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, teach us about the times then and perhaps a warning about the times today. Well, I think it's fair to say that those of us who have spent our career studying of Scott Fitzgerald were horrified and sort of felt like, Mr. President, you've ruined so much already. Why must you sully the Great Gatsby?

It's really horrific optics. And it really perpetuates, I think, a misreading of the Great Gatsby that troubles many of us. Gatsby is sort of famous for its lavish party scenes, but I think what people often miss is that the entire thrust of the book is to critique that conspicuous consumption and the wastage that goes on in these sorts of events where all of our values are becoming more and more tenuous. Who in the Great Gatsby do you see personifying President Trump and why? Well, it's very interesting because for the past 50 years, there's been a tendency to equate presidents with Jay Gatsby. It started with Richard Nixon, believe it or not, in part because the 1974 movie was going on during Watergate.

And it usually refers to people who come outside, the outsider, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama. But with Donald Trump, I think we really do have the first instance of, of a president who is the villain of the novel, Tom Buchanan. And if you could talk about the fact that April was the centennial of the publication of the Great Gatsby, what do you see is the enduring message about a society run by careless people? And as you looked at Mar-a-Lago, the millionaires and billionaires around, President Trump, your final thoughts? Well, my eyes kind of went to the servers and the people that are working this sort of

extravagant party. And they're in the background of Gatsby, too. I see a huge difference because the people that attended Gatsby's parties were not necessarily rich people. They tended to be people that were interested or sort of drawn to the exuberance of life. And in many ways, they're not unlike Gatsby. So it was sort of a taste of a life that they probably weren't ever going to get in the real work-a-day world. When I look at Trump's Marilago, it just seems something right out of the satiricon, which is a story that Fitzgerald drew from as he was creating the novel.

So it really, there's no irony or no self-critique there as this spectacle is going on. And it just demonstrates, again, that a lot of our great literature can be used for spurious purposes. Kirk Carnot, I want to thank you for being with us, chair of the English Department at Troy University, Executive Director of the International of Scott Fitzgerald Society, joining us from Montgomery, Alabama, the birthplace of Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of the author. F. Scott Fitzgerald. When we come back tomorrow's election day, we'll bring you a report on the South Asian grassroots movement that's helping fuel Zoran Mamdani's historic run for mayor here in New York. Back in 20 seconds. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman. Today is Election Day all over the country. Early voting just ended in New York's mayoral race this weekend, with 735,000 ballots cast.

It's the highest early voter turnout in New York's history for a non-presidential race, something like four times a number of people who usually vote in early voting. As the three candidates for mayor, Democratic nominee Zoran Mamdani, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, and Republican nominee Curtis Slewark. closed out their campaigns. President Trump told 60 Minutes, he's not a fan of Cuomo, but would pick him over Mamdani, who he called a communist. Meanwhile, the New York Times reports, former President Obama told Mamdani in a private phone conversation Saturday, his campaign had been impressive and offered to be a sounding board. I should clarify, Tuesday, not today,

is election day. Zara and Mamdani's mayoral campaign has energized communities across New York city in unprecedented ways, mobilizing nearly 100,000 volunteers for his campaign. Democracy now's Anjali Kamit has been following a crucial, often overlooked portion of Mamdani's base, working-class South Asians. It's Friday afternoon in a quiet neighborhood in Kensington, Brooklyn. These women are members of drumbeats, an advocacy group for low-income. come South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities here in New York. And they're getting ready to canvas for Zoran Mamdani.

So half of the leash is going to cover with them, then they will find them. They split up into groups and I followed them as they knocked on dozens of doors. Armed with colorful flyers about the campaign in Bengali and Urdu and dozens of Zoran pins, they explained why they thought Mamdani was the best candidate and reminded. neighbors about early voting times and locations. So November 4th is a final vote. Assalam al-a-a-a-a-a-a-lid. Their enthusiasm was infectious,

often bursting into Bengali chants of my mayor, your mayor. And for the most part, it seemed to work. I spoke to Fahad Ahmed, who runs drum beats, which stands for daisies, or South Asians, rising up and moving. Their organization was among the very first, to endorse Zoran's run for mayor last year. Many people will say that, oh, well, it's a South Asian-descended candidate,

and so it must be an identity thing. But we've had several South Asian or Indo-C Caribbean candidates, but none of them elicit this response. And I think the fact that the campaign spoke to the very material issues of working-class people as first and foremost has really made a very significant difference. I also spoke to Jugpreet Singh, Drumbeat's political director, who's in charge of endorsing political candidates and getting the vote out.

When Zeran had come to us to begin with, he said his base, the base he was looking at, were three planks. Number one was the leftist progressives. His second plank was rent-stabilized tents. And the third was Muslim and South Asian communities. Communities that have not been previously galvanized, have not been previously activated, usually have some of the lowest voter turnout rates. So from the get-go, our communities were going to be a big part of its base.

Kazi Fasia moved to New York City from Bangladesh in 2008. Now she's Drum's organizing director. The tireless campaigning by women like her was crucial to Zoran's victory in the primaries. In some neighborhoods, voter turnout among South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities doubled. Just 24-7, they're thinking how to win. Some of them work in the cafeteria and the school. Some of them also work in the retail store. Some of them are home health worker, take care of the passion.

One of my leader actually restaurants, they are not only just volunteer. They build actually movement. After a long evening of canvassing, they're back at the office only to get ready for more of the same, the next day and every day after until the elections. These all tired people come together and creating movement to show the world how political campaign supposed to be looked like. Six, seven, the only vote kickers. In June, we won the primary because of historic numbers of new voters that turned out.

We changed the electorate. Earlier this month, Zoran Mamdani addressed an excited crowd of supporters at a Bangladeshi restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens. What we did in the primary is we increased the turnout of Muslims by 60 percent, the turnout of South Asians by 40 percent, and when I stood in front of the world and gave a speech that night, I made sure to remember the Bangladeshi aunties that knocked on the doors across this city

and people have asked me what will it mean to have a Muslim male what my grandmother Kulsom taught me that to be a good Muslim is to be a good person it is to help those in need and to harm no one the truth of this campaign it is a truth that believes in each one of the people in this room and their possibility. It is the truth that looks at the youngest among us

and sees that they could be anything in this city. Anything they want. At the Jackson Heights Farmer's Market that weekend, the high school students who met Mamdani at the restaurant were still thinking about his words. If I could run for mayor, I think I would have a lot of great ideas, just like Zoran, making New York City affordable.

I want to be able to live here without any... worry about paying rent. I know I'm just 17, but I want to be able to move out next year and experience living in the city because I know, even for my family, it's really hard to pay the rent, so, yeah. Mohini Mebuba is one of the youth members of drumbeats. A talented artist, Moini was giving people henna tattoos that spelled Zoran. We worked so hard, phone banking, canvassing, and I love. I love doing it, and I'm going to do some more today, hopefully.

And it's just a really good feeling to do something that will be able to change for us as well. At the Drumbeats' office in Jackson Heights, there's a different group of people phone banking every afternoon. They're reaching out to communities in a variety of South Asian languages, with volunteers making calls in Nepali, Urdu, and Bengali. The group of high school students are also making calls, in between joking around. Hey, my name is Sami, and I am a high school volunteer for the Zoran Mamdani's campaign. Have you ever heard about Zoran Mamdani? Are you planning to vote for him on the election day, November 4th? High school student Mifthahun Mahona explains why she's passionate about campaigning for Zoran Mamdani.

Even though I'm not at the age to vote, not yet, I still care about, like, people. above 18, for them to vote for Zoran, because the thing is, if they vote for the right person, that also benefits me. Because I live in a world where it's very corrupt. And every action that the people over 18 taking, like voting, their action means a lot to me as well. Because I come from a working class family. We don't have many benefits. We don't have much resources. Across working-class South Asian communities in the city, there's a deep belief that Zoran Mamdani will stand up for them if he becomes mayor. A big reason for that is his role in the taxi workers' protest against medallion debt back in 2021. When the drivers decided to go on a hunger strike, Assemblyman Mamdani joined them for the full 15 days.

Kazi Fausia remembers how moved the community was. I saw how long he's doing the hunger. he was dying that time. So I feel this call actually real solidarity, solidarity, not just come and talk and leave. Solitary also, he put his body front line. Drum or Desi's Rising Up and Moving was founded in Jackson Heights, Queens in 2000 as a membership organization of low-wage, South Asian and Indo-Caribbean workers and youth. For most of its history, their membership has faced the brunt of domestic repression and hate crimes that followed the September 11th attacks.

Kazi Fausia found herself the target of NYPD surveillance when she started organizing in immigrant Muslim communities. I came 2008, this country, and I used to work in retail store in Jackson Heights, and that time I'm doing volunteering, organizing with the drum, and one day I found informer behind me. A few years later, as hate crimes against South Asian immigrants spiked again, many people suggested she stopped wearing her hijab. People asked me 2013, you should take off your hijab because it's not safe anymore.

We saw how much isolations and fear community have after 9-11. Jugpreet Singh remembers his sick family members, cutting their hair and beards and wearing American flag t-shirts, to stay safe after 9-11. This is a reality we lived with for a long time, that we had to hide ourselves, that we had to retreat back, that we had to fight for everything that we wanted.

And we're in this reality now, where Suranam Dhani is about to become mayor of our city, a very outward Muslim man, South Asian, who is very much into his identity, who does not hide his identity. From the shadows of post-9-11, repression and fear, the Mamdani campaign has given this community a new sense of political confidence and purpose.

So if you see now our member, our community member, our religiously, our neighbors, we're all now talking, talking, talking for Zohran. If they go back the 9-11 era and they try to talk about Islamophobic, xenophobic thing, it's not going to sell. It's not going to sell. It's over. people are not going to go back the isolating zone anymore. If they try to implement this, they will push back.

If Zoran Mamdani wins the mayoral election, drum beats like other progressive groups that backed Mamdani from the start could find themselves in a brand new role, collaborating with the administration to govern the city. It's been a long journey from advocating for those on the margins to potentially having a seat at the table. Here's Jack Preet Singh again. Talks about what the administration would look like are still a little premature,

but the campaign and the administration has been very willing to work with organizations like ours at drum beats. It feels amazing to see that we now get to take up leadership, that we get to not only have a seat at the table, but run how our city runs. It's not just going to happen by him being in office, no matter how charismatic he is. Kazi Fasia says that if Mamdani wins the race but is unable to keep his campaign promises down the road, their members will not hesitate to push his administration and hold their feet to the fire. Zoharan make impossible possible in his grassroots movement in the Mural campaign. So Zoharan have to keep his promises and fulfill his commitment

and will be support all the time him. and also if he don't fulfill or keep his promises, we'll hold him accountable. In the event of a Mamdani victory, his administration will not face an easy path. People like Fahad Ahmed are already preparing for how to confront the many challenges and threats that may come, whether from the Trump administration or Wall Street and real estate interests. Our side, there will be real challenges of trying to run a city as a left. when we don't have extensive experience of doing that. But how it is that we govern,

tending to the actual material needs that come up in day-to-day administration of the city while having a vision that is transformative that does believe that cities and society can be shaped differently and can function in ways that actually meet the needs of everyday working people. But for now, the South Asian and Indo-Carbian communities

that have been pounding the pavement for Mamdani couldn't be more excited for a potential Zoran Mamdani victory and their new role in the spotlight. We choose the future. Because for all those who say, our time is coming. My friends, our time is now. For democracy now,

This is Anjali Khamit with Nicole Salazar. Thanks to Rahan Ansari. And special thanks to Turina Nudura. Up next, President Trump threatens to bomb Africa's most populous country accusing the Nigerian government of failing to protect Christians. We'll speak with the acclaimed Nigerian writer Wolle Shweinka, the first African winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, whose visa was revoked under the Trump administration back in 20 seconds.

Woke with a feeling Tomorrow is coming Some new hope is around the bend And it's beaming through the lens Woke up feeling I could be alright Under the door is the hallway light Things have gone to be all right

This is democracy now, democracy now. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman. We end today's show looking at Nigeria. As President Trump threatened this weekend, to bomb Africa's most populous country, also the largest oil producer in Africa. In a post on Truth Social Saturday, Trump wrote in part, quote, The USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria and may very well go into that now,

disgrace country, guns ablazing. If we attack, it'll be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our cherished Christians, he wrote. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth responded to the. the post writing, quote, yes, sir, unquote. Trump on Sunday again vowed in his plane to take action in Nigeria. They're killing record numbers of Christians in Nigeria, and they have other countries very bad also. You know, that part of the world very bad. They're killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers and not going to allow that to happen.

Nigerian officials and experts in the West African region have refuted Trump's claims of mass killings of Christians. This is a researcher at Good Governance Africa. This is not a Christian genocide because the facts don't support it. If you look at the areas where this conflict is rife, even if you take Borno State alone, you look at the northern Borno, many of these communities are Muslim-dominated. So most of the victims of Boko Haram violence are Muslims. Nigeria's government has said it welcomes military aid from the U.S. as long as its sovereignty is respected. This is an advisor to the Nigerian president, Bolotanubu.

Our soldiers have the capability to deal with this thing, so we do not require the American soldiers boot on the ground. What we need is the apparatus, the equipment, the access to some of these things that will aid our own military force and some of the paramilitary and intelligent operatives to deal with this. more, we're joined by two guests. In Lagos, Nigeria, we'll speak with Wolle Shewienka, the acclaimed Nigerian playwright, author, and poet, the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. It happened in 1986. The Trump administration recently revoked his visa to come to the United States. The decision came after Shwayinka referred to President Trump as the white version of the ruthless Ugandan military dictator Idi Amin.

And we're joined by Anthea Butler, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her most recent book is titled White Evangelical Racism, the Politics of Morality in America. Professor Butler, we're going to begin with you. Can you explain, were you surprised by President Trump going after Nigeria this weekend, saying they could bomb, they could strike, they could move in with guns blazing, saying Christians are being killed there? Can you explain where this is coming from? I'm never surprised at the hyperbole of our president. Let me just say this. I think that this has been a longstanding concern of evangelical Christians in the United States.

And so if you think about this in terms of the president's base, this is a move, I think, in part, to energize them, to have them think that he is thinking about Christians in other places. So this theme of persecution of Christians is a very politically charged and actually religiously charged theme for evangelicals across the world. And when you say that Christians are being persecuted, that's a thing. So for him to say this on truth social, I think, provides two things. One is this is something that the administration is thinking about insofar as somebody probably told them to think about it. That's number one. And number two, it serves another purpose. It serves to energize his base.

And so while this issue of religious violence has been prevalent in Nigeria for lots of different reasons, I would submit to you that it's not simply just about violence against Christians, but it's religiously inflected violence because of different factions that are on the ground and groups. And this is not just about Christians, but it's also involving Muslims. It's involving other groups that are there. It's a complicated situation. In fact, with Boko Haram, you have the most attacking.

In the north, and in the north, it's more Muslims that are being killed than Christians. It's not that there isn't violence, but the Nigerians are questioning whether this is religiously based. So the question is, is this coming from the United States? Trump said he asked Congressmember Riley Moore of West Virginia and Congress member Tom Cole of Oklahoma and House Appropriations Committee for a report on the matter. Congressman Moore had sent a letter to Secretary of State Rubio urging the Trump administration to take immediate action to address systematic persecution and slaughter of Christians in Nigeria, saying that Nigeria is the deadliest place in the world to be a Christian. So talk more about the white Christian nationalists in the United States, going after Africa's most populous country, and maybe of relevance, the large. oil producer, as Venezuela is in Latin America, which President Trump is threatening to attack, but the largest oil producer in Africa.

Yeah, I find that very interesting, that these are two oil-rich states that he is interfering in. So that's for one. Number two, let me say this about Nigeria and Christianity. There has been a religiously sort of back and forth between Nigeria and America for a very long time. If you think about that towards televangelists, and that sort of exploded in the 1990s, in the 2000s, you have many giant megachurches. So it's no surprise that, you know, political's here,

especially those who are Republican and Christian, would be interested in Nigeria for not just, you know, financial gain, but also because this is a country that in the South is predominantly Christian. Okay. So that's number one. And number two, I think, which is actually even more important, is that this is a place where the administration could prosecute a holy war. And what I mean by that is that they can use certain kinds of things that have happened in the news.

If you think back two years ago, there was a massacre of Christians during the Christmas season. There have been, you know, Boko Haram capturing girls. These were mostly Muslim girls, actually. If we think about all these cases, this falls into that kind of framework that evangelicals understand, first of all. And then secondarily, it fits this sort of savior narrative of this American sort of ethos right now that is, seeing itself going into countries for a moral war, a moral suasion as it were, to do something to help other people. Now, I think it's very interesting to also think about the fact that the president of Nigeria is a Muslim. He is married to a Christian wife. Nigeria is complicated

religiously. And I don't think that the ways in which this is being portrayed in, you know, the popular ways in which we report on what he says, right, the president says, is a way that you should understand Nigeria. It is much more complicated religiously. There's religious violence. There have been people in this country for years who have been working on this through various administrations. And it certainly was going on during the first round of the Trump administration, but he didn't seem to care about it then. Why now? And finally, before we go to Wolei Shoyinka, the Trump administration sharply reducing the number of refugees admitted annually to the U.S. to 7,500 people from like 125,000.

Most of those 7,500 will be white South Africans who are mostly Christian. Yes. I mean, I think this is sort of disingenuous to say you're going to go in and save Christianity in Nigeria when you have, you know, banned Nigerians from coming to this country. It's very crucial in a way because I think about this in terms of places like Houston, Texas, where Nigerians make up a huge part of the population there. and they are very active in engineering, finance, in medical issues, medical doctors, things like that. You are banning a community that is very, how shall I say, that when they come to the United States for education or to work, very professionalized. This is not, you know, people who are coming because they want to seek asylum.

They are coming to contribute and they want to be able to come in. But the fact that this administration is on the one hand saying, we want to go in and save Nigeria, but on the other hand, not letting Nigerians into the country, and you're only going to let South Africans in and white South Africans to boot. That is pretty much telling you exactly where this Christian nationalist administration is. Well, Anthea Butler, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, we thank you for being with us as we turn to Wolei Shoyinka, the acclaimed playwright, author, and poet, the first African to win the Nobel Prize for literature. You teach it, NYU Abu Dhabi, you're not in the United States, and looks like you

can't come here because the Trump administration has revoked your visa. Can you start off by responding to President Trump saying that they're going to strike Nigeria guns blazing? Could you repeat what Trump was alleged to say? I missed a lot of party. Trump said in a social media quote that he could attack Nigeria guns blazing to save Christians in Nigeria. Interestingly, Professor Schoenka, you were raised as a Christian, and now you've been denied your visa. Can you respond to him saying he's cutting off aid to Nigeria and could strike Nigeria? Yes, guns blazing and the word vicious, I think, given up here, either that statement or another,

that the war will be vicious, et cetera, et cetera. Let me begin by just stating my conviction that we must separate the problems which Nigeria has and has had for decades, separate that from President Trump's response, recent response. The Christian Islam versus the rest, or even Christianity versus the rest, that kind of dichotomy has existed, as I said, for quite a few decades. It's escalated, it's become truly horrendous in many aspects, since politics got mixed up with religious differences. In other words, when religious differences began to be invoked as a means of political power and even social and economic powers, we've had unquestionably the issue of impunity.

In other words, if we identify, for instance, certain extreme groups in one religion and the perpetrators of these horrors get away with it openly. And I'm going to illustrate, there was a girl, a student, who was brutally lynched. savage and dehumanized before being killed.

I wrote a play about it. I was so exercised by it. I wrote a play which was produced, in fact, in my department in Abu Dhabi. And the allegation was that she blasphemed against the Prophet Muhammad, which she did not, by the way, that's proven. Right, it's bad enough. It's just excruciating enough.

when it is followed by the perpetrators who were charged to court, who were eventually acquitted, or at least the charges dismissed, when it gets to the level where sub-prepetrators go on internet, displaying a box of matches and saying, I quote, there's the box of matches with which I kill. I was the one to set fire to her, and nothing happens to them. they walk free. Now, it is those kinds of incident which escalates in popular perception that there is a brutal war going on between Christians and Muslims. Whereas in truth, we're dealing

with extremists. We're dealing with political Islamists, known sometimes as ISWAP across West Africa or Boko Haram within Nigeria. These are the real. enemies of society, not Islam as such, not followers of Islam, the Muslims as such. It's the political Islamist extremists. The psychopaths, unfortunately, they've allied with similar movements outside Nigeria, and so they have a steady supply of arms. And they carry arms so sophisticated that sometimes military, the military cannot subdue them. Then you've had, frankly, let's be honest,

some very lackadaisical leaders in the direction of curtailing, just curving this monstrosity of fundamentalism, of homicidal fundamentalism. We have groups very well armed who swoop on villages and they cite fidelity to Islam. Now, these are the real enemies, not Muslims.

And so when we have sweeping statements like that of Trump, it's not making things easy for there to be a resolution because it's expanding the zones, the regions of hostility, expanding them to an extent that it becomes almost un-discipline. Well, Lishoyenko, we only have a minute. And I did want to repeat, since it's so important, his quote, if we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet is what he said. But I wanted to ask you in this last 30 seconds, why your visa was revoked to the United States. Oh, I have a feeling that I haven't been saying, I haven't been flattering Donald Trump, and I've seen no reason to do that.

and there have been occasions when I've had to speak up quite bluntly. You compare him to Idi Amin of Uganda? Yes, yes. I think Trump should be flattered by the fact that I compared him to Ediamin. I mean, Trump has said he likes war. I mean, I'm quoting him. Idi Amin was a man of war and brutality. Idi Amin considered himself a liberator.

He called himself the last king of Scotland. It was going to liberate Scotland from the British. Wellish Wink, we have to wrap, but I'm going to ask you to stay with us because we're going to do part two of this discussion at DemocracyNow.org. People can check it out. Willish Wink, a Nigerian Nobel Prize winning author. That does it for our show.