Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-11-07 Friday

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

Democracy Now! Friday, November 7, 2025

From New York, this is Democracy Now. What I think it's really important for me to remember and for all my trans siblings out there to remember is that the government cannot tell us who we are. and they will never be the arbiter of our identities. As the Supreme Court rules, the Trump administration can begin enforcing a passport policy that discriminates against transgender and binary people, we'll get response from the pioneering trans actress and activist Laverne Cox, as well as the ACLU. Then we look at the Supreme Court battle over Trump's tariffs policy.

Our message today is simple. The Constitution, our framers, 238 years of American history, all say only Congress has the power to impose tariffs on the American people. And tariffs are nothing but taxes on the American people, paid by Americans. This case is not about the president. It's about the presidency.

We'll speak to Lisa Graves, author of the new book. book Without Precedent, how Chief Justice Roberts and his accomplices rewrote the Constitution and dismantled our rights. And as the U.S. blows up yet another boat in the Caribbean, we'll look at reports the U.S. is considering assassinating Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. We'll speak to the National Security Archives Peter Cornblum about what he calls Trump's gunboat diplomacy. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now. Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. In Sudan, the paramilitary, rapid support forces said Thursday they've agreed to a U.S.-backed ceasefire proposal to end more than two years of a devastating war with the Sudanese military.

The truce was brokered by a U.S.-led group of mediators known as the Quad, made up of negotiators from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab, Hundreds of thousands of civilians facing famine remain trapped in the city of Alfacer in Sudan's North Darfur region after it was seized by the RSF. Sudan's war has triggered what the UN describes as the largest humanitarian crisis in the world with millions of people displaced. We hope that things would go back to what they used to be and for people to go back to their lands. War is not good. I swear to God, people were destroyed. Youth were lost and families were lost. We don't have anything to say. We just want the country to be fixed. We wish the country would be fixed for people to return to their lands and to live in peace and security. In Gaza, Israel's militaries continuing to target the southern city of Han Yunus with airstrikes and artillery fire

despite the U.S. broker-truths that took effect nearly a month ago. On Thursday, a civil society group in Gaza appealed for international assistance in finding the bodies of more than 10,000 Palestinians still buried under the rubble of buildings destroyed during Israel's two-year assault. In its appeal, the National Committee for Missing Persons, Colgaza, the world's largest mass grave. In Lebanon, at least one person was killed and nine others injured after Israel launched a series of airstrikes Thursday. Both Lebanon's government and Hezbollah condemned the attacks as another flagrant violation of the ceasefire deal agreed to one year ago. Defense Secretary Pete Heggseth said Thursday the U.S. military struck yet another boat

in the Caribbean, claiming without evidence, it killed three narco-traffickers on board. The latest killings bring the reported toll from U.S. attacks in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific to 70 people aboard 18 votes. Hegg Seth's announcement came as Republican senators narrowly blocked a war powers resolution seeking to bar President Trump from taking military action against Venezuela without congressional authorization. Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollins spoke ahead of Thursday evening's vote. Quit engaging in illegal actions in the Caribbean and international waters,

blowing up boats and people in an extrajudicial fashion. And when it comes to Venezuela, stop making these threats and amassing military assets off the shore and claiming you somehow have the authority to do that. the Constitution invests the authority to go to war with the United States Congress. On Thursday, the former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, Luis Marino Accompo, told the BBC, the U.S. attacks on civilian vessels would be treated as crimes against humanity under international law. We'll have more on the attacks later in the broadcast with Peter Cornblou

of the Latin American National Security Archives. The U.S. federal government shutdown has entered its 38th day. On Thursday, Senate Democrats huddled behind closed doors to discuss ways to end the stalemate as Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune prepared a Friday vote on a package of spending bills that once again omit Democrats' key demand, an extension of federal health insurance tax credits set to expire December 31st. Without an extension, the average enrollee will see pretext. premium costs more than double. Millions would lose coverage entirely.

Meanwhile, a federal judge Thursday ordered the Trump administration to immediately and fully fund SNAP food assistance benefits after it refused to draw down contingency funds to pay for the program that helps one out of every eight people in the U.S. afford groceries. The administration promptly appealed the ruling. In response, Washington's Senator Patty Murray wrote, quote, I've never seen an American president so desperate to force children and seniors to go hungry. This is as ugly and cruel as it gets, Senator Murray wrote. Millions of U.S. air travelers face travel chaos after the Trump administration began canceling flights at 40 of the nation's busiest airports.

Airlines have already canceled thousands of flights. That number is expected to grow if the government shutdown continues into next week. This comes amidst a shortage of air traffic controllers who've been forced to work long hours without pay throughout the shutdown. Meanwhile, the death toll from Wednesday's crash of a UPS cargo plane in Louisville, Kentucky has risen to 13. The National Transportation Safety Board says it has recovered the plane's cockpit voice and data recorders investigating the plane's maintenance history and TSB workers are considered essential workers and have been required. to work without pay throughout the shutdown. Elon Musk is poised to become the first trillionaire in world history.

On Thursday, shareholders at the electric vehicle maker Tesla approved a pay package worth nearly a trillion dollars if Musk meets certain corporate goals over the next decade. He's already the world's richest person with a net worth of around half a trillion dollars. A Chicago judge has banned federal agents from using tear gas, pepper, spray and other riot weapons amidst Trump's immigration crackdown in the city.

The latest ruling by Judge Sarah Ellis extends temporary restrictions issued last month in which she ordered federal agents to use body cameras and report on excessive use of force during raids in the Chicago area. There have been mounting reports of immigration agents pointing guns at civilians during the operations, as well as attacking protesters and journalists. Judge Ellis blasted Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino for admitting he lied about being hit with a rock during a raid in Chicago's little village before deploying tear gas in a crowd of people. Judge Ellis wrote, quote, the government would have people believe instead that the Chicago land area is in a vicehold of violence ransacked by rioters and attacked by agitators. That simply is untrue. And the government's own evidence in this case belies that.

assertion, she said. In Washington, D.C., a jury Thursday acquitted a man who was charged for throwing a sandwich at a federal agent in protest of President Trump's crackdown on the Capitol. Sean Dunn was found not guilty of one count of misdemeanor assault. A grand jury previously rejected a felony charge against Dunn, whose image throwing a submarine-style sandwich at a customs and border protection agent in August became a symbol of resistance. LGBTQ-plus advocates have vowed to continue fighting after the conservative majority Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to temporarily enforce a discriminatory passport policy against transgender, non-binary, and intersex people.

The policy requires U.S. passports to match a person's sex designation found on their original birth certificate. The measure seeks to end a Biden-era practice of issuing passports with a gender-neutral marker and X. applicants to select a marker that matches their gender identity. In response, the ACLU said, quote, forcing transgender people to carry passports that out them against their will increases of risk. They will face harassment and violence and adds to the considerable barriers they

already face in securing freedom, safety, and acceptance, unquote. We'll have more on this story after headlines. We'll get response from the famous trans actress, LeVern Cox, as well as the ACLU. In Vietnam, at least five people were killed after typhoon Kalmagi battered coastal regions with torrential rain and gushing winds. The storm made landfall in central Vietnam Thursday, destroying homes uprooting trees, causing widespread power outages for an estimated 1.2 million people. The typhoon left a trail of destruction in the Philippines where the death toll rose to nearly 200 people today. The typhoon is weakened to a tropical storm as it moved toward Cambodian Laos. On Thursday, the UN World Meteorological Organization warned this year is on track to rank among the three warmest years on record.

Coming after last year, said a record, is the hottest year ever observed. The Texas-based oil giant Exxon financed right-wing think tanks to help spread climate change denial across Latin America. That's according to newly revealed documents published by The Guardian and DeSmog, which uncovered a widespread campaign by Exxon to finance the U.S.-based Atlas, network. A coalition made up of more than 500 so-called free market think tanks and its partners worldwide in order to spread lies about the role of fossil fuels and causing the climate crisis. This comes as World Leaders Thursday, delivered opening remarks in Berlin, Brazil, which is preparing to host COP 30 UN Climate Summit starting next week. This is Brazilian

President, Luis Anasya Lula de Silva. The window of opportunity we have to act is closing rapidly. change is a result of the same dynamics that over the centuries have fractured our society between rich and poor and divided it between developed and developing countries. The Trump administration's not sending a U.S. delegation to the upcoming climate talks. Democracy now will be broadcasting from COP 30 in Berlin. California Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday she will not seek re-election when her term ends in early 2027. Pelosi's represented San Francisco

in Congress for nearly four decades. In 2007, she was elected as the first female Speaker of the House, where she exerted powerful control over House Democrats as they took up major legislation, including the Affordable Care Act under President Obama. She served a second term as House Speaker from 2019 to 2020-23. Meanwhile, New York Governor Kathy Hokel and New York City Mayor Electsaur on Mamdani traveled to Puerto Rico Thursday for the annual Somos Conference, which focuses on issues important to Puerto Rican communities. Mamdani proposed raising revenue for his ambitious affordability agenda by raising the personal income tax on New Yorkers

who make $1 million or more by 2% in raising the state's top corporate tax to match that of New Jersey. Governor Hockel has rejected broad tax increases on New Yorkers. Meanwhile, Republican New York Congresswoman Elise Stefano, a key ally of President Trump, has announced a Seeker Party's nomination to challenge Hokel in the 20th. 2006 gubernatorial election. And the trail-blazing human rights attorney, Peter Weiss, has died at the age of 99.

Weiss served on the board of the Center for Constitutional Rights for nearly five decades, where he worked to end South African apartheid and the Vietnam War, fought for nuclear disarmament, and sought justice for victims of the U.S. back contras in the 1980s, Nicaragua. He pioneered using the 1789 alien tort statute in human rights cases. He also represented the family of U.S. journalist and human rights activist Charles Horman in a case against Henry Kissinger and others after Horman was disappeared and killed in Chile, soon after the U.S. backed September 11, 1973 coup. Peter Weiss spoke to Democracy Now about the case in 2013.

Our case was dismissed because we couldn't conduct discovery. When you bring any kind of case, civil or criminal, aren't you have to look for the evidence and produce the evidence to the judge or the jury? And everything that we wanted, we were told, was classified and would not be made available to us. So eventually the case had to be dismissed. The legendary human rights attorney Peter Weiss died just five weeks shy for what would have been his 100th birthday.

And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. The conservative majority Supreme Court Thursday allowed the Trump administration to temporarily enforce a discriminatory passport policy against transnational. gender, non-binary, and intersex people while litigation in the case, Trump continues through the lower courts. After the decision, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X, quote, attorneys at the Justice Department just secured our 24th victory at the Supreme Court's emergency docket. Today's stay allows the government to require citizens to list their

biological sex on their passport. In other words, there are two sexes, and our attorneys will continue fighting for that simple truth, Bondi said. Going back to 1992, the State Department's allowed for trans Americans to update their sex designations and an X marker was added under the Biden administration. LGBTQ plus advocates have argued this policy will expose trans and intersex people to real danger while traveling. The ACLU is successfully one in the lower courts arguing the policy is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.

The Trump administration has appealed. Thursday's order granting a stay on the lower court ruling for a temporary injunction made no mention of potential harm to plaintiffs. And their unside decision, the conservative majority wrote, quote, displaying passport holders sex at birth, no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth. In both cases, the government's merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment, unquote. In a scathing dissent, Justice Khatengi Brown-Jackson said, quote, the documented real-world harms to these plaintiffs obviously outweighed the government's unexplained in inexplicable interest in immediate implementation of the passport policy, she said,

and went on to say her colleagues had, quote, once again paved the way for the immediate infliction of injury without adequate or really any justification, unquote. For more, we're joined by. early Christians, senior policy council of the ACLU in Washington, D.C. Welcome to Democracy Now. Talk about the significance of this Supreme Court ruling and what happens next. Thank you, Amy, so much for having us here. And really, you know, this decision by the Supreme Court, this is an emergency stay. As you mentioned, the Supreme Court has decided that the government can move forward in implementing this harmful discriminatory policy that requires a sex assigned

at birth on your original birth certificate to be printed on passports. And the harm is quite immediate, right? We have had a preliminary injunction in place, in this case, since April, and that has prevented the federal government from changing their 33-year-old policy, as you mentioned, of allowing people to have a passport that reflects who they are. For now, the Supreme Court has stayed that injunction. So now the federal government will be moving forward with printing passports that do not reflect who an individual is. Really harmful for the moment, but the fight is not over. We are still in the courts.

We are still in the First Circuit looking at this injunction. We are still with the district court looking at the actual merits of the case. which were not considered in this Supreme Court stay. What happens to people, for example, who have X on their passport right now? Yeah, so, Amy, you know, this decision and the actions of the federal government are causing chaos, panic, confusion among the trans-intersex non-binary communities across the country. The fact of the matter is, if you have a validly issued passport with an M, an F, or an X, you are L, eligible to travel with that passport. That is, the State Department said that even when they reverse the policy back in January,

and that continues to be the case. However, there have been lots of actions that have scared people, and this stay is one of them. We are still working with the government's lawyers to find out what will happen to the passports that were issued, correctly issued during the course of this injunction, and people are scared about that. And, you know, generally speaking, the harm and the targeting of this policy towards intersex, non-binary, and trans people is terrifying. It makes it very scary to travel, to trust that you'll be able to get through security, that you'll be able to get on your flight, you know, things that every person in the United States should not have to worry about. We all

deserve the right to travel freely with dignity, with respect, exactly who we are. And that is something that the administration is attacking right now. Last night, I had a chance to speak with Laverne Cox after a showing of the new documentary called Heighton Scrutiny. Laverne Cox is the actress and trans activist. I asked her to respond to the Supreme Court's ruling. But I think it's really important for me to remember and for all my trans siblings out there to remember is that the government, cannot tell us who we are and they will never be the arbiter of our identities no matter what they say about our ID documents we are still who we are and we will find a way to be ourselves no matter what

we must because living a lie trying to be someone else is death it's an internal death so no matter what the government says or decrees we will continue to be ourselves our beautiful anointed selves because trans is beautiful, because trans rights are human rights, and because trans people are anointed. Trans actress LeVern Cox. The ACLU case stems from an executive order signed by President Trump in January that denies the existence of trans and intersex people and says, quote, it's the policy of the United States to recognize two sex as male and female, unquote.

The order requires identity documents like passports to divide only male and female sex designations, which must be based on a person's sex quote at conception. This is one of the plaintiffs in the case, the content creator and trans activist Zaya Precian. I'm a transgender woman. I applied to renew my passport and have it marked as female and they refused and they send it back to me as male. He does not get to tell me who I am. Only I to. And now I'm at high risk of something bad happening to me if I were to travel abroad. This policy is dangerous and it is unfair to every single trans, non-binary, or intersex person that there is. I'm an American, and yes, I'm transgender.

But I deserve to be able to travel freely without fear or repercussion. We deserve the freedom to be ourselves. No politician should be able to take that away. This is just a small part of a broad effort by the Trump administration to push trans people out of public life and act like we don't exist. They want to ban our healthcare, censor our speech, control our lives. And I'm not just going to sit there and let it happen. And we're not going to sit here and let it happen.

We deserve better than this because all people deserve better than this. And Donald Trump, we'll see you in court. As we wrap up, Arlie Christian, what do you expect to happen next? Well, we are continuing to fight to stop this harmful policy. And as you've heard from so many of our plaintiffs and so many trans non-binary intersex people across the country, this is so harmful. The ACLU will not stand by and watch as the administration. targets and harms a population of our country with no legitimate government reason. So we are continuing to fight. We'll continue to fight on the merits of the case.

And, you know, this is part of the ACLU's strong belief that the Constitution covers all of us. And it covers the rights and protections and privacy and dignity of every single person. And so we will continue to fight on this policy. Arlie Christian, want to thank you for being with us, Senior Policy Council and the ACUL's National Political Advocacy Department focused on initiatives to support and protect the LGBTQ community. Coming up, we look at the Supreme Court battle over Trump's tariffs, policies, and more. We'll speak to Lisa Graves, her new book, Without Precedent, how Chief Justice Roberts and his accomplices rewrote the Constitution and dismantled our rights. Stay with us. Someone's hiding in the bushes with a telephoto lens

While their editor assures them The means justifies the end Because we only hunt celebrities It's all a bit of fun But scouses never buy the sun While the parents of the missing girl cling Desperately to hope

And a copper takes in proper payments In a thick brown envelope And no one in the newsroom asks where's this headline from But scouses never buy the sun Tabloids making millions betting, bollocks baffles brains, and I cynically hold up their hands.

Never by the Sun by Billy Bragg, performing in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman. We're staying on the subject of the Supreme Court, but now turning to a major case before the court on President Trump's authority

to impose sweeping tariffs on foreign goods. The court heard oral or oral, arguments on Wednesday. Solicitor General John Sauer argued, President Trump has the power to unilaterally impose the tariffs under a 1977 law known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or AEPA, which grants the president the authority to regulate commerce during wartime or other national emergencies. This is the Solicitor General arguing. I want to make a very important distinction here. We don't contend that what's being exercised here is the power to tax. It's the power to regulate foreign commerce. These are regulatory tariffs. They are not revenue-raising tariffs.

The fact that they raise revenue is only incidental. The tariffs would be most effective, so to speak, if no person ever paid them. Challenging the policy in the case is a group of small businesses. This is the plaintiff's attorney and former solicitor general, Neil Cotia, speaking outside the court. Our message today is simple. The constitutional Constitution, our framers, 238 years of American history, all say only Congress has the power to impose tariffs on the American people, and tariffs are nothing but taxes on the American people, paid by Americans. This case is not about the president. It's about the presidency. It's not about partisanship. It's about principle. And above all, it's about upholding the majestic. separation of powers laced into our Constitution that is the foundation for our government. We thank the justices today for their extensive questioning in this case, and we look

forward to the resolution. The case has moved quickly through the federal courts. The court has heard roughly two dozen emergency appeals by the Trump administration, which the conservative majority is largely out of Trump's aggressive agenda to go forward. But this is the first time the court will make a final decision. on one of those policies. On Wednesday, the justices, including conservative justices, appeared skeptical of the government's argument. This is Chief Justice John Roberts. You have a claim source, an IEPA, that had never before been used to justify tariffs.

No one has argued that it does until this particular case. Congress uses tariffs and other provisions, but not here. And yet, and correct me on this if I'm not right about it, the justification is being used for a power to impose tariffs on any product from any country, in any amount, for any length of time. That seems like I'm not suggesting it's not there, but it does seem like that's major authority, and the basis for the claim seems to be a misfit. For more on tariffs and the Supreme Court, we're joined by Lisa Graves. She is the director and founder of the policy research group, True North Research. Her new book is titled Without Precedent, How Chief Justice Roberts and his accomplices rewrote the Constitution and dismantled our right.

She's also the former Deputy Assistant Attorney General. And she's joining us now from Superior Wisconsin. Welcome back to Democracy Now, Lisa. So, in fact, the Chief Justice is the main focus of your book on the Supreme Court. Talk about the significance of this case. And did it surprise you the skepticism of the conservative majority, including the three Trump appointees? Well, this is an important case. And I wish that I could have confidence in the, I suppose, the sincerity of those questions that John Roberts posed.

But we know that just last year, he invented immunity from criminal prosecution for a president for President Trump out of whole cloth, despite the fact that the Constitution does not provide that power. So now here we are over a year later with this court deciding whether this president has the power to engage in tariffs, even though the Constitution expressly gives those powers to Congress. And this law, Aipa, does not provide any tariff power to the president. And as you know, and your listeners know, tariffs are taxes that end up being paid by the American people in the cost of the goods that we ultimately purchase. And Trump has bragged about how these tariffs are supposedly producing so much revenue, billions and billions of dollars of revenue. And yet we had the administration argue before the court that the revenue was incidental, that this is just a normal regulatory power. It's not. Nothing's normal. I do think this court, the Roberts Court, is going to strike this down, but that's in part because this court, you know, occasionally will rule against this president.

But as you note and noted at the top of this show, 24 times so far this year, this court has intervened to allow reckless and damaging actions to happen to the American people, irreparable harm in the American people. And in this instance, with the business community weighing in, perhaps it will decide against Trump this one time. and then try to use that as a shield to say, look, it's fair, when in fact this court under John Roberts has behaved in innumerable ways, in very unfair ways, in counter-constitutional ways, and in ways that have decimated our rights, including our voting rights. So talk about who actually brought this case. The businesses are not corporate giants. They're small and medium-sized. And when you say everyone knows that these are taxes, explain more fully. Who pays these tariffs? as President Trump says, you know, we're going to get these countries to pay. That's not, in fact, who pays. Yeah, that's not who pays. So the tariffs are tariffs on goods sold in the United States, imported in the United States,

which means ultimately, whether it's businesses buying those goods as components for building products, or whether it's consumers buying things at the grocery store or at a department store, is the American people who pays. Right now, some of the businesses that are involved in these imports are not passive. those tariffs on to the American consumers. They're waiting to see what ultimately happens in absorbing those costs. But those costs are already being passed on to the American consumers in lots of ways. And so it is this idea that this is some sort of non or revenue incidental tariff that it's supposedly foreign facing so it doesn't affect us. That's not true. It's we,

the American people who ultimately pay the cost of those tariffs. And Congress has the power to tax expressing the Constitution. It's given to it, not the president. And simultaneously in that same provision, Congress has given the power to impose tariffs. This statute that this Trump administration is hanging its hat on does not give the president of the power to tariff or to tax. And there's a good reason for that. It's not just that it's in our Constitution. Trump's behavior is exactly why no president has ever been given this sort of power, because putting that power in the hands of one person allows for arbitrary, capricious, whimsical, vindictive action by one person, as we've seen Trump do. That initial

round of tariffs was announced as including tariffs on penguin islands, but not North Korea and Russia. The tariffs are arbitrary. We're seeing sort of a shakedown process in some of the efforts to try to get countries to appease Trump's ego in exchange for dropping tariffs or limiting them. That's not how tariff policy is supposed to go. It's supposed to be passed by Congress through genuine deliberation. And more than that, because it's a tax on the American people, it has to be something that only Congress can do because Congress has the power of the purse, not the president. And we cannot have this president, you know, exercising all the powers basically of the legislative branch and the executive branch. This is an exchange between Justice

Elena Kagan and the Solicitor General John Sauer during oral arguments, speaking about emergency powers. The president has to make a formal declaration of a national emergency, which subjects him to particularly intensive oversight by Congress, you know, natural lapsing, repeated review, reports, and so forth, it says you have to consult with Congress to the maximum possible. I mean, you yourself think that the Declaration of Emergency is unreviewable. And even if it's not unreviewable, it's, of course, the kind of determination that this court would grant considerable deference to the president on.

So that doesn't seem like much of a constraint. But it is. And, in fact, you know, we've had cases recently, which deals with the president's emergency powers. And it turns out we're in emergencies everything all the time about like half the world. English, please, Lisa Graves. Well, so this question under IEPA is whether there is an emergency that's the basis for regulation or sort of an embargo. And in this instance, there isn't. The administration has claimed that the fentanyl crisis somehow allows it to impose these wide and arbitrary tariffs. It's also claimed that the trade deficit,

which has been part of our, you know, economy for decades, is some sort of national emergency. It's not. We've seen Trump assert emergencies in Portland, in Los Angeles. Like, he basically just uses the word emergency to try to get away with anything. And it is true. The Supreme Court has traditionally deferred to declarations of emergencies by presidents, but I don't think it has any obligation to defer to this president's claims of emergency, which are factless, which are baseless and which are just another argument,

the kind of argument that John Sauer tends to make. in justification of his client getting to do whatever he wants. So there is no genuine emergency. There is no war that is the precipitating basis for invoking IEPA. And even if it were, it would not allow the imposition of tariffs. So Lisa Graves, you've written this new book. It's called, without precedent, how Chief Justice Roberts and his accomplices rewrote the Constitution and dismantled our rights. If you can talk more about the major points in this book,

as you specifically look at Chief Justice Roberts, start with the whole issue of the Voting Rights Act. Talk about Chief Justice John Roberts' origin story. Yes. So John Roberts chose the clerk for Bill Rinkwist, who was one of the most notorious anti-voting rights people on the Supreme Court. He, in his personal capacity, sought to make it harder for Arizonans to vote, targeting black communities in Arizona with voter suppression himself personally, in Bethune, in the neighborhood of Bethune. Then when he was on the court right before John Roberts joined him, he issued a decision, the first decision trying to cut back Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act

to say that effects would not count. So then what happened was Bill Rehnquist called Ken Starr, who was then the chief of staff for the new attorney general for Ronald Reagan and urged him to hire John Roberts. John Roberts was hired by the Reagan administration and put in charge of voting rights. John Roberts had no experience in voting rights, no experience in litigation. The only experience he had was clerking for, basically stodging for the most regressive justice on the Supreme Court when it came to voting rights. Rehnquist, by the way, actually urged that his justice, he clerked. for dissent from the Brown versus Board of Education decision. Rehnquist aided Barry Goldwater, the guy who, one of the, you know, senators who opposed

the Civil Rights Act. So this is the origin story of John Roberts. He spent hundreds of hours trying to block Congress from repairing that, from overturning that ruling. And then that, the voting rights act was extended for more than 20 years into 2007. And then when John Roberts became the chief justice of the United States in 2005, as soon as there was a case teed up for him to do so in the Shelby County case, he ruled against the Voting Rights Act. He struck down other key enforcement provisions of the Voting Rights Act, Section 4 and Section 5, that required preclearance of changes in jurisdictions that had a history of voter suppression, a history of targeting black voters.

And that Shelby County decision unleashed this wave of voter suppression and voter restriction we've seen over the past decade. And now, right now, this court, the Roberts Court, is considering overruling Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and allowing white majority legislatures to dilute the black vote in Louisiana and other states. We're talking to Lisa Graves. Her new book is just out. It's called Without Precedent. How Chief Justice Roberts and his accomplices rewrote the Constitution and dismantled our rights. As you observe this court right now, what are your biggest concerns and how do the other justices feel about the chief justice? Well, I think this court is behaving illegitimately. These emergency orders overturning the well-reasoned, factually founded, legally grounded decisions to impose temporary restraining orders in the face of unilateral extreme actions by this president where the plaintiffs have shown. irreparable harm. These are illegitimate actions by this court basically to aid Donald Trump. And it's part two of what it did last year in effectively pardoning Donald Trump, preventing the

trial around January 6th to go forward, and basically paving the way for his return to power. And now once in power, John Roberts has helped to empower Donald Trump further with the help of his fellow Republican appointees. I think the Democratic appointees to the court and the minority are very frustrated, as you can see from the dissents in these cases where the court is not describing why it is overturning these lower court rulings and allowing Trump to put his foot on the gas pedal to go forward with them while people are being harmed every day. I think that this Robert's court is out of control. It's behaving arrogantly. It has aggressively intervening those cases, just like with the immunity decision, it could have let the lower court rulings, which were based

on well-grounded precedent stand, but instead it has sought to aid Trump at almost every turn. And in doing so, has exposed itself as a hyper-partisan court that isn't really behaving like a court, but is behaving like an arm of the MAGA Trump presidency. What most surprised you in doing the research for your book? Oh, my goodness. Well, it was a small thing, but, you know, everyone knows that John Roberts talked about how he was going to be a fair umpire, just calling ball. and strikes. When I looked into his background, it turned out that he never played baseball in high school or college. He was actually a football player. And his coach told a right-wing

dark money group that helped support his confirmation that John Roberts was particularly skilled as a tackler, as someone who studied his opponents and sought to find out ways to tackle them. That's who we really have at the helm of the Supreme Court is a player on the field who's moving that right-wing regressive Reagan revolutionary agenda forward, not the fair umpire that he claimed to be and that he sought to put a plant into the American people's minds as who he is. He's not that umpire. I've actually decided to call him a Trumpire because he's been so willing to help Trump in almost every way as he expands the presidency far, far more than any other president has had such power. And in fact, that ruling really took out one of the key pillars

of the checks and balances in our democracy, making the oath that John Roberts administered to Donald Trump that he would faithfully execute the law almost meaningless. Lisa Greys, I want to thank you for being with us, Director and founder of the Policy Research Group, True North Research, her new book, Without Precedent, how Chief Justice Robertson his accomplices rewrote the Constitution and dismantled our rights. She was speaking to us from Superior Wisconsin. Coming up as the U.S. blows up another boat in the Caribbean and considers a assassin. fascinating the Venezuelan president. We'll speak to Peter Cornblou of the National Security Archives. Stay with us.

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I'm I'm No I'm To stay Tempos de Amor, Times of Love by Las Cafeteras here at our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now.org, Democracy Now.org, the war and peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. The U.S. is continuing to blow up boats in the Caribbean Pacific, despite growing international condemnation.

On Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseff announced the U.S. had struck a boat in the Caribbean killing three people. He alleged they were narco-traffickers, but once again, offered no proof. UN Human Rights Chief Volckerque recently denounced the U.S. extrajudicial killings. In recent months, the U.S. has blown up 17 boats and one submarine. This comes as in New York Times reports, the Trump administration is considering launching airstrikes on Venezuela or even assassinating the Venezuelan president, Nikolaazmado. The Times reports one idea floated involves the U.S. sending armies Delta Force or the Navy SEAL Team 6 to try to capture or kill Maduro.

We're joined right now by Peter Cornblou, senior analyst at the National Security Archive, co-author of a new piece in the nation headline Trump's Gunboat Diplomacy. And another piece in foreign policy headlined with military buildup against Venezuela, U.S. U.S. I's Cuba as well. Peter Cornblum, welcome back to Democracy Now. It's great to have you in the studio. Let's talk about the U.S. I mean, this New York Times Exposé, you also wrote about it, the U.S. intention to assassinate another president of another country.

That's right. It's one of the most extraordinary kind of open discussions of assassinating a foreign leader that I think we've ever experienced. It comes 50 years this month, after the church committee, the famous Senate committee, went ahead and exposed the reality that the CIA had been going around trying to assassinate foreign leaders. And at that point, it was a scandal 50 years ago. And today we have a situation where openly the president of the United States and his team are trying to come up with a legal rationale for basically neutralizing, liquidating, assassinating a foreign, leader, in this case, Nicholas Maduro of Venezuela. And it's an extraordinary turn of circumstances.

It's something we have to talk about. The cynical interpretation of the murder of these boat crews in the Caribbean is basically that the Trump administration is sending a signal to Maduro that he is next. And we are committing wanton criminal acts of assassination in the Caribbean. Innocent people haven't been found guilty of anything, and kind of setting the stage for an attack on Caracas itself in an attempt to take out its leader. You read in the foreign policy piece about the military buildup against Venezuela with 10 naval vessels and 10,000 troops already deployed to the Caribbean, the largest military buildup there since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and a carrier strike group led by the USS Gerald R. Ford taking

up position. Talk about the significance of the USS Gerald R. Ford. The USS Gerald R. Ford is the biggest aircraft carrier, most modern aircraft carrier in the world. It is described as the most lethal combat platform in the U.S. military. It is currently arriving in the Caribbean in the next three or four days to take up a position along with another 10 battleships that are already there. The USS Gerald Ford carries 5,000 Marines and seamen. It already is going to augment the military force that's in the region by another 10,000, 15,000 U.S. military personnel aimed at Venezuela. So this is a crisis. It's a crisis for Latin America.

It's a crisis for the American people because there has been no provocation here. Venezuela has not threatened the United States. It has not attacked the United States. We have a preemptive effort by the president of the United States to kind of renew the old era of gunboat diplomacy and simply say, might makes right, we control what goes on in the Latin American region.

We don't like Nicholas Maduro. We're going to take him out. So Trump officials told lawmakers on Wednesday the U.S. is not currently planning to launch strikes inside Venezuela and doesn't have a legal justification that would support attacks against any land targets right now. It's unclear if they were doing that because it's right before their vote on the War Powers Act and they were concerned that that vote is getting closer and closer and they may lose. Right. So there was a resolution that was just voted on last night in the U.S. Senate that would apply the 1973 War Powers Act to Trump's plans for military intervention in Venezuela. That vote lost by 51 to 49, with I think two or three Republicans voting for the resolution. The resolution basically says the Constitution says that Congress must declare war for the United States to go to war. And this resolution basically said the Trump administration must cease and desist its military hostilities towards Venezuela until Congress authorizes such a war. And that resolution failed in some ways giving the Trump administration more latitude, I think, to go forward with the military plans that they may have.

And these boats that they're blowing up, that's also infuriating a number of Republicans. I mean, for example, you have Rand Paul, right, the Kentucky Republican who's been continually raising a red flag around this. One attack after another that the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, proudly announces, and yet not a shred of evidence are they presenting on their allegations that these people, I think the U.S. has killed, what, 70 at this point? in 18 bombings in the Pacific and the Caribbean? That is correct.

70 people. None of them found guilty of anything. None of them prosecuted for a crime. The footage you just put up on your screen of the boat being blown out of the water and smithereens is basically a snuff film. And with every attack that the United States has made over the last two months, they've put up one of those films. and just celebrating the kind of wanton elimination of human life. And this isn't going to stop the flow of drugs into the United States. If there's supply, if there's demand, there's going to be supply.

Venezuela is not a major transfer point for drugs coming into the United States. Trump has claimed it's fentanyl. If there is drugs on our drugs on these boats, it's cocaine. But in the end, we don't have a situation where, where the law is being followed. This is wanton murder, turning the Caribbean into a killing field. So what do you think is the goal here? We're looking at Venezuela right now. Trump is increasing his tax against the Colombian president. And then where does Cuba fit into this picture? I think there are two issues here. One is that Donald Trump wants to be an emperor. He wants

territorial gains. He wanted the Canada to become the first 51st state of the United States. He wanted to take the Panama Canal Zone. He announced that during his inauguration speech on January 20th. He looks at Latin America as, quote, our backyard and thinks that the United States should impose its kind of will on it. He was even quoted, he told his aides back during his first term, isn't Venezuela part of the United States? I think it would be cool to invade Venezuela. So I think that's one issue, you know, an emperor needs an empire. The other issue is Marco Rubio and his kind of need to undermine and overthrow the Cuban government. And he sees Venezuela as the key patron of Cuba.

If Maduro can be eliminated in Venezuela, that will cut the economic and political ties between Venezuela and Cuba and make it easier to undermine the Cuban government. So I want to ask you about what you just referenced. the 50th anniversary of the Church Committee Senate hearings that investigated the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency for the first time in 1975-76. It was officially called the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with respect to intelligence activities. At the time, the committee's chair, Democratic Senator, Idaho's Frank Church, declared the CIA,

quote, may have been behaving like a rogue, elephant. on a rampage referring to potential illegal activities by the CIA, including plots to assassinate foreign leaders. This is Senator Church during one of the committee's hearings questioning then-CIA director William Colby. Why did the agency prepare a shellfish toxin for which there is no practical antidote? which attacks the nervous system and brings on death very quickly. The first part of the answer to that question, Mr. Chairman, is the fact that the L-Pill,

which was developed and during World War II does take some time to work and is particularly agonizing to the subject who uses it. Some of the people who would be natural requesters of such a capability, ability for their own protection and the protection of their fellow agents. That was past CIA Director William Colby being questioned by the Idaho Senator, Frank Church. This is the 50th anniversary. For people who aren't even alive then, talk about its significance. People don't remember what a scandal it was when it was revealed that the CIA had been involved in plots to assassinate Fidel Castro, that they'd been very thoroughly involved

in a plot to neutralize the Commander Chief of the Chilean Armed Forces, Renee Schneider in 1970. You've just returned from Chile. Yes, I have. And the assassination of DM in Vietnam and Chukillo in the Dominican Republic. This was a scandal in the mid-1970s, kind of as the war in Vietnam was ending in the United States, American public, was really kind of rethinking the values and ethics of U.S. foreign policy. And the report is still very much worth reading. And at the very end of the report, the Church Committee, led by Senator Churchill,

we think this is an aberration, these attacks by the CIA on trying to kill foreign leaders. We don't think this is what the American public is really all about. And we think we have to learn from this past history and go forward with a far more ethical, you know, foreign policy. And here we are 50 years later, openly. celebrating the assassination of low-level, you know, boat captains and crew in the Caribbean and setting the stage and openly discussing legal rationales for assassinating the leader of Venezuela. And, you know, so we've come a long way in the wrong direction since the scandal of the Church Committee report 50 years ago. So that was the first Church Committee report.

And then Senator Church went on to investigate the suppression and the targeting of domestic dissidents. Yes, well, eventually the Church Committee released a set of volumes, the first true study on the secret history of the CIA and the NSA and the FBI and the other members of the intelligence community. Peter, before we go, I want to ask you about another Peter. The trailblazing human rights attorney, Peter Weiss, has died at the age of 90. just shy of his 100th birthday.

He was on the board of the Center for Constitutional Rights for nearly half a century. He worked to end South African apartheid to end the Vietnam War, fought for nuclear disarmament, sought justice for U.S. victims of the U.S. back contras in Nicaragua in the 80s, pioneered the 1789 alien tort statute and human rights cases, represented the U.S. journalists, the family of human rights activists. Charles Horman in a case against Henry Kissinger and others after Horman was disappeared and killed in Chile after the U.S. back September 11th, 1973 coup. I wanted to play a clip of Peter years ago on Democracy Now, talking about that case. Our case was dismissed because we couldn't conduct discovery. When you bring any kind of case, civil or criminal, I'd you have to look for the evidence and produce the evidence to the judge or the jury. And everything that we wanted, we were told, was classified and would not be made available to us.

So eventually the case had to be dismissed. So that was Peter Wyss. Peter Kornblough, you knew him well. That was the beautiful and conscientious and activist, Peter Weiss. He never ceased to push for a more just system, a more equitable system, along with his extraordinary wife, Cora Weiss. They were the supporters of so many of the progressive institutions that we know today, including the Center for Constitutional Rights, which did so much incredible legal work on human rights and on trying to hold the U.S. government accountable for the atrocities that it committed around the world. There's not enough words to describe how important Peter was to the progressive movement to human rights over these last decades since the late 50s, early 1960s.

And it's sad to say goodbye to him, but we all continue to be inspired and guided by every good deed that he did over his entire life. Peter Cornblow, I want to thank you for being with us, senior analyst at the National security archive will link to your pieces in foreign policy and the nation. That does it for our show. I'll be at the St. Louis International Film Festival tonight for two screenings of Steal this Story, Please, a documentary about Democracy Now. I'll be 730 at B&B theaters in Creve Corps, West Olive, Ten, and Bowling. And at 9 o'clock, the second showing of Steal this Story, Please, at MX Movies and Bar.

You can check out information, learn about tickets by going to DemocracyNow.org under speaking events. We'll be doing the Q&A with one of the directors of the film. Happy early birthday to Diana Para and Jenny Keenan. I'm Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.