Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-11-25 Tuesday

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

Headlines for November 25, 2025; “The Epstein Class”: Anand Giridharadas on the Elite Network Around the Sexual Predator; Will the U.S. Attack Venezuela? Trump’s Anti-Maduro Campaign Seen as Part of a Broader Regional Plan; Assassinated Amazonian Rubber Tapper Chico Mendes Tried to Save the Rainforest. Meet His Daughter

From New York, this is Democracy Now. The real danger, I think, is that the United States might succeed in decapitating the government, might succeed in removing Maduro, causing the government to collapse, and then leave a power vacuum because the country is full of armed groups that have a strong incentive to resist any form of regime change and might sabotage an incoming government. As the Trump administration ramps up military pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, classifying him as the leader of a terrorist organization, fear is growing a U.S. attack on Venezuela could be imminent.

The U.S. has already amassed over 15,000 troops in the Caribbean, But there are also reports Trump is open to holding talks with Maduro. We'll get the latest. Then how the elite behave when no one's watching inside the Jeffrey Epstein emails. At the heart of the Epstein story is a monstrous sexual predator, no doubt. But there's a lot of powerful people in this country who would like it to remain a story of one monster. Jeffrey Epstein knew how to pick friends, and he picked a bunch of people whose maybe superpower is disregarding pain. We'll speak with writer Anan Giridharadas. All that and more coming up.

Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. The news website Axios is reporting, President Trump may be ready to hold talks with Venezuela's leader Nicolas Maduro as the U.S. ramps up military threats. The reports came on the same day that Trump administration designated Maduro as the head of a foreign terrorist organization, fueling fear of a potential U.S. invasion of Venezuela, which holds the world's largest known reserves of oil. While the Trump administration claims its escalating attacks on boats in the Caribbean are in response to drug trafficking, critics say this is just another attempt by the U.S. government to destabilize Venezuela to force a regime change and exploit resources, including oil. Florida Congress member Maria Salazar, Republican assistant Witt, made these remarks during an interview Monday with Fox business. Venezuela for the American oil companies will be a field day because it will be more than a trillion dollars in economic activity.

We'll have more on Venezuela later in the broadcast. In Sudan, the rapid support forces paramilitary group has announced a unilateral three-month ceasefire in its fight against Sudan's military rulers. The announcement came after the head of the Sudanese armed forces rejected a ceasefire proposal advance. by the so-called quad, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the United States. General Abdel Fattah O'Barran cited the UAE's role in arming the rapid support forces, who, he says, have carried out genocide and other atrocities and territory controls. Since fighting between the rival military factions erupted in April 23, more than 150,000 people have been killed, and about 12 million have been forced from their homes.

homes. Israel's continued to violate its ceasefire agreement with Hamas, launching attacks across Gaza that killed at least four Palestinians and wounded several others Monday. The strikes came as heavy rains flooded the tents of displaced Palestinians who've been forced to shelter outdoors after Israel's assault left some 90 percent of Gaza's buildings damaged or destroyed. On Monday, three Palestinian children were injured in two separate explosions in Gaza City, apparently caused by unexploded Israeli ordinance. Meanwhile, the U.S. and Israeli-backed so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says it's ended its operations in Gaza. The group's aid distribution points were widely condemned by human rights groups as death traps, with the UN reporting more than

850 Palestinians were killed while attempting to access food, even as Israeli authorities barred the UN and international aid organizations from bringing food and basic goods into Gaza. Marilyn Senator Chris Van Hollen is calling on the Trump administration to secure the release of a 16-year-old Palestinian-American teenager from Florida, who was arrested by Israeli soldiers during an early morning raid on his family's West Bank home in February. Mohamed Ibrahim has reportedly suffered beatings in Israeli detention and has lost a considerable amount of weight. This is Senator Van Halen.

This is an American kid. So you would think that the United States government would be doing everything possible to secure his release. But they're not. After all, we have a very close relationship with Israel. United States taxpayers provide billions of dollars to the Netanyahu government and the state of Israel. Meanwhile, the White House has acknowledged U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Hacabee, met secretly with the convicted spy Jonathan Pollard at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in July. Pollard's a former U.S. Navy intelligence officer sentenced to life in prison for stealing classified U.S.

material and sharing it with Israel. Pallard served 30 years in a federal prison before he was granted parole under President Obama in 2015. He moved to Israel in 2020. In Ukraine, at least six people were killed in the capital Keeve overnight as Russia launched a wave of missile and drone attacks targeting buildings and energy infrastructure. Separately six people, including two children, were wounded in Russian attacks on the port city of Odessa. Ukraine countered with drone attacks that killed three people and injured eight others in Russia's southern Rostov region. The violence came hours after talks on a U.S. back peace plan wrapped up in Geneva, and as U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll reportedly headed to Abu Dhabi for talks with a Russian delegation

and Ukraine's intelligence chief. On Monday, Moscow rejected a Ukrainian and European Union-backed 19-point counterproposal to the 28-point peace plan supported by President Trump. The Trump administration suspended all green card applications submitted by refugees who were admitted into the U.S. under President Biden. Trump officials are also reportedly planning to track down and re-interview refugees who came to the U.S. between January 2021 and February 2025. That's according to the Associated Press, which obtained a memo signed by U.S. citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlo, saying the Biden administration prioritized expediency and quantity in admitting refugees and not detailed screening and vetting, unquote.

But advocates have refuted those claims as refugees often wait years before they're even permitted to enter the U.S. after strict vetting during the application process. An estimated 200,000 refugees were admitted into the U.S. by President. Biden. A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from expanding its rapid deportations of some immigrants, citing due process violations. For some three decades, the U.S. government has fast-tracked the removal of immigrants apprehended at the U.S. Mexico border. When Trump returned to office, expedited removals were then expanded to include immigrants arrested anywhere in the United States and whom the Trump administration claim could not

prove they lived in the U.S. for at least two years. In related news, the Trump administration's moving to revoke temporary protected status for immigrants from Burma and Somalia. This will impact hundreds of Somali immigrants living in Minnesota and nearly 4,000 immigrants from Burma who will now face deportation. TPS is a relief granted for immigrants fleeing war and other disasters that have made their home countries unsafe. The Trump administration's already revoked the relief for hundreds of thousands of other immigrants, including Haitians, Venezuela, Afghans and Nicaraguans. In more immigration news, the Trump administration lied to a federal judge claiming Costa Rica was unwilling to accept Kilmar Abrago Garcia if the United States attempted to deport him to the Central American country. The Washington Post reports a Costa Rican

official rebutted the Trump administration's claims in court that the only viable destination to deport the Maryland father, who was originally from El Salvador, is the West African nation of Liberia. The Trump administration has previously attempted to deport Abrago-Garcia to other nations where the U.S. now has so-called third country agreements, including Uganda and Eswatini, countries Abrago-Garcia has no ties to. Abrago Garcia is awaiting trial for human smuggling charges, which he and his legal teams say were fabricated by the Trump administration, after they illegally sent him to Seikot, the maximum security prison in El Salvador. In Florida, at least 31 protesters were arrested Saturday outside the Chrome ICE jail in Miami,

a jail that's plagued by reports of abuse and inhumane conditions. Dozens gathered to protest Trump's aggressive immigration crackdown and to demand Chrome be shut down. Miami-Dade County Sheriff's Office deputies made the arrest. I'm being arrested for peacefully protesting the horrible treatment of human beings by ICE agents, It's called obstruction, obstruction of justice. These people are being treated horribly. They're human beings. Georgia Congress member Marjorie Taylor Green is predicting other Republican lawmakers could soon resign from Congress after she stunned Washington, D.C. Friday, by announcing she'll step away from the House of Representatives in January.

Her surprise resignation will leave Republicans with a slim majority, currently holding 219 seats compared to Democrats 213. Marjorie Taylor Green spent years as a leader of the MAGA movement but had an acrimonious split with President Trump after she condemned Israel's assault on Gaza as a genocide, called on Congress to address the spiraling cost of health care, and cast a deciding vote on a discharge petition calling for the release of the Epstein files. That led President Trump to withdraw his endorsement while accusing her of being a traitor. This is an excerpt of Marjorie Taylor Green's resignation speech. I refuse to be a battered wife, hoping it all goes away and gets better. If I am cast aside by the president and the MAGA political machine and replaced by neocons, big pharma, big tech, military industrial war complex, foreign leaders, and the elite donor class that can never, ever relate to real Americans,

then many common Americans have been cast aside and replaced as well. On Sunday, Congressmember Marjorie Taylor Green denied a report from Time magazine she privately told allies she was considering a presidential bid, rejecting the report as a, quote, complete lie. The Pentagon's launched an investigation into Arizona, Senator Mark Kelly, after he joined five other Democrats in a video reminding U.S. service members that they have a duty to disobey on lawful orders. On Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Higgsett said in a social media post Kelly, who's a retired U.S. Navy captain, falls under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and could be recalled to active duty to face a court martial. This comes after President Trump accused the six Democratic lawmakers who are military or CIA veterans of seditious behavior punishable by death and shared a social media post calling for them to be hanged. A federal judge has thrown out criminal indictments against former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James after determining the interim U.S. attorney handpicked by President Trump to bring the cases was not lawfully appointed. Lindsay Halligan, a former insurance attorney with no prosecutorial experience, was named interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in September after Trump's previous handpicked U.S. attorney resigned under pressure from the White House. for refusing to bring criminal charges against Trump's critics.

The cases were dismissed without prejudice, meaning the Trump administration could try to bring another indictment against Letitia James. Meanwhile, the statute of limitations in the Comey case expired in September. The Environmental Protection Agency has approved the use of two new pesticides that contain fluorinated substances commonly referred to as forever chemicals because they take centuries to break down in the environment. The EPA also announced its relaxing a rule, mandating companies report products containing the chemicals and propose further weakening limits in drinking water. For decades, forever, chemicals have been used to produce countless industrial and consumer goods, even though they've been linked to cancer and birth defects for over half a century.

And the oldest survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre has died at the age of 111. Viola Ford Fletcher was seven years old when she survived a wave of attacks by racist white mobs who set fire to homes, businesses, and churches in Greenwood, a thriving African-American business district in Tulsa, Oklahoma, known as Black Wall Street. Fletcher devoted her life to raising awareness about the Tulsa Race Massacre. In 2021, she testified before Congress ahead of the 100th anniversary of the massacre. I will never forget the violence of the white mob when we left our home. I still see black men seeing being shot, black bodies lying in the street.

I still smell smoke and sea fire. I still see black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams. I have lived through the massacre every day. Our country may forget this history, but I cannot. I will not. And other survivors do not.

And our descendants do not. Viola Ford Fletcher's 2023 memoir is titled, Don't Let Them Barry My Story. Last year, the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit brought by Fletcher and other remaining survivors that sought reparations from Tulsa. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now. Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace report. Coming up, how the elite behave when no one is watching inside the Jeffrey Epstein email. Stay with us.

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a woman linda, emancipated in autonomy, anti-patriarche and aligria. Anna Tiju in our Democracy Now

studio. This is Democracy Now, Demococer. The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. We begin today's

show looking at the growing scandal around the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, both his ties to President Trump in a network of prominent politicians, academics, philanthropists,

diplomats, and other public figures. Last week, Congress overwhelmingly voted almost unanimously, unanimously, save one congressman, both in the Senate and the House to compel the Justice Department to release all files related to Epstein, who died in 2019 in prison after he was arrested in federal charges for the sex trafficking of minors. President Trump signed the legislation but is repeatedly describe the call to release the Epstein files to be a hoax. Earlier this month, he snapped at a female reporter aboard Air Force One about the Epstein

files. Yes, you heard it right. Quiet, quiet, piggy. Yep, you heard it right. Quiet, piggy, he said to the female reporter. Trump made the comment shortly after House Republicans released 20,000 files from Epstein's estate. Putting a new spotlight on the late convicted sex offenders' connections with a network of wealthy and powerful figures.

For years, survivors of Epstein's abuse have talked about how the scandals about far more than just Epstein. This is the late Virginia Roberts Joufrey, speaking to 60 Minutes in 2019. I was trafficked to a lot of types of different men. I was trafficked to other billionaires. I was trafficked to politicians, professors, even royalty. So the circles that Jeffrey Epstein ran in weren't your typical setting of human trafficking, you know. And it was the elite of the world. It was the people who run the world.

It was the most powerful people in the world. And those are our leaders. Those are the people that we're supposed to look up to. It's corrupt. It's corrupt to the core. That was Virginia Roberts Joufrey in 2019. She died earlier this year by suicide in Australia. We're joined now by Anand Giridara, author of several books, including Winners Take All,

the elite charade of changing the world, also the publisher of the Substact Newsletter, The Inc. His recent piece for the New York Times is titled How the Elite Behave when no one is watching inside the Epstein files. Anand writes, quote, When Jeffrey Epstein, a financier turned convicted sex offender, needed friends to rehabilitate him, he knew where to turn, a power elite practiced at disregarding pain. Anand, thanks so much for being with us.

It's great to be back with him. So talk about looking at the emails, what you looked at, And as you congratulate the women and talk about their bravery for coming forward, you take a very interesting look at who these people are that Epstein surrounded himself with, this elite network as you talk about the Epstein class. Look, there is no doubt that at the beating dark heart of this story is one monstrous man in Jeffrey Epstein who did monstrous things as, Virginia was very bravely talking about there. But I think there's a lot of powerful people in this country who would like the story to begin and end with one monstrous man.

And when these emails were released, I decided, maybe against my better judgment, that I was going to read all of them. And it took me four or five days just going through one after another making notes. And I was really curious about all these other people, right? And some of them are celebrities and bold-faced names like she was talking about.

Some of them are utterly ordinary people no one's ever heard of. Some of them are professors, others. But I was interested in this larger network because these were the people that Jeffrey Epstein had, in effect, chosen to rehabilitate him socially and redeem him after he was a convicted sex offender trying to reestablish himself in society. And I was trying to understand how these relationships worked. And what I found was that it's very convenient for the American power elite to think about, this is a story of one depraved man. But in fact, what the email showed you actually read them

is that he had chosen this particular kind of social network, this American power elite, because he could be sure that it would be able to look away at what he did because it was very gifted at looking away over a generation at so much else, so much else, so much other abuse and suffering, whether the economic crises, members of that network often helped cause. The wars, members of that network helped push fraudulently the pain of technological obsolescence that members of that network pushed on the American public. So this was a group of people well chosen by Jeffrey Epstein, because this American power elite, these circles that he moved in, if they have any superpower, it is the ability to hear the cries of people without power and close their ears.

You write powerfully in this piece. It's a tale of powerful social network in which some, depending on what they knew, were perhaps able to look away because they learned to look away from so much abuse and suffering. And you often talk about them being on both sides of the political spectrum. And of course, it's not just American. You're talking about a British prince, though he's been stripped of that title. Andrew, you're talking about the Israeli former prime minister, a hoop Iraq and others. How did he manage to do this? So, you know, a network, as you rightly kind of imply with the question, it needs connectivity.

It needs something to hold people together. So that's what I was after as I read the emails. What was holding this together, right? Why would these people be in cahoots with such a depraved person? There's a lot of choices of people out there in the world. Well, as I read the emails, it seemed to me there were a few different things going on. One, this is a group of people who, are not really loyal to the communities they come from.

Their loyalty is not downward to places and communities and even countries. This is a kind of borderless network of people who are more loyal to each other than to places. And that kind of network actually needs someone who is a connector. So a lot of the emails are, hey, I'm landing in New York. Hey, I'm going to San Francisco. And then an Epstein would say, hey, you should meet this guy in San Francisco. Oh, you need an investor for your startup? Let me connect you with that.

It's all about this kind of connectivity, and he was a very good connector. Second, this is a network that thrives on information barter and specifically non-public information. Again, why would they consort with this guy? Well, this guy ended up being, and not just his own information, he ended up being a kind of convener of these trades of non-public information. Investors want information that will help them, you know, make trades that other people don't know about. you know, professors want insight about things. People in the business world want tips about things that will be the next big thing.

So there was this kind of information network. Larry Summers, the former Treasury Secretary, wanted dating advice. He was the Harvard president, and the dating advice, he wanted extramarital advice, on how to get his mentee into bed. Yes, while his wife was emailing with Epstein about how to contact Woody Allen. This is the kind of family. And I just want to say, I think this is really important for folks to understand. Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary, these sound like fancy titles.

Let me break it down for folks. When someone is a Treasury Secretary or someone is an economic advisor as he was to Barack Obama when he was president, someone like Larry Summers is not simply crunching numbers. Someone like that is making decisions about how your family functions. Someone like that in that kind of position of power is making decisions about, about how your workplace operates. Someone in that kind of position of power is deciding so many things about your life.

So when you see that that person has no problem with the sex abuse of children, when you see that someone like that is turning to a convicted sex offender for nine-year-old boy-level dating advice and has actually such a feeble understanding of other human beings, these are the people making decisions

about your family's economic future. These are the people deciding whether to bail out corporations or homeowners after a financial crisis. These are the people governing your life, people who maybe have all the credentials, but have so little human judgment. So if you have lived in this economy over the last generation and have felt, who are these people governing me such that I have so much pain, such that all my needs are go unmet? Well, it's because it's a bunch of people who wouldn't recognize a human being if it was sitting right across from them. You're right. If you were an alien landing on Earth and the first thing you saw was the Epstein

emails, you could gauge status by spelling grammar punctuation. Usage is inversely related to power in this network. The earnest scientists and scholars type neatly. The wealthy and powerful reply tersely with misspellings, erratic spacing, stray commas. The status games belia truth, though, these people are on the same team. Yeah. You know, it's interesting that there are these little status games and power games, and the truly wealthy and kind of well-connected to this network will dash off these kind of mistake-strewn replies. But yes, the ultimate point is that for all the differences, professors, wealthy people, scientists, you know, cabinet secretaries, for all the different professions

in the network, different attitudes, different statuses, they were all in the same team. And it's important to understand that. In one of the emails, Jeffrey Epstein, is inviting Steve Bannon, the Trump strategist and Whisperer, over for dinner, right? As extreme a figure on the right as you'll find. And he says, who would you like as dinner company? I can invite whoever did you like. Would you like Catherine Rumler, who was Barack Obama's, obviously Democrat White House Council. Went on to Goldman Sachs. And so you think about, just think about, as you think about the dinners you have at your houses for everybody watching this. Steve Bannon, by the way, and some of the emails, Jeffrey Epstein is very angry at everything that Trump is doing, but Steve Bannon,

come for dinner, right? And then would you like Catherine Rumler? And then Catherine Rumler becomes this fascinating figure in these emails, because she was Obama's White House counsel, at some point reportedly was considered for Attorney General. Who does she go to for advice? Should I take this attorney general job? Jeffrey Epstein, convicted sex offender. That's who she goes to for advice. It's worth getting more friends sometimes. And then she goes on to Goldman Sachs. And again, your viewers are not, this will not surprise them.

But this idea that someone who was once the lawyer for the American presidency goes on to be the lawyer for Goldman Sachs, just because it is normal doesn't mean we shouldn't think it's not strange. It means that people in those government jobs do them kind of gently because they've got to keep that door open.

And she at some point, quite famously now, describes in an email to Epstein. She's driving to New York. She's going to go see him. She's going to go have lunch with them or something. And she says, you know, I'm going to stop at her New Jersey rest stop. And I'm going to see all these people who are 100 pounds overweight.

And I'm going to freak out of a panic attack about it. And then I'm never going to eat a bite of food again in the hope that I never become like these people. And that phrase has not left me, Amy, these people, these people. Everybody in that network, well, not everybody, but certainly a lot of people I saw on that network, That is how they viewed you. That is how they viewed the public. These people. These fat people, these dumb people, these people who don't know better,

these people who don't know that we're all consorting and in cahoots, these people to whom we feel no loyalty. Of course, Goldman Sachs then declared a few years after she joined that anti-obesity drugs are $100 billion opportunity. So there's a contempt, a sneering contempt, for these people who are not in this powerful Epstein class. But there's always an endless opportunity to make money off of these people. I'm going to end where you end your New York Times piece with the courage of the Epstein

survivors, writing, quote, the unfathomably brave survivors who've come forward to testify to their abuse have landed the first real punch against Mr. Trump. In their solidarity, their devotion to the truth, and their insistence on a country that listens when people on the wrong end of power cry for help. They shame the great indifference from above. They point us to other ways of relating. So let's turn to Epstein survivor Teresa Helm on Democracy Now in July. We cannot continue to have these people or systems continue to get away with anything that they can get away with because they're not, they're skating through, they're dodging accountability. There's too much money involved. So, you know,

know, people silence through money. We have got to change. It's degrading our society to continue to allow these predators and perpetrators to get away with harming so many people. And in your final comment. I would respectfully correct something that Virginia Jafrey said. She said she was trafficked to a bunch of leaders. At the beginning, yes. I would say she is a leader who was trafficked to a bunch of cowards.

There and all these women have proven themselves to be the actual leaders, because leaders are brave, they take risks, they do what's right even when it's not convenient. And what has been revealed ultimately by this Epstein story is that we are led by a group of people who do not deserve to be called leaders. And these women point to what leadership looks like. Anandirid at us is the author of several books, including Winners Take All, the elite charade of changing the world. He's the publisher of the Inc. newsletter on Substack and will link to his piece in the New York Times headlined how the elite behave when no one's watching inside the Epstein emails. Coming up, we look at Venezuela as the Trump administration ramps up military pressure on the Venezuelan president. Stay with us.

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this is democracy now, dot org, Goodman. We turn now to Venezuela as the Trump administration continues to ramp up pressure on Nicolas Maduro, the president of the oil-rich nation of Venezuela. On Monday, the U.S. top military officer visited Puerto Rico, General Dan Kane, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with troops in Puerto Rico toward a Navy warship. In recent months, the U.S. has amassed over 15,000 troops in the Caribbean. The U.S. has also bombed over 20 boats, killing at least 83. people, claiming without proof, the attacks have targeted drug traffickers.

Meanwhile, Monday, the Trump administration formally designated Venezuela, the Venezuelan entity known as the Cartel de Los Soles or Cartel of the Sons as a foreign terrorist organization, the Pentagon claiming President Maduro is the head of the group. Venezuela called the move, quote, ridiculous, saying the group doesn't actually exist. Last week, Defense Secretary Pete Higgs said the terrorist designation gives the Trump administration, quote, a whole bunch of new options, unquote, to deal with Venezuela. A Monday, Venezuela's oil minister, Delci Rodriguez, accused the Trump administration of targeting Venezuela because of its vast crude reserves, the largest in the world.

We're joined now by two guests, Alexander Avina, Associate Professor of Latin American History at Arizona State University extensively researched and written about capitalism, the U.S.-backed war on drugs, so-called, and state violence. He's the author of the award-winning book, Spectors of Revolution, Peasant Gorillas in the Cold War Mexican countryside. He's joining us from Phoenix, Arizona. And in Caracas, where we'll start is Phil Gunson, senior analysts for the Andes region with the International Crisis Group. Yes, he is based in Cadacus. Can you tell us, Phil, how are people responding right now in Cadacus and throughout Venezuela as the U.S. takes yet another step, killing over 80 people?

claiming that they're involved with drugs, though presenting no evidence, but amassing this massive military presence and designating the president of Venezuela, the head of a foreign terrorist organization. What's happening in Venezuela right now? How are people reacting? Yes. Hello. I think there's a range of reactions, obviously, but I think I would sum it up by saying that those people who want to see the back of Maduro, And of course, there are quite a lot of those, are just anxious for the US to get on and do it, if that's what they're going to do. And those people who are nervous about what might happen, whether their government supporters or not,

would like them to just go away and leave us in peace. We're now in a situation where there are very few international airlines flying in and out of Venezuela. We're becoming once again isolated from the world. And of course, this is making life even more difficult in a country. that's been suffering a humanitarian emergency for the last decade. So, Professor Alexander Avina, if you can talk about it, I mean, your specialty in Latin American history at Arizona State is looking at U.S. military interventions, what this could mean. Although the latest news, according to Axios, is President Trump is willing to speak with Maduro.

It's not clear exactly what's happening at this point, a conversation or an invasion or a bombing of another country. Good morning, Amy. This is this, hopefully the news coming out recently are accurate. I think, you know, the history of U.S. intervention in Latin America is one full of carnage and mass human suffering recently in the last couple months since the U.S. started these extrajudicial, Some analysts and journalists have made the comparison to the U.S. invasion of Panama in December of 1989 as part of Operation Just Cause as some sort of potential counter example as a successful instance of U.S. military intervention in a Latin American country. And I would just say that as of right before the pandemic, people were still digging up and looking for clandestine graves of Panamanian civilians who were killed by the U.S. military intervention, particularly when the U.S. bomb the working class neighborhood of El that then becomes known as like Guernica or Panama's Guernica. So this is a potentially really frightening moment, particularly, I think, the fabrication that the U.S. is advancing to justify what is quite openly a regime change operation. I mean, the drug trafficking

charges, we can get into those if you'd like, but this is quite open, this is an open regime change operation with a very thinly veiled justification. And if you can talk about the significance of General Dan Cain, he's the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, going to Puerto Rico, what this means and how Puerto Rico has been used as a hub for the military as they launch more attacks on the Caribbean. Yeah, Puerto Rico is often referred to as the world's oldest colony. So it's a really, it's a tragic situation for the people of Puerto Rico, that their land, that their island is being used, potentially as a military gathering and operation site against a potential intervention against Venezuela. So, I mean, this general's visit to Puerto Rico is one of the warning signs,

one of the potentially warning signs that we see in terms of a potential U.S. intervention against Venezuela in whatever form it may take. But there is an irony there that it's the oldest colony being used to exercise and project U.S. imperialist power against a sovereign nation in South America. Phil Gunson in Caracas, what is this Cartel de Los Solis, the Cartel of the Sons, that the Trump administration has targeted and said Maduro is the head of this, quote, foreign terrorist organization, which is, of course, the next step to legitimizing an attack. You know, the first thing to say is that the Captain de Los Sol is the Cartel of the Sons,

But there's a reference to the sun that Venezuela military officers, high-ranking officers were on their epaulettes like stars in the US. It's not an organization at all. It's a term. It's a label that was applied, has been applied over the last few decades. Even from before Hugo Chavez came to power in 1999, applied to corrupt military officers who were taking money from drug traffickers. But it's not an organization. It's a state of mind, if you like. And maybe in the most extreme case, maybe networks of military officers who collaborate.

But it's certainly not a cartel. It's not a drug trafficking organization. It's a reference to the fact that over time, particularly in the last 20 years, the corruption in the military has become a real issue in Venezuela. And of course, Venezuela lies right next to Colombia, where most of the world's cocaine comes from, some of that cocaine comes through Venezuela. The military as a whole are charged with controlling that traffic,

and therefore they're in the front line, therefore they're more exposed to be paid off so that the traffickers can move the drugs through Venezuela safely. But to call this a narco-terrorist cartel is frankly ridiculous. I mean, it certainly says nothing to do with terrorism. I mean, these people are in it for the money. They're not aiming to say, drugs to the United States to undermine Western civilization.

And in fact, most of the cocaine that's heading through Venezuela is going to Europe and not to the United States. Most of the cocaine going to the states head north, up the eastern Pacific, up Central America. It's not to say that drug trafficking isn't a problem here, it is. But if you want to address it, you have to start with a real appreciation of how it works and calling this, you know, suggesting that there's something that there's something called the cartelial los solis and that it's a narco-terrorist organizations are really bad stuff. Professor Avina, if you can talk about Venezuela as a first stop attack, moving on to other Latin American countries, of course, going after, for example, Colombia and President Petro. Next.

Yeah, I think there is a broader plan within the Trump administration for the entire region, not for Venezuela. I think when Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegeseth went to the Panama Canal zone last April, he said, quote, to put America first, we have to put the Americas first. And that's a long historical pattern of any time we have a U.S. politician or movement that defines itself as isolationist, that's always bad news for Latin America. What that means is that you're going to have a renewed U.S. imperialist attention to the region and a more overt projection of U.S. imperial power in the region. So we've seen the U.S. already get involved in at least discursively and monetarily with election meddling in Argentina. There's elections coming up in Honduras.

We have U.S. officials on the ground, particularly undersecretary of state, causing problems over there. There's also efforts to influence Guatemala's judicial elections that are scheduled for next year. So I think there's a broader programmer idea. And unfortunately, it's being led by a particular group within the Trump administration in Congress. all from mostly from South Florida, right? Marco Rubio is a representation of, is a leader, so to speak, of this movement. It's a particular political movement that is extremely right-wing, revanchist, anti-communists.

And they've been waging this war to push back the left in Latin America to go against social movements in Latin America for decades now. And now they see their opportunity, and they're trying to take advantage of it. Marco Rubio, representatives Carlos Jimenez, Mario Diazbollah, and Maria, Salazar. They're really pushing some of this movement. And so what we see is Venezuela is just one potential site. I think we're starting to see this emerge more and more against Colombia. We've seen obviously stable rattling against Mexico. So this is something to watch. It's not just about Venezuela. And of course, Marco Rubio, Cuban America and Cuba, do you see that as the ultimate

target? I think that's what they want. I mean, we've seen reporting from Axios talking about really ridiculous things, right, that Maduro can't leave power in Venezuela because the only way he would leave is the Cubans would put him in a body bag, right? So for this movement in South Florida, Cuba is the nexus of everything that's wrong in Latin America, and they've been trying to undermine Cuba for decades now, and that's the real prize in their eyes. Alexander Avinaa, I want to thank you very much for being with us and ask you this final question. Do you see an attack on Venezuela succeeding? No. What I do see it happen, it depends on how we define some.

success and from whose perspective. But I think what we can be assured of is any sort of attack on Venezuela, it will be illegal, it will be a violation of Venezuelan national self-determination and sovereignty, and it will create mass human suffering. And whether it's successful or not, I think it remains to be seen. I think the people of Venezuela will defend their country, but we can be assured that this will create mass human suffering. It might create more displacement and it will generate mass human movement, potentially some of it to the United States. And we'll see, what I see is that coming together of three wars that the Trump administration is waging. The war on drugs, the war on terror, and the war on migrants are coming together in this particular way that they're trying to manage and initiate a conflict with Venezuela.

Well, Alexander Viena, thank you so much for being with us, Associate Professor of Latin American History at Arizona State University. And Phil Gunson, senior analyst at the Christ's International Crisis Group, based in Caracas, Venezuela. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. We end today's show looking at Brazil, where former President Jair Bolsonaro has been arrested after he tampered with his ankle monitor while under house arrest. The arrest ordered by Brazil's Supreme Court Justice, Alejandra de Moresh, over fears Bolsonaro would attempt to escape his compound days before he was due to head to prison. In September, Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting a military coup against Brazil's current president, Luis

Anasiela Lula de Silva. Well, Sonata served as president of Brazil. From 2019 to 23, during this time, deforestation of the Amazon increased by 75%. Well, we turn now to Angela Mendez, the daughter of the late Brazilian rubber-tapper labor leader, Chico Mendez, who was assassinated by ranchers decades ago in December 1984, 1988. Chico Mendez worked for years to preserve the Amazon and to protect the rights of Brazilians living in poverty and indigenous people. Angela lives near where her father was born and raised in the northwestern Brazilian state of Akra. I spoke to her last week at the UN climate talks

when we were in Belém, Brazil, and I began by asking her about her father's legacy and what led to his assassination, December 1988. He fought for the rights of his companions, his friends, and the peoples of the forests for a long time. His fight brought a lot of prejudice, a lot of backdrops for the farmers in the territory. And Shikobans always fight in a pacific way, but they, the farmers, didn't like him at all. She recommends always try to dialogue with all forces. He, they created the empathies,

a way of protests pacifically in defense of the forces. But this was making all of them very angry about the threats against their economic interests. So those empathies, and patis were the way they found to defend in the forest. All his

fight. When farmers came and buy lands in the forests The UDR, Union Democratic Ruralist, those farmers were supported by a local

organization called UDR, the Federation of Land owners and Darlie Alviz, one of the farmers in the territory of this organization was trying to deforce

a large area and then she commended fight for more than 90 days with his friends defending this land stopping deforestation and this was the main reason why he was killed to stop the forestation. In December 22nd

it was organized a pistol man, a killer, was hired to kill my father in his house. Angela, talk about what your father did. What do rubber tapers do? The rubber men organized this greatest movement, the impacts, a peaceful one, of resistance. In 1970s, the rubees, the rubeer. The rubeer, the rifted, the risk. The impact is a peaceful one of resistance. In 1970s, the rubber areas, the native rubber areas, were impacted by major agribusiness companies

that were expelling them from their territories. For them not to lose all those areas where they lived, they began to organize those embatties, those rubber men, they lived more than one. 100 years in those in the forest.

So they protect these areas together with the original indigenous peoples. And then together, they created an alliance of peoples of the forests, indigenous peoples, and the rubber men, the extractivist men that were living there, living from the Castanan they had the same enemies, the farmers. The men that were stealing the territory from those traditional peoples. So they unite their forests, indigenous peoples, and the extractivist peoples. The farmers had a lot of money, a lot of power. So the alliance of the peoples of the forest is the way, the solution that they

they thought that would be possible to defend themselves. So you marched with rubber tappers on Thursday here in Belang in the gateway to the Amazon. So many environmental activists like your father, hundreds have been killed since he was assassinated. Talk about the dangers people face. who stand up for the environment right through to COP 30 to today. Until today, we have

a lot of, in our territory, a lot of people being threatened by this very the same people, cattle ranchers, agribusiness, they are trying to use the forest as cattle

production for cattle production. And they are defending the interests of agribusiness and mining companies. But here, they're in Acre. But all Amazon, we do not have mining in Acre, but the whole Amazon serves a lot of threats because of those mining companies and agribusiness companies. They are coming from Europe for the Amazon.

They come here, build them. build their companies, bringing death to the territories, bringing death for the foresters and threatening the peoples of the foresters. Can you talk about when Bolsonaro was president and before his alliance with the ranchers, with the oil companies, and then Lula becomes president? And I'm wondering your assessment of President Lula, are right? Robert taffers, our indigenous people, any safer? And what is the Chico Mendez committee calling for, Angela Mendez?

Lula was always when my father was killed in Hacli. Lula was friends with my father. And because Lula came from the working class, he understood very well the importance of my father's fight for my father and his friends. My feeling today is that the setbacks, the prejudice, how the negative things that Bosnado government did were too deep, were very profound. And today, we have a Congress, an upper house, extremely right-wing fascist, and they are

leaving the legacy of Bolsonaro as well. And they are making all they can to stop Lula of making progress in the democracy agenda. The Ministry of Environment Marina Silva, they are all being put in a very difficult position. This is the project of our congressman to make difficult to stop the work of President Lula and his team that is prioritizing the protection of the peoples of the forest. And sometimes we can, we manage it to fight and show, we know that we have a reduction of deforestation, Amazon. But this was a victory, but we have still a lot of challenges. Because all, every day, we have a new bill being voted in Congress to try to invade and make the environmental law.

weaker. So it's a different situation. The threat is against us, all this together. We had a bill of devastation, the forest devastation, destruction bill, that made more fragile the environmental laws in Brazil for the licensing to explore the forest. All those laws, the agri-business, is really trying to enter the terrestrial to this to destroy those territories, to kill the local populations. Today we have generations of people, of the forest indigenous peoples. They are contaminated by the mining residues

because of the rivers are also poisoned. The population as a whole. they are safe, but the rivers are connected. So we know that the world should be jam, the whole people should be worried. As we also know that Defender Forest is something, it's not something just from the people that live in the forest. We should know that everything that happens in the forest

are connected to everything else that happens in the world. If we are in the city, we should be worried about. about the people in the forest and vice versa. But this barrier is still there. We share the same oxen. We are in the same home. Talk about why this brings tears to your eyes, Angela. Yes.

So, we have we all. Yeah. Well, I'm... I am very sad. And I cry. Because... As 37 years ago, when my father was killed, I still live today.

women who are leading as leadership in their territories, being killed in a very cruel way. The feeling is that we are never able to get out of this violence that really marks people's lives and families, and we have so many things to. deal with. Thousands of people, particularly indigenous people, local people, have been marching here in Belém. Many of them wear your father's image on their t-shirt. He's become a symbol like Che Guevara. And I'm wondering at this point, while there is so much at stake, what gives

you hope. What gives me hope is to know is that we all have today a youth movement, a youth that is very conscious about their role, know that my daughter, who is here in the COP, dreams, and want to continue the fight of my father. Every year since he was killed, we organized the Chico Menz's week, where we have the youth working, that the legacy of his work continues. Angela Mendes, the daughter of the Brazilian rubber-tapper and labor leader Chico Mendes, assassinated in 1988. He fought to preserve the Amazon rainforest and the indigenous people who live there. We spoke to Angela Mendes at the UN Climate Summit in Belém, Brazil, last week.

This is Democracy Now. Goodman. Thanks for joining us.