Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-12-02 Tuesday

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

Democracy Now! Tuesday, December 2, 2025

From New York, this is Democracy Now. It is clearly unlawful for the U.S. Navy to shoot at people hanging on to boat debris for their dear life to kill us. them in cold blood because the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said kill them all. It's a war crime, it's murder, and it's unconscionable. The Trump administration is facing growing bipartisan criticism. After the White House admits the U.S. fired twice on alleged drug boat in September in order to kill shipwrecked survivors of the first strike. We'll speak to law professor David Cole about war crimes on the high seas, and the Pentagon's threats to court-martial, Senator Mark Kelly, for urging soldiers to disobey illegal orders. Then to Senator Bernie Sanders and New York City

mayor-elect Zohan Mamdani as they join striking Starbucks workers on the picket line in Brooklyn. We must build a New York where every worker can live a life of decency. We must build a New York where our words do not ring hollow as we say that this is a union town. And we must build in New York where the workers who power it are able to afford to live in it. I just want to thank the Starbucks workers for their courage here and around this country. We are going to prevail. Then President Trump cancels World AIDS Day commemorations while gutting AIDS health care across the globe. We'll look at what this means from Uganda to the United States. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.

The White House is defending the Pentagon over allegations that carried out war crimes during an attack on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean. Last week, the Washington Post reported U.S. forces sank a vessel with 11 people aboard during a September 2nd strike, then launched a second strike to kill two survivors as they clung to the smoldering wreckage of their boat. On Monday, the White House confirmed the second strike occurred, but claimed the order to kill the survivors of the initial attack came not from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as the Washington Post reported, but from Admiral Frank Mitch Bradley, who at the time was the the head of JASOC, the Joint Special Operations Command. This is White House Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt. With respect to the strikes in question on September 2nd, Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the

United States of America was eliminated. On Monday evening, Pentagon Secretary, Harry Hegseth wrote on social media, quote, Let's make one thing crystal clear. Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support, unquote. His comments came after Democrats and some Republican lawmakers said Hegseth may have committed war crimes if he ordered U.S. forces to attack survivors. We'll have more about war crimes on the high seas after headlines. We'll speak with Georgetown law professor David Cole.

Israeli forces killed two Palestinian teenagers in separate incidents Monday as they carried out raids across the occupied West Bank. In Hebron soldiers fatally shot 17-year-old Mohanah Tarek, Mohamed al-Zuggar, whom they accused of carrying out a car-ramming attack that injured an Israeli soldier. Elsewhere, 18-year-old Mohamed Raslan Mahmahmoud Asmar was shot during a raid on his village northwest of Ramallah. Witnesses say the teen was left to bleed out as Israeli forces barred Red Crescent medics from approaching. The soldiers then seized his lifeless body.

Last week, the United Nations reported more than a thousand Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the occupied West Bank in East Jerusalem since October 7, 2023. Meanwhile, in Gaza, Israeli forces killed at least one person in the Burej refugee camps. Camp Monday in the latest violation of the ceasefire deal that took effect on October 10th. In another violation of the truce, Palestinians report Israeli forces continue to cross the so-called yellow line on a near daily basis. This week, a coalition of 12 Israeli human rights groups concluded in a new report that 2025 has already become the deadliest and most destructive year for Palestinians since 1967. Pope Leo is in Lebanon, the nation with the highest proportion of Christians in the Middle East as part of his first foreign trip as Pontiff.

Earlier today, he held mass at the site of the 2020-Berut-Port explosion, which killed hundreds of people and injured thousands. Pope Leo also met with the families of those killed in the explosion. In an age when coexistence can seem like a distant dream, the people of Lebanon, while embracing different religions stand as a powerful reminder that fear, distrust, and prejudice do not have the final word and that unity, reconciliation, and peace are possible. Before arriving in Lebanon, Pope Leo over the weekend, said that a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict must include a Palestinian state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked Israeli President Isaac Herzog to grant him a pardon from corruption charges and to bring an end to his trial. Netanyahu has been charged with fraud and accepting bribes in three separate cases accusing him of exchanging political favors with wealthy supporters. On Monday, protesters gathered outside the Tel Aviv courthouse where Netanyahu's trial is being held. There's no such thing as being exonerated. from files from being a criminal. And he is a criminal, and he should be standing on trial just like every other citizen in Israel.

Netanyahu is the only sitting prime minister in Israeli history to stand trial. President Trump's envoy, Steve Whitkoff and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow today. Whitkoff and Kushner are expected to offer Putin a U.S. back peace proposal that was revised during negotiations between American and Ukrainian officials in Miami over the weekend. This follows reporting from the Wall Street Journal on Whitkoff's October meeting with Kodil Demetriyev, head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund and Putin's hand-picked negotiator. Demetriov reportedly offered a plan for U.S. companies to tap nearly $300 billion of Russian

central bank assets frozen in Europe. Meanwhile, Ukrainian president of Volodymyr's Lenz- met French president Emmanuel Macron Monday and is in Ireland today for meetings. Amidst the diplomatic activity, Russia launched a missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Denepro, killing four people and injuring 40. Meanwhile, Putin is claiming victory after Russian forces captured the Ukrainian town of Pekrovsk in the eastern Dombos region after fierce fighting for over a year. Pekrovsk was once a strategic logistics hub for the Ukrainian. Army. President Trump vowed there will be, quote, held to pay in Honduras if election officials

tampered with the results of Sunday's presidential elections after threatening to cut off U.S. aid to Honduras if his favored candidate doesn't win. As of Tuesday morning, just over half the ballots have been counted, and it's not clear when a final result will be announced. Trump-back candidate Nasriya Svuda of the right-wing national party held a razor-thin lead of just 515 votes over his rival, Salvador Nasrallah. This comes as President Trump pledged to pardon Honduras's former president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who's currently serving a 45-year jail term in the U.S. for cocaine trafficking. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, President Trump was asked why he

would pardon a convicted drug trafficker. You've made so clear how you want to keep drugs out of the U.S. Can you explain more about why you would pardon a notorious drug trafficker? Well, I don't know who you're talking about. What's... Well, I was told I was asked by Honduras, many of the people of Honduras, they said it was a bite-and-set-up. In Haiti, heavily armed gangs killed nearly a dozen people as they set fire to homes

and forced hundreds of survivors to flee over the weekend. The attack took place in Haiti's central region. Half the area is now under gang control. One of Haiti's police unions called it, quote, one of the greatest security failures in modern Haitian history, unquote. This comes, as the Trump administration announced, its ending temporary protected status, TPS, for 3,000 Haitians living in the U.S. by February 3rd. In Indiana, Republican lawmakers have unveiled a new voting map, that's designed to hand their party all nine of Indiana's seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The new map would divide districts in Indianapolis and the Chicago suburbs that have consistently voted for Democrats and are home to Indiana's largest concentrations of non-white voters.

Indiana Democrats blasted the maps as racially gerrymandered and introduced a bill seeking to ban mid-decade redistricting. This comes amidst Republican efforts to redrompting. maps in Texas, Missouri, Utah, Ohio, North Carolina, and elsewhere. Meanwhile, some Democratic-controlled states, led by California, are moving to redistrict congressional maps in favor of their party. In Tennessee, voters in the state's seventh congressional district are casting ballots today in a special election to replace Republican Congress member Mark Green, who resigned from Congress in July to pursue a business venture. Republican Matt Van Epps faces a strong challenge by Democratic State Representative Afton Bain in a district that President Trump won by 22 percentage

points last November. On Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson flew to Tennessee to rally support for Vennaps with President Trump calling in via speaker phone to endorse him. A federal appeals court has ruled President Trump's former personal attorney Alina Haba is serving unlawfully as U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. In their unanimous ruling Monday, three judges with the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Trump administration broke the law as it maneuvered to keep how it installed as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey after her 120-day interim appointment expired in July. This comes just days after a federal judge ruled that acting U.S. attorney Lindsey Halligan, another former Trump personal lawyer with no experience prosecuting criminal

cases, was also installed to her position unlocked. lawfully. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said three of his offices in New York were targeted with emailed bomb threats, alleging the 2020 election was rigged with the subject line MAGA. This comes as Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly announced he and his wife Gabby Giffords have been receiving more death threats since President Trump called for his execution after Senator Kelly and other Democratic lawmakers urge U.S. service members to refuse illegal. legal orders. We take these threats very seriously, and I take, you know, the threats from this president seriously. How many times in our country's history have you heard a president of the United States say that members of the Senate and the House should be hanged and executed?

I mean, I can't think of one. We'll have more on this story after. headlines. And President Trump has commuted the seven-year prison sentence of private equity executive David Gentile, who defrauded over 10,000 investors of around $1.6 billion. Gentile was convicted of securities and wire fraud last year and was just days into serving his prison sentence. According to prosecutors, his victims were described as small business owners, farmers, veterans, teachers, and nurses. And those are some of the headlines. This is DemocracyNow. DemocracyNow.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman in New York,

joined by Democracy Now's Juan Gonzalez in Chicago. Hi, Juan. Hi, Amy, and welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. The White House is facing growing bipartisan criticism over its target. of boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific that it says are carrying drugs, though, have not presented a shred of evidence. The Washington Post recently reported defense secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the killing of two people who survived an initial strike on a suspected drug boat off the coast of Trinidad on September 2nd.

According to the Post, Hegseth gave a verbal order to, quote, kill everybody, unquote. Many legal experts and lawmakers said such an order would be a war crime. This is independent Maine Senator Angus, King on CNN Monday morning. The law is clear. If the facts are, as have been alleged, that there was a second strike specifically to kill the survivors in the water, that's a stone, cold war crime. It's also murder. On Monday afternoon, the White House confirmed the second strike on the boat did occur. but claim the order came not from Heggseth, but from Admiral Frank Mitch Bradley, who at the time was the head of J-Soc.

That's the Joint Special Operations Command. White House Press Secretary Carolyn Leavitt was questioned about the strikes. To be clear, does the administration deny that that second strike happened, or did it happen and the administration denies that Secretary Hexseth gave the order? The latter is true, Gabe, and I have a statement to read for you here. President Trump and Secretary Hegeseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war. With respect to the strikes in question on September 2nd, Secretary Hegeseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed

and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated. On Monday night, Secretary Hegseth wrote online, let's make one thing crystal clear. Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support. I stand by him in the combat decisions he has made on the September 2nd mission and all others since, unquote. While he was showing his 100% support, many took his statement to make a distinction between him, Hegseth, and Bradley himself, as to who gave the order. This all comes as Hegseth is threatening to court-martial, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, who's a former naval officer.

Kelly and five other Democrats, all military or intelligence veterans, recently appeared in a video urging soldiers to disobey illegal orders. I'm Senator Alisa Slotkin. Senator Mark Kelly. Representative Chris. Delusio. Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander. Representative Chrissy Hulahan. Congressman Jason Crow. I was a captain in the United States Navy. Former CIA officer. Former Navy. Former paratrooper and Army Ranger. Former intelligence officer. Former Air Force. We want to speak directly

to members of the military and the intelligence community who take risks each day to keep Americans safe. We know you are under enormous stress and pressure right now. Americans trust their military. But that trust is at risk. This administration is pitting our uniform military. intelligence community professionals against American citizens. Like us, you all swore an oath. To protect and defend this Constitution. Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren't just coming from a barrage, but from right here at home. Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders. You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution. President Trump accused the Democrats of

appearing in that video of engaging in, quote, seditious behavior punishable by death. On Monday, Senator Markelly revealed he and his wife, Gabby Giffords, have received death threats following President Trump's threats. Yes, that family knows violence well. Gabby Giffords is the former Arizona Congress member who was shot in the head in a mass shooting in a Tucson shopping mall when she was meeting with constituents years ago. We're joined now by David Cole, professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, former national legal director of the ACLU. His recent piece for the New York Times is headline Mark Kelly is being investigated for telling the truth.

We last spoke to you in October after your widely read piece in the New York Review of Books headlined getting away with murder about the boat strikes. So these two issues, to say the least, are coming together. very strongly this week. One, you have the revelations in the Washington Post of the second folk strike killing the shipwreck, the two men who are hanging on for your life to this boat when they hit it again. And you have the attacks on Mark Kelly to court-martial him after he and others talked about soldiers not obeying illegal orders. Talk about the emerging of these two issues and specifically what's happening to Kelly right now. So, you know, this entire operation from the outset is illegal. It is not legal to

engage in premeditated targeting of people because you believe they're engaged in criminal activity. We have a system in this country for trying people, convicting them, sentencing them, even if you are found to have been guilty of smuggling massive amounts of drugs, you cannot be executed. The death penalty is limited for people who have actually committed a homicide. The president says this is a war, but he's mixing metaphor with reality. The war on drugs is a metaphor, like the war on cancer. It doesn't allow us to kill people who are carrying drugs.

Just as the war on crime doesn't allow us to kill people who are criminals. What we've now learned is that not only is the entire operation illegal from the outset, but they're now actually targeting survivors of these strikes. People who pose no threat whatsoever to the United States are seeking to hang on for dear life, and the military is targeting them and killing them in cold blood. It is getting closer and closer to mili. And yet, when members of Congress, say to members of the military, you know, you have an obligation not to follow illegal orders.

What does the president do? Not say, hey, that's right. These orders are problematic. We should rethink them. We should pay attention to all the lawyers who told us they were illegal before we push them off the table. Instead, he goes after Mark Kelly, a senator, a former, a combat veteran for merely telling the truth. former astronaut for merely telling the truth. It is a true statement that following orders is no defense to a war crime. And killing civilians who are not engaged in armed conflict against us is a war crime. This is criminal activity from the get-go, doubly criminal when you start targeting survivors. They have to rethink this policy, not a claim that their critics are engaged in

addition. But David, I'm wondering, all of these boat attacks are actually creating a climate where basically the United States, the people of the United States get used to the fact that the United States is going to war, in essence, is going to militarily attack Venezuela. And for instance, the Guardian just reported recently that Trinidad and Tobago, which is right next door to Venezuela, has a hundred Marines that have installed radar. And there was a quote from a political leader, internet that in Tobago, David Abdullah, of the movement for social justice that accuses their government of being complicit in these extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean. I'm wondering, under what pretext do you think the United States will use to actually

militarily attack Venezuela? Well, this entire operation is a pretext. There is no war going on. We are not under attack. No one has been drafted to fight the enemy.

President Trump has taken a crime problem and has said I'm going to use the military to solve the crime problem. How? By killing people in cold blood. And Pete Hegseth translates that to say to his folks, kill everybody. And so then

Admiral Bradley responds to that by ordering the killing even of survivors who are merely holding on for dear life. This is crimes that the government is trying to justify as acts of war. if they go to war with Venezuela, that too will be a war crime. It will be an active aggression against a country which has not attacked us. The fact that people are maybe, probably are smuggling drugs into this country from Venezuela, doesn't distinguish that country from Mexico, from Canada, from many other countries into which drugs are smuggled. It doesn't give us the authority to kill Canadians. It doesn't give us the authority to kill Mexicans. It doesn't give us the authority to kill Venezuelans. And it certainly doesn't give us the authority to go to war with a

country. I'm wondering also about another major legal battle of the Trump administration. The admission of the Justice Department that it was Homeland Security Secretary Christine Nolm, who made the decision to deport a group of Venezuela. men to the notorious mega prison complex in El Salvador, ignoring a judge's order to keep them in custody. What do you make of this? Outrageous. Outrageous. We are a country of law. That means that government officials, just like you and I, have to follow court orders. In this case, the Trump administration, again using this pretext of a war, said we're going to deport hundreds, several, a couple, more than a hundred Venezuelans on the assertion that they

are part of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan drug gang, which Trump says is engaged in armed conflict against us, notwithstanding the fact that no one ever heard of this group before Trump made this ridiculous assertion. The ACLU went to court to challenge that on an emergency basis. the judge held a hearing, he told them on no uncertain terms, do not remove these people. And if the planes have taken off, turn the planes around. And if they land in El Salvador, do not let the people off, bring them back. And instead, Christy Noam, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, tells her people to defy that order and to continue the plane flights to El Salvador and to turn these men over to the El Salvador and authorities where they were

put in essentially a torture prison. That is not how the rule of law is supposed to operate. I think it's going to lead to contempt charges against Christy Noem and the others who engaged in that blatantly illegal disregard of the judge's order. I wanted to continue in that line of the deporting of people. You have Kilmara Brago-Garcia, right, who a brave Justice Department lawyer said in court, because he had to tell the truth, that it was not clear why he was even sent to Seikot. Now he's being faced with being sent to one African country after another, a continent that he is not from. They are not backing down on deporting him. I wanted to ask about that.

And also on this issue, we just had a headline yesterday on this young woman, a Babson college student, deported to Honduras this weekend while she was trying to fly from Boston to Texas to surprise her family for Thanksgiving. 19-year-old Annie Lucia Lopez-Belosa was told there was an issue with her boarding pass at the gate before she was detained by immigration officials. The day after she was arrested, a federal judge issued an emergency. order, prohibiting the government from removing her from the United States for 72 hours, but instead she was deported and is now in Honduras where she hasn't been in many years. She did not grow up there. So I think we have to ask President Trump, have you no sense of decency, have you no shame,

the kinds of cruelty that he is imparting on people? people who have lived here their entire lives, on Mr. Obrigo Garcia, who was admittedly a mistaken deportation. And instead of admitting their mistake and saying, sorry, they're now seeking to send him to a third country to Africa, a place that he does not know, has never lived. This is just beyond the pale. It is absolutely beyond the pale. And I think the American And people recognize that what the administration is doing in the name of immigration enforcement is far too harsh, far too cruel. It is not singling out criminals. It is not singling out people at the border.

It is taking college kids. It is taking people turning up to their interviews and to their court appearances and spiriting them off to countries they never came from. David Cole, we have this breaking news. The former Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, was just released from prison in the United States where he was serving a 45-year prison sentence for drug trafficking and firearms charges. His brother, Tony Hernandez,

also serving a life sentence here in the United States. He was convicted, the former president, of sending in tons of cocaine into the United States. States. Put this against what the U.S. is doing in the Caribbean bombing so-called drug boats to prevent drugs from coming into the United States. Again, have you no shame. Here's somebody who was essentially a drug kingpin, someone who used the authority of his office to ensure that drugs in massive quantities were brought into the United States. He is prosecuted, he is convicted, and he is sentenced. And what does President Trump do?

He lets him out of jail. Meanwhile, fishermen on boats in the Caribbean, who have never been tried or charged with anything, are shot and killed from the air. And when people are holding on for their lives, they follow through and shoot and kill those people. This is not about fighting to stop drugs from coming into this country, because then you would not see the pardon of somebody who was convicted for that offense. This is pure politics, and it is playing with people's lives, ending people's lives, for partisan political advantage.

And David Cole, I'm wondering, Trump's use of the pardon. Most presidents wait until their final year in office and around Christmas time, they do a bunch of pardons. But Trump has been on a rampage with these pardons. Could you talk about what the message that this sends about presidential. power? Well, the pardon power is one power in the Constitution that was given to the President without check. We've generally relied on, you know, the principles of presidents to use it in wise ways, use it to dole out mercy in appropriate cases, not to award donors, not to award the kids of donors, not to award those who have violated laws in the same way Trump violated laws.

Trump is using, is abusing the pardon power as no president before ever has, and I hope no president afterward ever will again. But it really raises questions about giving the president absolute power. Absolute power corrupts. And President Trump has proved that with his use of the pardon power. He's he's pardoning people who do, you know, do good to his business interests. He is essentially using it to line his pockets and to let people off who, who, who, he, he identifies with not to engage in any kind of principled grants of mercy. David Cohen, we just have 30 seconds. The judges finding the U.S. attorneys that President Trump appointed his personal attorneys, Alina Haba in New Jersey, Lindsay Halligan, finding that they

are illegally serving the significance of this. Well, this is what happens when the president insists on hiring loyalists who can't get Senate confirmation, even from a Senate that the Republicans control. He instead tries to use these tricks, calling them interim, calling them acting, etc. And now two courts have held that that kind of back-to-back appointment to avoid Senate confirmation is unconstitutional. David Cole, I want to thank you for being with us, Professor at the Georgetown University of Law Center, now a visiting professor at Columbia Law School. Former ACOU National Legal Director will link to your piece. Mark Kelly is being investigated for telling the truth. When we come back, Senator Bernie Sanders and New York City

Mayor Alexer on Mamdani joined striking Starbucks workers on the picket line in Brooklyn. Back in 20 seconds. The bare last flower you gave to me, I'll put it away for brighter day with a sunshine down and a wind wind blow. I'll keep it hit when no one knows. With me the seeds of a dandelion And a free goodwill On the rocks in the rill With a pain in my heart

And the heart of my home Come on to love For me should call Downhill Strugglers performing at the Brooklyn Folk Festival in November. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. On Monday, New York Mayor Lexer on Mandani, Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, joined striking workers on a picket line outside of Starbucks in Brooklyn.

The rally came shortly after New York City announced Starbucks, had agreed, to pay more than $35 million to some 15,000 workers in what's been called the largest worker protection settlement in New York City history. This is Aeron Mamdani, who will be sworn in as mayor January 1st. Good afternoon, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here at a picket with Starbucks workers like the ones on my right and the ones on my left. Workers who are braving the December cold and the much deeper chill of unfair labor practices in this city and across this country and the fear that has come with that of union busting while they demand the better working conditions that they deserve. Like so many working people across this city,

these are not demands of greed. These are demands for decency. These are workers who are simply being asked to be treated with the respect that they deserve. They're being asked that their labor be repaid in a manner that allows them to build a dignified life. And I join them because I want to do everything that I can to show my solidarity, but also because I know that far too often the voices of everyday working people are not amplified with the volume that management so easily receives. So I want to share a few numbers with you here this afternoon, numbers that I hope will place this struggle into some sense of perspective. 36.2 billion. That is the amount of money that Starbucks made in revenue just last year.

95.8 million. That's the compensation package that Starbucks CEO, Brian Nickel, earned for four months of work last year. 6,666.66. That is how much times larger Nichols-Pay was than the average Starbucks barista's salary. 400. That is how many labor law violations the NLRB has found that Starbucks has committed. 120. That's the amount of stores that are on strike and 85, the number of cities that they are taking. place in. Now what these numbers show us are a two-pronged picture. On one side, corporate greed and self-enrichment at the cost of its own workers, and on the other remarkable solidarity by those workers who have been exploited and mistreated time and time again. Solidarity, as much as we speak of it, we have to remember, is not an abstract concept. It is measured in picket lines, stood on in the

rain and in the sleet. It is measured in rent payments that workers do not know if they will be able to meet. Child care bills. They do not know whether they will be able to afford. And it is measured in strangers who have never met one another, linking arms to fight for a shared goal and a fairer future. And I am proud to stand here alongside incredible elected officials at the city level, at the state level, and also, to my left, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. because all of us are united in the belief that we must build a New York where every worker can live a life of decency. We must build a New York where our words do not ring hollow as we say that this is a union town. And we must build a New York where the workers who power it are able

to afford to live in it. Thank you so much. And now, Senator Bernie Sanders. Well, it is an honor for my wife and me to be here with you to stand with striking Starbucks workers who are telling this company they are sick and tired of corporate greed and sick and tired of union busting. What the mayor elect just pointed out is that what is happening here on this picket line is happening all. over this country. We are living in an economy where the people on top have never, ever had it so good.

You got one man owning more wealth than the bottom 52% of American households. And while the CEOs make unbelievable salaries, 60% of our people in Vermont, in New York,

city all over this country are living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to pay the rent, struggling to pay for health care, struggling to put food on the table. And what Iran and I are dedicated to is creating a nation and an economy which works for all of us, not just the 1%. That's right. So I just want to thank the Starbucks workers for their courage here and around this country. We are going to prevail. Thank you very much. You know, as I was walking in, Bernadette was asking me, when am I going to stop attending protests and be the mayor?

And I said technically January 1st, I will be the mayor. But I also want to make a point, which is that when I become the mayor of this city, I'm going to continue to stand on picket lines with workers across the five boroughs. And I've said this to many of the unions that are here today, many of the rank and file, which is that we want to build an administration that is characterized by being there for workers every single step of the way. and sometimes in the fight for decency and dignity that workers are waging, their voices are drowned out. And when you are the mayor of New York City, you have with that a platform, a platform where you can speak about the hundreds of times that Starbucks has violated labor loss.

A platform where you can speak about the fact that, yes, we celebrate what DCWP was able to accomplish in the largest ever settlement that has been won in this city. $28 million. and also that we will continue to commit funding both of a fiscal kind and also of our own sustained commitment in terms of the political will necessary to ensure that we hold these kinds of corporations accountable. Just before we take a question, since I know we have some friends here with us, if we can

first have a round of applause for the Starbucks workers themselves. We have Kai Fritz on my left, Nur Hayat on my right, and we have so many workers who have inspired us every single day. And I just want to say thank you before we even start the Q&A portion of this. Dora, can I ask a question about many of the workers in this city are immigrants? When you met with President Trump, did you get a concession from him around? ICE raids and not moving in to this city. And then I have a question for Bernie Sanders. And that question is, do you think if you succeed with your fight club and other senators, if you succeed with the fight club and other senators who support your mission to unseat

the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, it will open up space for progressive candidates that represent what the two of you stand for today? When I met with the president, I made very clear that these kinds of raids are cruel and inhumane, that they are raids that do nothing to serve the interests of public safety. And that my responsibility is to be the mayor to each and every person that calls this city their home. And that includes millions of immigrants of which I am one. And I am proud that I will be the first immigrant mayor of this city in generations. and prouder still for the fact that I will live up to the statue that we have in our harbor and the ideals which we have long proclaimed as being those of the city,

but which have too often been ones we do not actually enforce and celebrate on a daily basis. And that is who I will be as the mayor of the city. In terms of what we're trying to do in the Senate, I think it is no great secret. There are differences of opinion in the Democratic. Democratic caucus in the Senate. I'm an independent, and I caucus with the Democrats. And the difference is really manifested right here in New York City in the mayor's race that just took place. In my views, Iran Mamdani ran one of the great campaigns in the modern history of this

country. He started off at 1% and he won. And how did he win? He won because he put together tens and tens of thousands of volunteers who knocked on doors. He won because he had the guts to talk about the oligarchs and saying that when he was going to become mayor and when he will become mayor, he's going to stand with the workers here at Starbucks and workers all over this city. And what we are seeing in America right now,

in congressional race and Senate races, you're seeing more and more candidates standing up exactly the same way that's Iran did. And they are standing up and saying that we need an economy that works for all. We're not going to let the billionaires get tax breaks while people lose their health insurance. We're going to raise the minimum wage to a living wage rather than a starvation wage. We're not going to be the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people as a human right, et cetera, et cetera. So you're seeing that evolve.

I think it's a good thing. And I think we have the grassroots of America behind us. What Iran did inspired people all over this country, all over the world, and we're going going forward in that direction. So that's Senator Bernie Sanders and New York mayor, Lexuran Mamdani, speaking Monday as they joined striking Starbucks workers on a picket line in Brooklyn. At the rally, I questioned them, but also talked to workers and organizers on the picket line. So my name is Gabriel Peary.

I'm a ship supervisor in Belmore Long Island. At Starbucks, I am usually running the floor and making sure that customers and my co-workers are all set. We are out here today to fight the company's unfair labor practices, as well as get them back to the bargaining table for a fair contract. And what would that look like? So that would look like them ending their unfair labor practices. Right now we have 400 open lawsuits for labor practices, as well as 650 pending, including but not limited to the unguaranteed scheduling, the mistreatment of coworkers.

workers, trans and gay, and the unfair wage, hourly wages as well as, like, not guaranteed hours. Starbucks has not recognized any union in any shop in the four years that we have been organizing. So it's pretty scary not to have that done, and we're hopefully expecting that this is what gets them to come back to the table. My name is Melanie Kruvelis. I'm an organizer with New York City DSA, and, you know, I think it's really powerful to have the mayor out here today. Just today, city workers recovered tens of millions of dollars to Starbucks workers who have been denied fair pay. And I think in a moment where people are really struggling to put food on the table, to buy presents for the holidays, it means a lot to recognize that people are putting,

you know, their lives on the line every day, they're working every day, and they're not getting what they deserve. Do you see that same 104,000 volunteers continuing to work and organize, and what would they do? Absolutely. I'm hopeful that, you know, there's a strong movement that got Zoran into office in November, and I'm hopeful that we're going to keep that movement going. You know, I think it matters a lot that we had such a full house out here today in front of Starbucks, and he's activated tons of folks across the city and people across the country. So I think it's, you know, generating a lot of hope for folks who haven't had a lot of that this year. I think having Zora Mammu definitely gives our chances a lot better. He has been very forward thinking, and I'm excited to see what he does

when his first day of, like, being the actual mayor starts. Starbucks workers and organizers on the picket line in Brooklyn Monday, where they were joined by Senator Bernie Sanders and New York mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani. Special thanks to Sam Alcoff. On Thursday, there is a major protest planned in front of the Empire State Building from one-neigh. to three. The motto of the group is no contract, no Starbucks. When we come back, President Trump cancels World AIDS Day commemorations while gutting AIDS health care across the globe. We'll go to Uganda. Stay with us. walking

hand in hand for human grains of spirit winnowed infinitely through time greet the end with open arms my friend there you might Snake hoop by Mary Sue performing at the Brooklyn Folk Festival in November. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez.

President Trump's gutted AIDS health care while ordering an end to commemorations of World AIDS Day, which is observed around the world Monday, December 1st. For more on this, we're joined by journalist Stephen Thrasher in Kampala, Uganda. But first, we want to go to a clip, Stephen shared. with us of one of many Kampala residents who congratulated incoming New York City mayors around Mamdani after his election victory last month. Mamdani was born in Kampala. Hello, my name is Thunau, Samson.

I'm here in Uganda, Kampala. I would like to congratulate you Hamdani upon winning that seat of mayor in New York City. In Uganda here, we are very happy and grateful for this milestone you've made, and we understand that you will serve people genuinely from your heart, as you have been promising. We trust you and we believe something will happen positive to everyone that makes New York City a better place for each and every person, no matter the problem, something can be done. Thank you, I'm done. For more from Kampala, Uganda.

We're joined by Stephen Thrash, a claimed journalist, author of the viral underclass, the human toll when inequality and disease collide. He's the inaugural Daniel Remberg Chair for Social Justice and Reporting at the Middill School of Journalism and a faculty member of Northwestern University's Institute of Sexual and Gender Minority, Health, and Well-Being, working on a series called Global Stop Work Order about how the Trump administration's cuts are affecting LGBTQ-plus health and HIV-AIDS in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and North. America. The series is supported by a Pulitzer Center Global Reporting Grant and the Fund for Investigative Journalism. He has a new piece for The Intercept with a Fief Nasuli. It's called

Trump gutted AIDS health care at the worst possible time. If you can lay out what you've found, Stephen, thanks for joining us from Uganda. Thanks for having me, Amy. As you showed from that clip. Uganda's the home of Zora Mandani, who's been very good on LGBT issues. But Uganda is a very, very difficult place. They have a law called the AHA Act, which makes what, quote, unquote, aggravated homosexuality punishable by death. And so it's extremely difficult to get LGBTQ people the health care that they need. And it's very difficult to deal with HIV AIDS. And the Trump administration has made it even worse because a lot of USAID money was being used to pay for outreach. And the things that we found so far as globally, here in Uganda, FIFA is seeing the same

thing in the Middle East. I've seen in South Africa as well, and in the United States, is that this is an immediate crisis of LGBTQ employment. There are people who have been harmed very immediately, people who are trans, who have been forced into off their medications, and they experience body dysmorphia, trans men might be gained periods again. This is extremely distressing, causes depression and suicide. And there are people who've had advanced issues around AIDS that have died unfortunately. But for the most part, HIV is a very slow acting virus. And so if somebody becomes infected at age 20, it might be 10 years before we know that they're sick. But that same 20-year-old who's losing their job right now are thrown into an immediate distress. And the Trump administration

has really attacked LGBTQ employment around the world in the same way that the federal a workforce has seen a huge disparate impact on black women in the United States, that dynamic is playing out around the world because often the only kind of employment that LGBT people, especially trans women can get, is working in the health care sector, the kind of work that USAID supported, and they've been thrown out of jobs in devastating numbers over the last year. And, Steve, could you talk about some of the particular examples? as you mentioned, South Africa, also Lebanon, or what's been happening on the ground with these cuts?

So in South Africa, I met with a colleague who worked at an HIV prevention organization that went from a staff of 86 people to just four people. 95% of them were let go. And my colleague told me that if I were to go on a gay meetup app called Grindr, that I would see many of his colleagues working there because they have nothing else to do. South Africa has 36% or so unemployment for the general population, but it's well into the majority for LGBTQ people.

And so these people have nothing else to do but sex work. And there's something wrong with sex work, but it's also a real tragedy that these are people who have been trained to do important work. They've been doing really important epidemiological work, public health work, going into communities where rates of HIV are very high. And now they have nothing to do. And maybe they can only do sex work or they're not doing anything at all. So that's been really disastrous. The person who the clip that you showed at Samson at the beginning, he works with a group called Universal Love Alliance that I've got to shadow and volunteer a bit with.

I'm a phlebotomist and helped out with lab tech work on an outreach we did. And we went to a place where we saw 200 sex workers and we're able, and this is in Uganda. And we're able to give them all condoms and lubricants, which are in very short supply since USAID was cut off. And to put into perspective how necessary and how out of reach these things are, when Trump was inaugurated,

and not even when it was inaugurated when he was elected, that empowered the government, Uganda, to get even more regressive because they knew what was coming, and they saw the Trump administration as supporting a very moralist standpoint from the government.

So they stopped the importation of lubricants because they said that that was being used for immoral sex, being used by sex workers and by homosexuals. And lubricants are very important to make sure that people have healthy sex, that there's not tearing, that condoms don't break. So that object has basically been barred from being poured into the government, and they don't manufacture it here. So it's very hard for people to get it.

Condoms are also extremely expensive. A condom can cost 50 cents or $1. And I found in my outreach trips that I've gone on that sex workers are sometimes only making 50 cents or a dollar. So it's prohibitively expensive and they're less likely then to be able to use condoms now that USAID money has been taken away. And on this outreach where we went and gave away these resources to 200 people, we also were able to test 86 people for HIV and a host of STIs. And for me, from the United States, this was an incredibly successful outreach to be able to reach so many people at once. We found three positive HIV cases, six inconclusive,

and 77 that were negative. And most of those who are negative. Yeah. Steve, I hate to interrupt you, but we only have about a minute left. I wanted to ask you about something closer to home. Northwestern University, your university on Friday announced a $75 million, a deal to pay $75 million to the federal government to settle allegations of anti-Semitism and to reverse all policies implementing something called a Deering Meadow Agreement? Could you lay out what that is and your response to that for Northwestern to get back? It's more than $700 million in federal funding? Yeah, it was a real travesty for Northwestern to do this. The students made a good faith agreement in really solid principles that the university has just rejected and kind of on Thanksgiving weekend

shown how the United States government is known for breaking agreements with groups. But these two stories are actually quite, you know, quite connected. I was saying that there are ways that we could be giving more resources to help deal with HIV, public health in the United States and around the world. Scientists at Northwestern University and other universities and U.S. pharmaceutical companies are making lots of money. money that is dependent upon this kind of work that's being done. And so Northwestern is throwing away tens of millions of dollars. The money that was given for the LGBT chair that I hold is basically being wasted

because I haven't been allowed to teach for two years. And it's a real tragedy to see how people around the world, LGBTQ people of color, usually have been doing really, really important work on behalf of U.S. universities, on behalf of the United States government. This isn't just aid. This is, you know, payment for the ways that people are doing research and volunteering their bodies to be tested for medications. You know, meanwhile, back in the United States,

a university like Northwestern is just throwing away tens of millions of dollars to a fascist regime. We want to thank you, Stephen Thrasher, for joining us. Author of The Viral Underclass, The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide, will link to your intercept piece, Trump-Gutted AIDS Healthcare, at the worst possible time. A belated happy birthday to Dina Guzder. On Thursday, December 4th, I'll be at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor doing the Q&A after steal this story, please.

I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez.