Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-12-03 Wednesday

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

Democracy Now! Wednesday, December 3, 2025

From New York, this is Democracy Now. Killings of Palestinians by Israeli security forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank have been surging without any accountability. even in the rare case when investigations are announced. As the reports of violence and killings continue to be reported across the occupied West Bank and in Gaza, despite the ceasefire, we'll go to Ramallah to speak with Israeli-American human rights lawyer Saribashi. Then as a group of eight senators led by Bernie Sanders form a fight club to challenge the leadership of Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's handling of Trump, we'll speak with Ralph Nader, who's been taking on the Democratic Party for decades.

Sixty years ago this week, he published his landmark book, Unsafe at Any Speed, exposing the safety flaws of GM's Chevrolet Corvair and leading to major reforms in auto safety laws. I'm surely they did the right thing. They found out there was something wrong. the car on the fixed it. Yes. The question is, why did it take them four years to find out? This is my point. Either it's sheer callousness or indifference, or they don't bother to find out how their cars behave. Ralph Nader is also featured in WTO 99, a new immersive archival documentary about the historic 19 to 99 protests in Seattle against the World Trade Organization,

corporate power, and economic globalization. are gathering in Seattle for the World Trade Organization meeting. The TV stations, they're not informing people why there is a protest. This explains why there is a protest. My personal reason for marching is because I want to see fair labor practices. Globalization is already gone too far. We'll speak with the film's director, Ian Bell. All that and more coming up.

Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Defense Secretary Pete Hegset is attempting to distance himself from the first U.S. air strike on September 2nd that targeted two shipwreck men who'd survived an earlier U.S. strike on a boat, the Pentagon says, was carrying drugs, though they have not provided evidence. experts say the strike was likely a war crime. Last week, the Washington Post reported Hegseth had given a verbal order to, quote, kill everybody on the boat. Hegseth spoke Tuesday during a White House cabinet meeting. I watched that first strike lot. As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we got a lot of things to do. So I didn't stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs. So I moved on to my next meeting. A couple of hours later, I learned that that could.

manner had made the, which he had the complete authority to do, and by the way, Admiral Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat. Hague Seth was sitting next to President Trump during the three-hour cabinet meeting in which Trump appeared to fall asleep a number of times. Since September, the U.S. has bombed at least 21 boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean killing more than 80 people. Meanwhile, the family of a Colombian fisherman killed in a U.S. both strike on September 15th has filed a complaint against the U.S. with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The family of Alejandro Carranza Medina says he was the victim

of an extrajudicial killing. In more news from the region of bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced a war powers resolution to block the Trump administration from engaging in hostilities against Venezuela without congressional authorization. Israel's announced that it plans to reopen the Rafa border crossing as part of the U.S. brokered ceasefire, but only to allow Palestinians to leave Gaza. According to the World Health Organization, more than 16,500 sick and wounded people need to leave Gaza for medical care. This comes, as Israel says, the partial remains returned by Hamas do not match the two hostages remaining in Gaza.

Palestinian militants are reportedly struggling to find the remains amidst the remains. the rubble. Meanwhile, Israel's continued its drone strikes in Gaza, killing Palestinian photojournalist Mahmoud Wadi in Khan Yunus. This is his father, Isam Wadi. As a father, I received the news with shock. It was like an earthquake at home. I live in a tent. The tent was blown away when I lost my son. He was hit in an abnormal strike, which we weren't expecting on a day like this. President Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow for nearly five hours Tuesday, but a deal to end

the war in Ukraine was not reached. Russian officials described the talks as constructive, but said, quote, no compromise was reached on certain issues. Earlier today, Germany's foreign minister criticized Russia, saying he had seen, quote, no serious willingness on the Russian side to enter into negotiations. unquote. Meanwhile, the European unions agreed to ban natural gas from Russia by late 2027. On Tuesday, Putin warned Europe that Russia was ready for war if it's provoked. This comes as NATO Secretary General Margarita vowed to keep up the supply of U.S. weapons to Ukraine.

The best way to put pressure on the Russians is by doing two things. One is making sure that the Russians understand that the weapon flow into Ukraine will keep ongoing. exactly what's happening today. Thanks to the U.S., thanks to the Europeans, U.S. sending its crucial gear to Ukraine paid for by Canada and European allies. New details are emerging about President Trump's decision to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was released from prison Monday. Hernandez was sentenced last year to 45 years in prison for trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States. In October, Hernandez wrote a four-page letter to Trump

seeking a pardon, claiming he'd been unfairly targeted by the Biden administration. The letter was delivered by longtime Trump advisor Roger Stone. Some Republican lawmakers have openly criticized Trump's decision. This is Republican Senator Tom Tillis, who said, quote, it's a horrible message. It's confusing to say, on the one hand, we should potentially even consider invading Venezuela for a drug trafficker, and on the other hand, let somebody go, unquote. It's unclear if Hernandez will attempt to stay in the United States or return to Honduras. On Tuesday, some Hondurans in the capital to Guzagapah criticized Trump for freeing Hernandez and for meddling in Sunday's election. I am against everything that is happening because it's an insult to Honduras, because Honduras

really doesn't deserve this. That's because of a political aversion. They come and do this to our country with all the damage Juan Orlando caused here in Honduras. So all of us as Hondurans feel mocked because another country comes to interfere in what we should be doing here in our own country. This all comes as Honduras continues to count votes from Sunday's presidential election. The centrist, Salvador Nasrallah, has taken a slim lead over the conservative Nasri Asfura, who has been backed by Trump on social media. Trump has claimed, without evidence, the Honduran election officials are trying to change the results of the race. The Pentagon's Inspector General set to release a report Thursday, examining Defense Secretary Pete Hague says sharing of sensitive information about U.S. strikes on Yemen in a signal group chat earlier this year.

The group chat, which included other senior members of the Trump administration, was revealed after Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic Magazine, was accidentally added. According to Axios, a full version of the report has been sent to the Senate Armed Services. committee. The Trump administration's launching an ICE operation to target hundreds of Somali immigrants in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, according to reporting by the New York Times. An official speaking to the Times says nearly 100 immigration officers and agents from around the country have been tapped for the operation. The directive comes shortly after President Trump lashed out at the Somali community during a cabinet meeting, calling them garbage that he does not want in the country.

I hear they ripped off Somalians, ripped off that state for billions of dollars, billions, every year, billions of dollars, and they contribute nothing. The welfare is like 88 percent. They contribute nothing. I don't want them in our country, I'll be honest with you. We could go one way or the other, and we'll look. going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage. It's just garbage.

Democratic Congress member Ilhan Omar responded to President Trump's attack in a post on social media saying, quote, his obsession with me is creepy. I hope he gets the help he desperately needs, Congress member Omar said. Meanwhile, the Trump administration announced its pause green court in U.S. citizenship processing. for immigrants from 19 countries already subject to a travel ban put in place earlier this year. This follows the Trump administration's announcement. It's pausing all asylum decisions for immigrants currently in the U.S. after an Afghan national has been charged with murdering a National Guard member and critically injuring another in Washington, D.C. last week. He's pleaded

not guilty. The Trump administration fired eight immigration judges here in New York City Monday, according to the National Association of Immigration Judges. The fired judges worked at 26 federal plaza, which also houses the New York City headquarters for ICE. Since President Trump's returned to office, more than 100 immigration judges out of about 700 have been fired or pushed out. The Trump administration is threatening to withhold money for food benefits under SNAP, that supplemental nutrition assistance program, in most Democratic-controlled states next week, unless they share information on who exactly is receiving those benefits. Earlier this year, the Agriculture Secretary had requested the information to verify

the eligibility of 42 million recipients. Soon after, 22 states in the District of Columbia sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture over the request. In October, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction that prevents the Department of Agriculture from demanding the data of recipients and cutting SNAP funds. On Tuesday, New York Governor Kathy Hochel wrote on social media, quote, genuine question, why is the Trump administration so hell bent on people going hungry, she asked. In health news, a federal vaccine panel is preparing to vote this week to end the practice of vaccinating all newborns for hepatitis B. The panel, which was handpicked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is also expected to discuss making other major

changes to the childhood immunization schedule. Sean O'Leary of the American Academy of pediatrics criticize the move, saying, quote, any changes they do make could be devastating to children's health and public health as a whole, he said. A federal judge in Boston has blocked the Trump administration from cutting Medicaid funding to plan parenthood and its affiliates across 22 states. The Democratic-led states sued the Trump administration back in July after the so-called one big, beautiful bill contained a provision that barred Medicaid reimbursements to nonprofits that provide abortion. In her ruling, U.S. District Judge and Dera Talwani said the law would, quote, increase the percentage of patients unable to receive

birth control and preventive screenings, thereby prompting an increase in states' health care costs, unquote. Bon Parent had responded to the ruling saying, quote, the district court again recognized the defund law for what it is, unconstitutional and dangerous, they said. The Trump administration's reversing the reinstatement of 14 FEMA workers who signed a petition earlier this year, warning the cuts to the agency were putting the U.S. at risk of repeating the mistakes made during the response to Hurricane Katrina. Soon after they signed the letter back in August, FEMA suspended the workers. Last Wednesday, they were reinstated, but hours later they were suspended again. Jeremy Edwards, a former FEMA official who signed the Katrina declaration, said that the back-in-futable. fourth, over the status of the FEMA workers, quote, represents the type of dysfunction and

inefficiency that's plagued FEMA under this administration, unquote. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary, former Harvard president, Larry Summers, has been banned from the American Economic Association over his close ties to the late Jeffrey Epstein. Recently revealed emails show Summers stayed in close contact with Epstein long after the convicted sex offender's 2008 conviction. In Tennessee, the Republican Matt Van Epps has defeated Democrat Afton Bain in a closely watched special election for a U.S. House seat. Van Epps won the race by around 9 percent of far smaller margin than Trump's 22-point victory

in the district last year. And more than 1,350 people have now died in devastating floods and landslides in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Thailand. Hundreds are still missing. Sri Lanka's president described the flooding as the, quote, largest and most challenging natural disaster in our history, unquote. In Indonesia, the death toll has top 700. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now. Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman in New York, joined by Democracy Now as Juan Gonzalez in Chicago. Hi, Juan.

Hi, Amy, and welcome to all of our list is in view as across the country and around the world. Israel has announced it will reopen the Rafa border crossing between Gaza and Egypt in the next few days as part of the U.S. brokered ceasefire. According to the World Health Organization, at least 16,500 sick and wounded people need to leave Gaza for medical care. However, the border will only open in one direction for Palestinians to exit since the ceasefire began. at least 347 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and 889 injured, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. In one recent incident, two children were killed by an Israeli drone for crossing the so-called yellow line, which isn't always well marked. The children are brothers Fadi and Juma Abu Asi, the older of whom was 10 years old. They were gathering firewood for their disabled father.

The Israeli military acknowledged the strike, saying, quote, the Air Force eliminated the suspects in order to remove the threat, unquote. Palestinians report Israeli forces continued across the yellow line on a near daily basis. This week, a coalition of 12 Israeli human rights groups concluded in a new report that 2025 is already the deadliest, the most destructive year for Palestinians since 1967. On Monday, Israeli forces killed two teenagers in the West Bank and separate attacks as they carried out raids across the territory. In Hebron, soldiers fatally shot 17-year-old

Mahanat-Tarik Mohamed Al-Zugar, whom they accused of carrying out a car-ramming attack that injured an Israeli soldier. Elsewhere, 18-year-old Mohamed Raslan Mahmoud 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 Maddox from approaching. The soldiers then seized his lifeless body. Last week, the UN reported more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the occupied West Bank in East Jerusalem since October 7, 2023.

This is Jeremy Lawrence, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Killings of Palestinians by Israeli security forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank have been surging without any accountability, even in the rare case, investigations are announced. Our office has verified that since the 7th of October 2023 and up until the 27th of November this year, Israeli forces and settlers killed 1,030 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Among these victims were 223 children. For more, we're joined in Ramallah. in the Occupied West Bank by Sari Bashi, an Israeli-American human rights lawyer, former program director at Human Rights Watch.

Her piece for the New York Review of Books is headline Gaza, The Threat of Partition. She co-founded Gisha, the leading Israeli human rights group, promoting the right to freedom of movement for Palestinians in Gaza. Sari, welcome back to democracy. Now, let's begin with the latest breaking news that Israel in the next few days will open the Rafa border crossing, but only for Palestinians to go. one way out. What is your response? So obviously people need to leave. You mentioned the numbers of thousands of patients waiting

to leave. There are also students who have been accepted to universities abroad. This is after all of Gaza's universities have been destroyed. So it's half good news. But the bad news is that the Israeli announcement that it will not allow people to return to Gaza validates the fears that many have, that the ceasefire plan, the American plan, and the Israeli plan is essentially to continue the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. So in Trump's ceasefire plan, he committed to allowing Palestinians to return to Gaza, but that's not what's happening on the ground. There has been no construction authorized in the half of Gaza where Palestinians actually live. There has been no ability for people to come back home, and there are people who want to come back home. And

life in Gaza is nearly impossible for people because of very, very bad conditions. 81% of buildings have been destroyed. People are living in tents that are now flooding in the rains. And it is very difficult to get construction and other materials approved by the Israeli authorities. Sorry, there have also been reports of secret evacuation flights from Gaza. Who is running these flights and who determines who goes on those flights? I mean, that's part of the problem. Early in the war, the Israeli government created what it calls the voluntary emigration administration,

which is a secret, non-transparent government body that is supposed to encourage people from Gaza to leave and make it possible for them to do so. There has been almost no transparency about what that organization is doing. There has been deliberate disinformation by Israeli ministers, trying to amplify, artificially amplify the number of people leaving Gaza to make people afraid. And there have been persistent reports about people paying large sums of money in order to leave. And that is after there have reportedly been asked to sign commitments not to return. On the other hand, there is a very clear statement in the Trump peace plan, which was

incorporated into a UN Security Council resolution, that people in Gaza are to be allowed to return home. And it's perhaps not surprising that following the Israeli announcement this morning that Raffa Crossing would be opened for exit only, the Egyptian government reportedly issued an objection and said, no, it reminded us that the U.S. had promised that people in Gaza would be allowed to come home as well. And could you talk some about the situation in the West Bank, as we've reported these constant attacks by settlers and the military? What's been the position of the Israeli government on this? And what role have the military played in these attacks? I mean, the concern is that the violence in Gaza, the violence in the West Bank, it's not

random. It's directed toward ethnic cleansing. It's directed toward getting Palestinians to leave. Certainly, that's the case in Gaza, and the devastation and violence there are at a much higher scale than in the West Bank. But in the West Bank, too, just this year, we've had 2,000 Palestinians forcibly displaced from their homes, the recombination of demolitions as well as settler violence. Every single day, Palestinians are injured or their property is damaged by settler attacks. And to be clear, settlers are Israeli civilians who have been unlawfully transferred to the occupied West Bank by the Israeli government and have been taking over land that belongs to Palestinians. In the last two years, they have become increasingly emboldened in

attacking Palestinians, taking over their olive groves, their flocks, stealing, throwing firebombs into their homes, to the point where, according to the UN, in 2025, a thousand Palestinians have been injured by settler attacks. This is decentralized violence, but it is also state-sponsored violence. It is the government who put those settlers in the West Bank unlawfully, and quite often And this violence takes place when Israeli soldiers either stand nearby and do nothing or even participate. A very ultra-nationalistic, messianic ideology has been infiltrated into the Israeli military, where you have soldiers whose job it is to protect everybody, including Palestinians, who are also settlers. And on the weekends, they come out in civilian clothing and attack and sometimes even kill Palestinians.

And what about the Jewish and Israeli Jewish activists who stand alongside Palestinians to prevent the olive harvest from being destroyed to prevent people from being attacked, the response of the Israeli military and the settlers? You know, it's an indication of just how badly things have gotten, how many red lines have been crossed. because it used to be that Jewish settlers would be reluctant to attack Jews because their ideology is racialized. They believe that they are acting in the name of the Jewish people. But recently, they have attacked Israeli Jews as well when Israeli Jews have come to a company and be in solidarity with Palestinians. So we just finished the olive harvest season. It's a very important cultural and also economic event for Palestinians. And this year it was particularly violent with Israeli settlers coming, attacking people as they try to harvest,

cutting down and burning down trees, intimidating people. And there have been cases even where Israeli Jewish activists came to be a protective force by accompanying Palestinian harvesters, and they too were attacked and even taken to the hospital with injuries. It is much more dangerous to be a Palestinian than to be an Israeli Jew in the West Bank. But the fact that the settlers are also attacking Jews is an indication of just how violent, messianic, and ultra-nationalistic this movement has become. The death toll from Israel's more than two-year assault on Gaza has been reported as 70,000. A new study from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany said the

death toll likely exceeds 100,000. Our next guest, Ralph Nader, has talked about the Lancet report saying it's probably hundreds of thousands. Life expectancy, says the Max Planck Institute in Gaza, fell by 44% in 2023, 47% in 2024. If you can talk about this, and also, what is going to happen in Gaza now, where the truth stands? I mean, the violence against people in Gaza has been unprecedented. It's been genocidal. And, you know, we have confirmed 70,000 people whose names and ID numbers have been reported by their families to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

There are thousands more people believe to be buried under the rubble and thousands or tens of thousands of people who died from indirect causes. So these are people who, because of a deliberate policy of starvation, died of malnutrition, died of communicable diseases, died of want. and I don't know that we will ever know how many people died indirectly. This is for a very small population. It's a population of 2 million people. In Gaza right now, life has remained nearly impossible. The ceasefire promised reconstruction. It promised the crossings to be open.

But the U.S. government introduced a number of caveats, and it actually, unfortunately, got those caveats approved by the UN Security Council. And an important caveat was that the reconstruction elements of the ceasefire would be limited to areas where Hamas had disarmed. And if the Israeli military was not able to disarm Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in two years of war, it's not clear how they're going to be disarmed now. So conditioning reconstruction on Hamas disarmament is basically saying reconstruction will be impossible. The only place where the U.S. has said it will allow reconstruction is in the more than 50 percent of Gaza,

that is directly occupied by Israel, that is off limits to Palestinians on penalty of death. So that doesn't leave people in Gaza with any options. 600,000 school children have no schools. The hospitals are barely functioning. There's nowhere to live. A million and a half people are in need of emergency shelter supplies. The concern is that the way the ceasefire is being implemented is only going to contribute to ethnic cleansing. because anybody who can leave Gaza will leave because it's very clear that there's not a future being allowed there.

And the United States has an opportunity to make good on its promise in two ways. First of all, it can make it clear that reconstruction has to be authorized in the part of Gaza where Palestinians live, not in the half of Gaza that's off limits to them. And second of all, it should demand, as per the ceasefire agreement, that Rafakh be open in both directions also to allow people to come home. And I wanted to ask you how the Israeli media is reporting both the breaches and the constant breaches in the ceasefire agreement as well as the constant attacks on Palestinians and the West Bank. And what's been the impact on public opinions since the ceasefire came into affect Israeli public opinion? You know, I'm very sorry to say that there's been a lot of

long-term trend of the Israeli media becoming more nationalistic and less critical. And that's been matched by a number of government moves to co-opt and take over both public and private media. So particularly since October 7, 2023, the Israeli media, with a few notable exceptions, has been reporting government propaganda uncritically. So what you will hear in the Israeli media is that suspects were shot in Gaza for crossing. the yellow line or approaching troops. You won't hear that those suspects were 10 and 12-year-old boys who were collecting firewood and that under international law you can't shoot children because they cross an invisible line. In the West Bank, you will hear that terrorists were taken

out when you mean ordinary civilians who were trying to harvest their olive trees. Their Ha'arets and a few other media outlets have been offering a different view of what's happening, a more realistic view. But right now, many Israelis choose not to see what's happening either in the West Bank or Gaza. An interest in what's happening in Gaza has gone way down since the majority of Israeli hostages have been freed. Sorry, Bashi, we want to thank you so much for being with us. Israeli-American Human Rights Lawyer, former program director at Human Rights Watch. We'll link to your New York Review of Books article Gaza, the Threat of Petition. We come back.

A group of eight senators led by Bernie Sanders form a fight club to challenge Democratic minority leader Chuck Schumer's handling of Trump. We'll speak with Ralph Nader, who's been taking on the Democratic Party for decades, 60 years ago. He published his landmark book, Unsafe at any speed. Stay with us. I mean I see what I've seen

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and the harrier sand the maraud and the joy people are the moon shan they're in the Arab Nassia not,

you know, you know, Ashadya Alam, Bear Witness O World, performed by the Palestinian Youth Choir on the beach rain here in New York. The choir is debuting at Woody Hall in Brooklyn this evening. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. A group of eight U.S. senators have formed what they call a fight club to force minority leader, Senator Chuck Schumer, to oppose Trump more aggressively and to back.

more populous candidates in the 2026 midterms. The group includes Democrats Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. For more, we're joined by a lifelong activist who's run for president four times. Ralph Nader is a longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic, founder of the Capitol Hill Citizen newspaper, where his front page piece in the current issue is headline Congress is there for the taking Now is the time to take it. And it's also the 60th anniversary of his book, Unsafe at Any Speed, which took on major corporations, in that case, GM.

Ralph, before we go to unsafe at any speed and what the 60th anniversary means, if you can talk about this fight club and say what you mean about Congress is up for the taking and it should be taken. Well, you know, there are 535 men and women in Congress. They put their shoes on like we do every morning. They are possessed of the delegated power under the Constitution of the citizens. That's why the preamble to the Constitution starts, we, the people, not we, the Congress. And so we have 435 congressional districts, and there's no organization. Congress watchdog groups with reasonable staff in any of those organizations in any of those

districts to monitor and push members of Congress in the right direction. So 1,500 corporations pretty much get their way on Capitol Hill, and the result is devastating. Congress is the main tool to challenge the entrenched corporate supremacists that are controlled this country. They're strategizing and planning our entire society, whether it's the tax system or public lands or the social safety net or energy or health insurance and health care. And so I wrote this article, which is really quite obvious because the history of our country shows that when the people rise up, it takes less than 1% of them. reflecting public opinion, focusing on the Congress, and knowing what they're talking about,

to defeat the corporate lobbies. We did it on auto safety with about a thousand people around the country. We didn't have the money or campaign contributions, but we had the evidence that they were killing people in unsafe cars and that they knew and their engineers knew, but were suppressed, how to build cars, that could prevent death and injury and make the cars more fuel efficient and less polluting. So we have these examples, which I put in my new book, Citizen Civic Self-Rpect, just to try to get people to stop giving up on themselves, stop being cynical, which leads to withdrawal, and develop a process of summoning the senators and representatives

to their own town meetings, choreographed, by the citizenry in town halls or school auditoriums where there's no intermediate flacks and the senators and representatives have to hear the agenda of the people.

The big deception in this country, Amy, is polarization. They keep talking about polarization, red state, blue state, conservative, liberal, fighting each other. There is huge consensus by conservative and liberal

voters in this country on major agendas to improve their livelihoods. It's minimum wage. It's cracking down on corporate crooks who are bleeding consumer dollars and savings. It's universal health insurance. It's tax reform. Taxing the super rich and the corporations that are very undertaxed comes into 85%. Breaking up the big banks after the Wall Street collaboration. collapse came close to 90%. The process of deceiving the people in divide and rule goes back over 2,000 years, and we've got to confront it directly.

Every day, for example, we see the press reporting corporate crime, frauds, abuses, and the Congress doesn't pay any attention, even under the Democrats. They didn't have the requisite public hearings that inform and mobilize people. so they can basically tell their Congress who they work for in the first place. So I wrote this article in Capital Citizen. You can go to Capital Citizen.com to get a copy of the Capital Citizen in order to show people their own history and to wake them up and to recover Congress. But you do it by personal lobbying of your Senate and representative. Just like the two powerful lobbies, APEC and NRA, they don't deal with marches and demonstrations.

They deal with personal lobbying on the staff, on the members. They know the friends back home, their lawyers, their doctors, who they play golf with. So we really have to focus on this. Just like, you know, week after week you expose the mass murderer in Gaza. It's not called, it shouldn't be called ethnic cleansing. It's mass slaughter. It's genocide. side.

Ralph, I can ask you, though. It's in the White House. That's where the focus has to be. Ralph, if I can ask you, though, your idea of Congress is there for the taking presumes that we are in ordinary

liberal or neoliberal democracy. There are many people who fear that this next November election that the Trump and the Republican Party are determined to declare victory, no matter what the vote total is and will use any means necessary to maintain themselves in power. I'm wondering about your sense of this growing fascism in the country and the ability of

even a democratic vote to take place in November. Well, clearly, we're seeing a rapidly entrenching dictatorship. This is not authoritarianism. It's a dictatorship. He's violating laws right and left. He's violating the Constitution. He's open about it. He's protected by the Supreme Court decision of last year, Trump v. U.S., which basically says he can't be criminally prosecuted.

And the Congress is run by the GOP. Well, one thing he fears, Juan, is impeachment. He's been impeached twice, and twice the majority of senators wanted to remove them, but they didn't get the two-thirds number required by the Constitution. The one tool that the people have is impeachment. Now, in September 15th, that's over two months ago. There was a Salinda Lake poll in swing districts in the United States, showing 49% one of them impeached, 44% opposed.

Things have gotten much worse now. He's pushing the envelope on savagery. He's moving us nuts from an autocracy. See, he's in a dictatorship bleeding into a police state. Look what he's doing in the citizens in the cities and the immigrants, even legal immigrants, and there are manifestations of terror that are starting. So the focus has to be on impeachment, and there'll be a large majority of people in favor of it, and the Republicans in Congress are starting to crack on their sycifancy and fear of Trump,

because they're going to be up for re-election in 2026, and he is not. When Nixon won 49 out of 50 states and came in with 60% popularity in less than two years, because of the Watergate scandal, he was out. They were about to impeach and remove him. Why? Because the Republicans saw a disaster coming in the 1974 elections, and it was their political skin vis-à-vis Nixon, they're going to save their political skin.

And that's exactly what's happening now. And Nixon's transgressions won were less than 1% of the crimes and violations and brutality and cruelty and viciousness against millions of defenseless, powerless, and impoverished Americans. Like the bully, he is, he doesn't go after the contented classes. He facilitates corporate welfare. shuts down corporate prosecutions in the Justice Department. But when he's going after are the tens of millions of people who are unorganized, who are poor,

who are sick, disabled, Medicaid, you know, things you reported on your show, cutting off food supplements. We're talking about tens of millions of Americans. So the impeachment has got to be the focus. I wanted to ask you about this anniversary, 60 years ago this week, November. 30th, 1965. You published your landmark book, Unsafe at Any Speed, the Designed in Dangers of the American Automobile. You went on to win a major settlement against GM, General Motors, for spying on you, trying to discredit you, trying to set you up with women, etc.

And you use the lawsuits proceeds to start the Center for the Study of Responsive Law. This is a clip for an interview you did 60 years ago on the safety flaws of GM Chevrolet Corvair. What aggravates the problem is that the rear wheels of the Corvair begin to tuck under. And as they tuck under, the angle of tuck under is called camber. And as a tuck under, it can go from three or four degrees camber to 11 degrees camber almost in an instant. And when that happens, nobody can control the Corvair. Well, then surely they did the right thing. They found out there was something wrong with the car, and they fixed it.

Yes, the question is, why did it take them four years to find out? This is my point. Either it's sheer callousness or indifference, or they don't bother to find out how their cars behave. That's Ralph Nader in 1965. His book, Unsafe at Any Speed, just marked at 60th anniversary. Ralph, this was bigger than the Corvair, though so significant, what you were able to do in passing new auto-safe. laws, you are taking on large corporations and exposed how they would retaliate. For example, spying on you.

In this last minute that we have, not with you, you're going to stay with us for the next segment because we're going to talk about the WTO protests in 1999, a new documentary. Talk about the trajectory from 65 to now in trying to protect people in this country against corporations. Well, I published Unsafeity Speed in 1965, Amy. GM tripped over it with their private detective scandal. It reached the Congress. Senator Rivokov held highly publicized hearings.

Then Senator Magnuson had hearings on motor vehicle safety standards, which didn't exist at that time. And the laws were passed. An auto safety agency was set up in the Department of Transportation called Nitz. millions of lives have been saved. Other countries importing into the U.S. had to meet the higher crashworthiness standards of the U.S. and recall requirements.

None of that can be done today. None of that can be done today. There are great books coming out, exposing all kinds of corporate crimes, forever chemicals, and all kinds of devastation of people's livelihoods. And they go nowhere because our civic institutions, our democratic institutions, for the most far, have collapsed. And the corporations have continued 24-7, the nature of the corporate beast, it never stops, to control more and more of our country. To control more and more of our local city councils, state legislatures, Congress, massive campaign contributions. distributions, four to 500 drug industry lobbyists assigned to Congress alone, for example, full-time.

And that's what we have to face up to. But we outnumber these corporations. We are the only ones mentioned in the Constitution. There's no mention of corporation or company or political parties indenture to them in the Constitution. So why are we letting them support? Why would we let them control and rule us? That's the question that has to be asked of ourselves. And it only takes one percent or less of the people to defeat these corporations.

That's about two and a half million organized people in 435 districts. Already a woman who lost her two daughters due to defective truck designs in North Carolina is starting the first Congress Watchdog group. And we're going to have her on my radio broadcast. But I want people to read my book, Civic Self-Restpect, because it applies to everybody in the country. The table of contents starts out, I the citizen, I the worker, I the consumer shopper,

I the taxpayer, I the voter, I the parent, I the veteran. And how people, without disrupting their normal routines, and add a civic dimension to all those roles every day. Ralph Nader, we're going to ask you to stay with us for our next segment. Longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic, ran for president four times, and February will celebrate his 92nd birthday. Up next, Ralph Nader is one of the voices featured in a new documentary WTO 99. He'll stay with us and will speak with the film's director about what happened in Seattle in 1990.

both Juan and I were there as well, covering this massive protest, back in 20 seconds. Now was it Caesar Chavez? Maybe it was Dorothy Day. Some will say Dr. King and Gandhi set them on their way. No matter who your mentors are, it's pretty plain to see. If you've been to jail for justice, you're in good country. company, have you been to jail for justice? I'll shake your hand.

Oh, sitting in and lying down a ways to take a stand. Have you something to know? Have you been to jail for justice at the WTO protests in 1999 from the documentary, this is what democracy looks like? This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. We end today's show with a new immersive archival documentary about the historic 1999 protests in Seattle against the World Trade Organization, corporate power, and economic globalization.

The film's scenes of the militarized police response and national guard troops in the streets of Seattle seem eerily familiar. It uses more than a thousand hours of footage from the Independent Media Center and other archives. This is the trailer for WTO 99. One hundred thirty-five nations are gathering in Seattle for the World Trade Organization meeting. The TV stations, they're not informing people why there is a protest. This explains why there is a protest. My personal reason for marches is because I want to see fair labor practices. Globalization is already gone too far.

Not in our city, not in our state. Our hand on violently shutting down the World Trade Organization. I don't think they understood. There were really going to be 70,000 people. If we're going to clear this, we're going to need a three, five more swath. The police are protecting millionaires. We're killing our environment, our future, and our kids. It's the last thing I want to do is be a mayor of a city where I had to call the National Guard.

Before the 1999 protest, Congress debated a bill to support the creation of the World Trade Organization as an international judicial body to govern global trade. This is Senator Bernie Sanders at the time in another clip from WTO 99. I think there is an important issue of sovereignty. The American people are increasingly alienated from the political process and the World Trade Organization. only takes more and more power out of the hands of local government and state government, and it gives it to nameless bureaucracies abroad that operate in secrecy. When more than 40,000 people tried to shut down the WTO meeting in Seattle, they use nonviolent direct action, but were met with massive amounts of tear gas.

In this clip from WTO 99, we hear a police announcement to protesters. on Westbound, on pike, and go south of six. We are going to start using chemical agents now. Democracy now is in the streets of Seattle. One scene in WTO99 features my questioning of a Seattle police lieutenant wearing a gas mask. The person with the orange gun, that's rubber bullets. To be honest, I don't know what's in it. Uh-huh.

I would have to ask it specifically. Could you ask them? I could. It's probably either chemical agents or rubber bullets, something like that. Could you ask? I just wanted to know what you did. Sure. Thanks.

Let's have you, scoop back. Scoop back, please. It has a whole variety of things that you go in it. You mean, could it have chemical agents and rubber bullets together? Absolutely. Despite the police crackdown protesters in Seattle had an overwhelming sense of victory, A dramatic scene in WTO99 features legendary consumer advocate, Ralph Nader. Thank you very much.

I'm sure you realize what a historic weakness is here in Seattle. And I'm sure you realize that never before in American history has any cause for justice brought together so many people from so many different occupants. occupations and backgrounds. Why? Why is it that although they're all of other groups represented here often disagree with one another on a daily basis, why is it they're all together on this? Because the World Trade Organization is a principal threat to democracy in the world. Scenes from the new documentary WTO99, which starts screening this Friday at DCTV here in New York City

at the Firehouse Cinema. We're joined now by the film's director, Ian Bell. Ralph Nader's still with us. Ian, talk about why you've taken this on, what, more than a quarter of century later. Talk about this really archival extravaganza that documents what happened on the ground in Seattle. So we took this on from,

kind of came from a number of conversations. Me and my editing partner were having around the 2016 election. We were really interested to see if there were deeper seeds to the shifts of the labor vote and thought that maybe we could learn a little bit about going back to the WTO and the events of 1999. The film really started when we came across a project that was happening in Seattle of the organization, digitization of the Independent Media Center footage, an organization called MEPOPs was digitizing about 400 hours, and we were lucky enough to connect with them in the middle of that project

and ultimately get the access to that footage after they were finished. And you mentioned the independent media centers, but really the WTO protests were perhaps the birth of citizen journalism on a mass scale, the importance of having all of this archival footage, and could you talk for those people who don't know or weren't, around then the importance of the IMCs and how that movement spread across the country and the world? Yeah, one thing that we were really struck by was, you know, small digicams were becoming

more ubiquitous in the late 90s. And because of this technology and the efforts of the IMC at the time, we have all this footage that has been preserved by people in their shoeboxes. people collecting them and gathering them together and then ultimately giving them to archivists. And what's so important about what they did was we're able to, and you see it in the film, we're able to see the events as they unfolded on the ground as people who are in the crowds were seeing it, watching the interactions between protesters and the police. And the footage covered the whole week, almost every minute of the week.

And we're able to then cut that together and compare it to the way it was being covered by local media. And I think what I am, the real gift that the IMC provided to us, who now, you know, in the future, is seeing that local media wasn't up to the task to show the people at home what was unfolding. And we're able to cut between those two sources, including national and international news in real time, to give people a sense of the narratives that were being constructed by those who maybe weren't asking the right questions or any questions or weren't curious enough to know exactly why people were coming to the streets. And Ralph Nader, looking back now, more than 25 years, a quarter of a century, the importance

of those WTO protests in terms of shaping movements for progress and for radical change in the United States? It punctured the myth of free trade. There wasn't free trade between countries. It was corporate managed trade that went beyond trade. to subordinate higher standards for consumer labor environment and make them viewed as non-tariff trade barriers and therefore illegal. So these are pull-down trade agreements enforced by WTO and NAFTA.

And the Seattle protests blew that out of the water. and it began a change in Congress to eventually get us out of even worse entangments like the Pacific Trade Agreement, even before Trump took the issue away from the Democrats and ran with it. Ralph, I wanted to go to one of the large corporations that were targeted there. In addition to the WTO, the film shows protesters targeting Starbucks flagship location on 9th and 9th Pike in Seattle, then a clip of local news coverage featuring the response of then 46-year-old Starbucks coffee CEO Howard Schultz. Howard Schultz says he can't figure out why one of his stores was targeted.

We talked with him at last night's Sonics game. We've really tried as a business to develop a corporate conscience, not only domestically, but around the world, especially where we buy coffee. So to hit Starbucks, really, we have to question why. That's so interesting, Ian Bell, in this last 30 seconds, we just covered a protest outside Starbucks in Brooklyn. Tomorrow, a major one outside the Empire State Building. Mahmoud Mamdani, right? I mean, Zoran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City and Bernie Sanders were both there.

The significance of 26 years ago and today as we end this conversation. These issues haven't gone away. I think what's been fascinating for us as we made the film, we could see so many of the issues that are galvanizing the youth movements and other movements that are trying to reform or change the direction of the Democratic Party. They were there and filling the streets 26 years ago. And the power structure at the time didn't listen to the people then. I hope that they begin to listen to them now. I want to thank you so much for being with us, Ian Bell, director of the new documentary WTO99 and longtime corporate critic Ralph Nader. WTO 99 starts screening Friday at DCTV's Firehouse Cinema here in New York. I'll be hosting a Q&A with Ian after the 730 screening. Also tomorrow, December 4th, Thursday, I'll be doing the Q&A after the 730 screening of Steal the Story, Please, about democracy. now's 30 years at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor at the Hamptons Dock Fest there.

Happy birthday to Emily Gosselin. Again, I'll be in Sag Harbor Thursday night. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. Thanks for joining us.