Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-12-12 Friday

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

Headlines for December 12, 2025; From COVID to Hepatitis to Measles, RFK Jr. Is Gutting Vaccine Science: An Ex-CDC Expert Speaks Out; “Watched, Tracked & Targeted”: Gaza Writer Mohammed Mhawish on Life Under Israeli Surveillance; Trump Gold/Platinum Card: Amid Immigrant Crackdown, U.S. Sells Visas for Up to $5 Million; “A Force of Terror”: Rep. Delia Ramirez on ICE Abuses & Her Push to Impeach DHS Chief Kristi Noem

From New York, this is Democracy Now. Bottom line, you lie with impunity. You reject checks and balances and you ignore Congress on the courts. Your options are limited. Either you're going to resign, Trump's going to fire you, or you will be impeached. I've already called for your resignation. You may remember I hand delivered my request to you back in May,

and I urge you to reconsider resignation because I've taken the first step towards your impeachment. Democratic lawmakers grill Homeland Security Secretary Christy Knoem at a heated congressional hearing. We'll speak to Democratic Congress member Delia Ramirez, who's leading the impeachment effort. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is also facing an impeachment threat over his moves to overturn U.S. vaccine policy from limiting hepatitis B vaccines for infants to considering putting a black box warning on COVID vaccines, a warning reserve for drugs that can cause death. We'll speak to a former top vaccine expert at the CDC. then watched, tracked, and targeted.

Life in Gaza under Israel's all-encompassing surveillance regime. We'll speak with award-winning Palestinian journalist Mohamed Mahouish. For the past 16 months, I've been reporting on how advanced surveillance and AI-driven targeting systems have reshaped life and survival in Gaza. For the reporting, I spoke with families, paramedics, surveillance. survivors, journalists, who lived under tools that could assign threat scores in seconds and map their entire neighborhoods and lives from afar. And what I've been able to uncover is that what's tested in Gaza doesn't take infine to it. And as the Trump administration intensifies its immigration crackdown,

wealthy visa applicants may find it easier to stay in the United States. They can now buy a $1 million Trump goal card or for $5 million a Trump platinum card. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. The Trump administration imposed new sanctions on Venezuela Thursday as President Trump repeated his threats to begin military strikes on land targets in Venezuela. The new sanctions target family members of President Nicolas Maduro, as well as six crude oil tankers and associated shipping companies. Meanwhile, Reuters reports the U.S. is preparing

to intercept more ships transporting Venezuelan oil after it seized a massive Venezuelan oil tanker on Wednesday. Some Democratic lawmakers and at least one Republican have condemned the seizure, which Venezuela condemned as an act of piracy. Maryland Senator Chris Van Holland said the move shows the Trump administration's cover story that it's seeking to interdict drugs is a, quote, big lie. He added, quote, this is just one more piece of evidence that this is really about regime change by force, unquote. However, the Senate's top Democrat, minority leader, Senator Chuck Schumer, refused to say he opposes regime change in Venezuela. Schumer spoke with CNN's Jake Tapper Thursday.

Do you disagree with President Trump's ultimate goal of regime change in Venezuela? Look, the bottom line is President Trump throws out so many different things in so many different ways. You don't even know what the heck he's talking about. You know, obviously if Maduro would just flee on his own, everyone would like that. But we don't know what the heck he's up to when he talks about that. So it's very, very, you cannot say I endorse this. I endorse that. California Democratic Congressmember Rokana blasted Schumer's comments writing, quote, yes, Democrats oppose regime change war in Venezuela. Instead of wasting trillions on endless wars, we must invest in jobs, health care, and housing for Americans. Why is this

hard? We need a new generation to lead our party with moral clarity and conviction, Congressmember Kana wrote. In the Gaza Strip, at least 12 people were killed in the past 24 hours as torrential rains and floods descended on the besieged territory, collapsing shelters, makeshift tents in what remained of homes and buildings damaged by Israel's relentless war. Among the victims are three children who died of hypothermia due to the winter storm. This comes as Israel's military continues to violate the U.S. brokered ceasefire deal. It agreed to October 10th. Israeli forces killed at least two Palestinians in Rafah on Wednesday. In the occupied West Bank, Israel's approved the establishment of nearly 800 new settler homes.

The Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. Tens of millions of U.S. residents are set to see the cost of their health insurance plans skyrocket after the Senate rejected a bill that would have extended tax credits under the Affordable Care Act. On Thursday, four Republican senators sided with Democrats and independents who voted in favor of a three-year extension. of the health care subsidies. But the legislation failed on a vote of 51 to 48 after falling short of the 60 needed to break a Republican filibuster without a deal by December 31st. Some 22 million people will likely see their premiums double on average. This is Georgia Democratic Senator Raphael Wernock.

Republicans today have taken a system that's already struggling and broken it down even more. And the consequences for ordinary people, many of them in their own red districts, will be that they will have to delay response to their health care. They will have to find a way to pay more higher premiums. And for many people, they will literally pay with their lives. South Carolina public health officials say hundreds of people are in isolation or quarantine, amidst a rapidly spreading measles outbreak in a northwestern region of the state with lower rates of vaccination. So far, 111 measles cases have been recorded, all but six of which occurred in unvaccinated people. Arizona and Utah are also experiencing a significant measles outbreak.

Nationally, there have been almost 2,000 measles cases recorded in the United States this year, causing at least three deaths. The U.S. declared measles eliminated in the U.S. declared measles eliminated in the year 2000, but the disease has returned after vaccination rates fell during the COVID pandemic. A Democratic lawmaker from Michigan filed articles of impeachment Thursday against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Congresswoman Haley Stevens accuses Kennedy of abdication of duty by restricting access to vaccines, spreading absurd conspiracies, and putting lives in danger. R. F.K. Jr. has turned his back on science. on public health and on the American people.

Under his watch, families are less safe. Healthcare costs are skyrocketing. And life-saving research, including right here in Michigan, is being gutted. Democratic leaders, including House Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, have declined to co-sponsor the articles of impeachment. Meanwhile, the FDA is reportedly considering putting a black box warning on COVID vaccines, a warning reserve for drugs that can cause. death. We'll have more on this story after headlines. We'll speak with a former top vaccine expert at the CDC who resigned in June. Republican lawmakers in Indiana have rejected a push by President Trump to redraw the state's congressional map ahead of next year's

midterm elections. On Thursday, 21 state senators with the Republican majority cross the aisle to side with Democrats opposing the mid-decade redistricting effort, which was aimed at giving all nine of Indiana's congressional seats to Republicans. The upset vote came after some Republican lawmakers who oppose the plan described the violent threats they'd receive from President Trump supporters. Ahead of the vote, the advocacy branch of the Heritage Foundation issued a warning to Indiana lawmakers. Quote, if the Indiana Senate fails to pass the map, all federal funding will be stripped from the state, roads will not be pays, guards, bases will close, major projects will

stop. These are the stakes and every no vote will be to blame, they wrote. Kilmar Abrago Garcia has reunited with his family in Maryland after a federal judge ordered his immediate release from a Pennsylvania ICE jail Thursday. But Abrago Garcia has to check in with immigration officials today just hours after U.S. District Judge Paula Zennis ruled against the Trump administration, writing, quote, since Abrago Garcia's returned from wrongful detention in El Salvador. He's been re-detained again without lawful authority, she wrote. Abrigo Garcia's case has been at the center of Trump's brutal crackdown on immigration to see our coverage of his case. Go to our website, DemocracyNow.org.

A U.S. citizen from Minnesota's Somali-American community speaking out after ICE agents racially profiled and wrongfully arrested him earlier this week in Minneapolis, Mubeshire, who asked only to be identified by his first name, said he was on his lunch break Tuesday when masked federal agents tackled and pushed him. The 20-year-old informed the agency he was a U.S. citizen and could show them his passport, but instead he said the agents put him in a headlock, took him into custody, detained him for hours without access to water and medical care. Mubeshire described his violent arrest during a press conference Wednesday. All I did was step outside as a Somali American, and I just got chased by a mass person. The agent then at one point he didn't identify himself. He didn't say, ice, stop.

Like, I felt like I was getting assaulted. I was getting kidnapped, and that's exactly where it was. And the way they were treated me, it was inhumane. They dragged me across the road. They slammed me to the ground, choked me. I was on call for. Federal immigration agents have arrested more than 400 people across Minnesota since Trump last week called Somali immigrants garbage in a racist tirade.

On Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers repeatedly called on Homeland Security Secretary Christy Knoem to resign as they confronted her on Trump's immigration crackdown during a heated House Homeland Security Committee hearing Thursday. Nome stood defiant defending Trump's nationwide raids, mass deportations, and the use of force by federal agents. Her opening statement was briefly interrupted by protesters, one of whom chanted, quote, get ice off our streets, stop terrorizing our communities, unquote. Democratic lawmakers accused Nome of lying and corruption. Meanwhile, Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Chicago, the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, announced she's taking the first. steps to impeach Nome. This is a portion of Ramirez's

remarks to Nome. You lied on the record and you lied to members of this committee. You violated court orders by not turning around deportation flight bound for El Salvador, where we know that hundreds of people under your leadership have reported that

they were raped, they were beaten, and they nearly died. And your agents used chemical weapons in Chicago despite court orders from district court Judge Ellis for They're bidding their use. We'll be joined by Congressmember Delia Ramirez later in the broadcast. The Justice Department's once again failed to bring an indictment against New York

Attorney General Letitia James on charges she lied on a mortgage application. It's yet another blow to President Trump's campaign of retribution against his political enemies. On Thursday, a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, refused to indict James after a separate grand jury in Norfolk last week, also rejected it. indictment sought by the Justice Department. The House of Representatives voted Thursday to reverse President Trump's executive orders stripping a million unionized federal workers at 40 federal agencies of their collective bargaining

rights. Twenty Republicans joined Democrats to send the legislation to the Senate over the objections of House Republican leaders who oppose the bill. Randy Irwin, president of the National Federation of Federal employees, wrote, quote, the president cannot unilaterally strip working people of their constitutional freedom of association in bipartisan fashion. Congress has asserted their authority to hold the president accountable for the biggest attack on workers that this country has ever seen, unquote. The Walt Disney Company announced Thursday. It'll invest a billion dollars in OpenAI after agreeing

to allow users of the Sora Video Generation app to make videos with hundreds of copyrighted Disney characters. It's a first of its kind move by a major studio coming two years after Hollywood screenwriters and actors went on strike to protect their livelihoods from generative AI. Responding to Disney's deal, the Writers Guild of America, wrote, quote, companies including open AI have stolen vast libraries of works owned by the studios and created by WGA members and Hollywood labor to train their artificial intelligence systems. We've repeatedly called for the studios to take legal action to defend. the valuable intellectual property we help to create, unquote.

And President Trump signed an executive order Thursday, establishing a single national standard on artificial intelligence, blocking states from enacting their own AI regulations. The order directs the Justice Department set up an AI litigation task force, which would bring lawsuits against any state that passes new AI laws. It also directs the Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnik, to look into withholding funding for rural broadband internet from states seeking to regulate AI. This comes after a New York Times investigation found Lutnik and his sons run a network of companies and industries ranging from cryptocurrencies to AI data centers and that Lutnik has promoted policies supporting the construction of data centers while serving in government. 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's Juan Gonzalez and Chicago. Hi, Juan. Hi, Amy, and welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. We begin today's show looking at how Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s upending immunization policies in the United States. CNN's reporting the Food and Drug Administration is, considering putting a black box warning on COVID-19 vaccines. A warning reserved only for drugs that can cause death. CNN reports the plan has shocked medical experts.

This comes a week after Kennedy's hand-picked advisors on a federal vaccine panel voted against universal hepatitis B shots for newborns, recommending the vaccine only for infants born to people who test positive for the virus. The announcement reverses 35 years of CDC guidance that all newborns receive the hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth. Officials at the American Academy of Pediatrics said the move could be, quote, devastating to children's health and public health, unquote. On Thursday, Michigan Democratic Congresswoman Haley Stevens filed articles of impeachment against Kennedy, saying his actions have endangered public health and gutted life-saving medical research. We're joined right now by a former top vaccine expert at the CDC who resigned in June.

Dr. Fiona Havers is joining us from Atlanta, Georgia, where she's now an adjunct professor, adjunct associate professor at Emory School of Medicine. Welcome back to Democracy Now. Thank you so much for being with us. Dr. Havers, if you can start off by talking about hepatitis, talk about what's at stake and what exactly RFK Jr. has done. Sure. So for the last 30 years, the U.S. has recommended that every newborn be vaccinated against

hepatitis at birth. And this is because infants can acquire hepatitis if their mother is infected with hepatitis be at birth or by caregivers during their infant. or childhood. If you're infected with hepatitis B as a child or an infant, you have more than a 90% chance of developing a lifelong incurable infection that can lead to liver failure, cirrhosis, or liver cancer, and potentially death. And since the early 90s, every infant has been recommended to receive this at birth. And this is targeted at mothers who are, you know, infants that were born to mothers who are infected. But in the United States, when they only recommended

that infants who were born to mothers who were known to have infection were vaccinated, there were many infants that were missed. Also, infants can be infected by caregivers later on. So what they voted last week was to remove that recommendation, a recommendation that's been responsible for essentially eliminating hepatitis B and children in the United States. And this was the first major policy change that this advisory committee on immunization practices has, the first major change is likely to have major public health implications for

US children since RFK Jr. fired the entire committee in June and replaced it with a number of people who have anti-vaccine stances. And Dr. Havers, these are all the CDC doesn't mandate vaccination. It only has recommendations. Can you talk about the misinformation that's often spread by vaccine skeptics who claimed there's a federal vaccine mandate for children? Yeah. So these are all just recommendations. And it's supposed to be an evidence-based science-based recommendation. And historically, there was a very sort of rigid, sort of strict framework where the evidence was very carefully reviewed. Risks and benefits were weighed, and then a recommendation was made. But for all of these vaccines, parents will have conversations with their provider.

They can talk about the risks and the benefits and informed consent is given. This is not, there's no sense in which any of the recommendations coming from this advisory body or from the CDC are mandates. And so this change is just basically casting doubt and what was it on the universal hepatitis B vaccine recommendation, casting doubts on its safety, on how well it works and how important it is. And I think that what we're going to see is parents are going to be confused. We're going to see probably fewer babies being vaccinated at birth. And we're going to see potentially tragic outcomes, which we may not know about for a decade or two, because often babies who have hepatitis B are asymptomatic for years until they show up with advanced liver

failure when they're, you know, teenagers or in their 20s or later in life. So I think that this has potential for real tragic implications. But again, this administration keeps talking about vaccine mandates and informed consent, but parents always have a choice about whether or not to vaccinate their child. And we know that parents want to do the right thing. But this administration is causing a lot of confusion and is using basically the CDC to spread misinformation now. about vaccines. Could you talk also about the measles outbreak? The CDC is acknowledging as many as 1,800 cases of measles across the United States just this year, an illness that supposedly had been eliminated? Yeah, no, measles has been raging in the United States

for the last 12 months. We have multiple outbreaks going on in several states. And we've had more cases this year than, you know, in a very long time. If measles was officially eliminated in the United States in the early 2000s, but if these outbreaks are not under control by the end of January, the United States will officially lose its measles elimination status for the WHO. And this is a huge embarrassment. It's, I mean, it's an embarrassment for this administration that they're unable to control a disease that we've had an effective vaccine for for decades that was essentially eliminated.

But this is a direct result of the decades of misinformation that RFK Jr. and the anti-vaccine movement have been spreading about the safety and efficacy of vaccines. In addition, I think CDC and other public health agencies have been hamstrung by this administration. I think the resources haven't been mobilized to address the measles outbreaks, coming out with very strong messaging about vaccines being the most effective way of preventing measles from spreading and the importance of vaccines. I think, you know, basically this administration has failed to respond appropriately to this measles outbreak, all of these measles outbreaks and have failed to get them under control. And can you respond to this latest news today that the FDA is weighing a black box warning on COVID vaccines, which is reserved for, you know, vaccines that or any drug that causes death? what exactly does this mean? I mean, you have studies showing that the COVID vaccine saved what, something like 20 million deaths around the world. Has this alarmed you today?

I mean, it's very alarming. I think this administration, particularly RFK Jr., has come out very hard against COVID vaccines since they were first rolled out during the pandemic. They have saved millions of lives. but this administration is solely focused on possible safety concerns. They, you know, I think they also have said that they have linked COVID vaccines to pediatric deaths. And we do know that in serious adverse events can occur with vaccines, you know, one in a million vaccines. I don't know what the actual rates are, but, you know, serious adverse events can occur with vaccines. But this administration has not shown any data about how they have, you know, what information they use to show,

that COVID-19 vaccines have been linked to any deaths. They haven't been transparent about it. They haven't given any information about how they came to the conclusion that COVID vaccines do cause deaths. And with this lack of transparency and only focusing on the risks of vaccines and not talking about the fact that, you know, tens of millions of children receive these vaccines safely, you know, millions of deaths were prevented, you know, as well as, you know, millions of hospitalizations in serious adverse events were prevented. There was a report that did just

come out from CDC yesterday showing that vaccines, the COVID-19 vaccines were 76% effective in preventing urgent care and emergency department visits in young children. And that was a great report to see. But that was data showing that these vaccines are effective in preventing severe illness, which still occurs from COVID. I'm very concerned that this is coming out right as we're going into respiratory virus season, because I think, you know, tens of thousands. of Americans die from diseases like COVID and influenza every year, and further undermining confidence in these vaccines, I think, could lead to an increase in vaccine preventable deaths this year.

Dr. Fiona Havers, talk about your decision in June to quit, to leave the CDC, and then the continuous reports were hearing about the chaos within the overall agency under RFK Jr. Yeah, so I was, I had worked in CDC for 13 years, always on vaccine preventable diseases. I had been scheduled to prevent, to present COVID hospitalization data to this advisory committee. But when he fired the advisory committee, I knew that he was basically doing a hostile takeover the CDC vaccine policy process by firing this committee that makes the vaccine policy recommendations for the United States. And I basically couldn't. as a physician, as a scientist, present to this committee and legitimize them because they are not a legitimate committee. They are not using evidence and they're not using science. And I think

that essentially, RFK Jr. is using his position as HHS secretary to now is like using CDC as a megaphone to promote his anti-vaccine views. And I didn't feel like I could be part of that. And I think, you know, CDC, my colleagues that are still there doing the work that they can and getting good information out when they can and pushing back when they can, I think I admire them. But I think that the agency has essentially, the leadership has been essentially removed or pushed out. Thousands of experts have either quit or been fired. And RFK Jr. is basically taken over CDC and is using it to advance anti-science views. And public health across America has been weakened in all respects, not just when we're talking about infectious diseases or vaccine-provomable diseases.

Dr. Fiona Havers, we want to thank you for being with us, adjunct associate professor at Emory School of Medicine. Former CDC official with an expertise in infectious diseases and vaccines, she resigned from the agency in June. Coming up, watch tracked and targeted life in Gaza under Israel's all-encompassing surveillance regime, back in. in 20 seconds. Al-Din'raud, if we'd adeline, he'd have left on us in aft of him, from our leader, if you'd say, you'd have had to end up here, the power that's hell. Alas Ali, heads held high, performed by the New York City Palestinian youth choir here in the city.

This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. We turn now to Gaza. Al Jazeera reports at least 12 Palestinians have died over the last day as a major winter storm devastates the besieged drip. There has been massive flooding across Gaza where most of the population is living in shelters, makeshift tents, what remained of homes and buildings damaged by Israel's relentless war. The storm victims include three children who died from hypothermia. We're joined now by the award-winning Palestinian reporter who left Gaza last year, Mohamed

Howish. He's written a new piece for New York Magazine. It's headlined, watch, tracked, and targeted life in Gaza under Israel's all-encompassing surveillance regime. Mahesh writes, quote, life in Gaza for the past two years has been a process of losing everything visible. Our families, home, streets. It also means losing what cannot be seen, the private space of the mind, the intimacy between people, and the ability to speak without fear of being monitored by a machine. Howish is a fellow at tight media center. The new piece was produced in partnership with the Palestine Reporting Lab. Aouish is the recipient of several journalism awards, including an Izzy Award, the James

Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism and the Neil Conan Prize for Excellence in Journalism. Muhammad, welcome to Democracy Now. This is a deeply moving, deep dive into the physical and psychological harm Palestinians are experiencing, living under this unprecedented level of surveillance by the Israeli government. Can you lay out? I don't think people understand the extent of what Palestinians live under, what you lived under in Gaza. Thank you so much for having me.

At first, I think, you know, we've been living with a question for so long, even that goes long before this war started. and it's been live under and inside, you know, a state of like where surveillance is constant. You know, it's automated and it's largely invisible. And as a reporter, I've seen like a lot of coverage focusing on weapons and earth strikes and technology. But I think much less attention was paid to the systems that decide who is seen and how they're doing this in effect to the human life and the civilian population in Gaza and how they're categorizing people. and how quickly and deadly life and death decisions can be made. And so that was the reason I wanted to understand what that feels like from the inside.

And so in the story, I tried to report this, you know, away from being political, technological, or a military story. But as a human one, I spoke with families who described living with a sense that there were always being watched. They're always being heard and scored. And even, you know, in moments that should be private and ordinary. And that constant awareness, how it's reshaping, how people speak, how they're moving, how they're even thinking. And there was also a sense of urgency because, like, you know, these systems are no longer experimental, right? They're being operational, they're being scaled up, and they're, you know, deeply embedded in life in Gaza. And once something like this becomes normalized in one place, it rarely stays there.

And so, you know, as a result of my reporting, I have come to realize that Gaza, you know, it's been the testing ground for how surveillance can be used, an entire population in real time. Mohamed, can you talk about some of the specific examples? For instance, you write about a woman named Mary, a 26-year-old writer who woke up in the middle of the night on July 27th with a drone flying in her room while she was sleeping. Give us some of these specific examples. Of course. I mean, people, you know, some of them told me and described to me a kind of a permanent self-monetering, you know, in the aftermath of encountering these decisions. and these systems and these, you know, regimes of being watched. And, you know, they're saying, like, you know, life starts to feel like you're always living and trail, sometimes words, movements, associations that could later be misinterpreted.

So in the story, people talk about, you know, changing how they speak on the phone, how they're avoiding certain phrases, certain conversations, certain ideas or topics, even in private, and they're limiting who they can contact. and, you know, because sometimes even it's true that they're assuming that even silence can be suspicious. What I've also learned through speaking with these people is that, you know, I had none like surveillance observes behavior and it limits action, but it was also for the people in Gaza. It produced different behavior. It manufactured behavior for people. So they shrink their lives to reduce risk.

They rehearse what version of themselves feel safest to present. And that creates an enormous psychological burden. And following up on what one said, this woman Mary, 26-year-old writer, I don't think people understand the specifics. You say, a dark square hovered near the ceiling. She stared at motionless until it drifted out of the room, exited through a window. We're talking about a drone.

Mary said, it's not death that. we fear. It's the terror that comes before it. A tiny drone hovering over her head. Absolutely. That's correct. It's only one example of the many stories I've heard from people who had to encounter and who have come to experience this level of surveillance that is so deep in their lives, including, you know, a technological sort of a machine that goes inside the house and roaming, you know, what's supposed to be a private or secure space for people. So this woman who's a writer in Gaza, she woke up one night, you know, during the war in Gaza, only to realize that there is a drone that was watching her and her family, and it was just, you know,

freely roaming inside the house. And at some point, it exited through the window. And that was one defining and a very reshaping moment in her lives and, like, in the family's also behavior in the aftermath. Some other people described being encountered with cameras at checkpoints, for example, aside from, you know, their direct, you know, engagement with these drones that are hovering constantly overhead. And they were realizing that, you know, there is a massive file that was so deep, inclusive of information that they never imagined that would be known for others, you know, for other people, aside from private contacts, aside from, you know, family, immediate family, neighbors. And so it was so deep to the point that

people were shocked to know that there were, you know, seen and watched for a long time that goes beyond only a week or two or a month. And Mohamed, do you talk about the role of the major tech companies like Microsoft, Palantir, Google as well in this surveillance state? I think one of the central findings of my reporting and of course and of other investigations are referenced in the piece, is that this surveillance ecosystem, it doesn't exist without massive computational infrastructure, right? We're talking about, you know, cloud storage, data processing, AI-assisted analysis, and that's where large technology companies come in, including American firms that provide cloud and computing services with the Israeli

government and the Israeli military. And so I was in the story, I was very careful, not not, you know, to claim that any single company is pulling the trigger. But that's also not, you know, I think the right sense of urgency that we have here. The real issue is that the infrastructure, when companies provide the storage, the processing power, the scalability of these systems that allow population level surveillance to function, they become part of the system that makes this kind of control possible. Because I don't think. think, you know, cloud services are neutral here in this, you know, question. They determine speed. They determine scale and, and persistence. And they allow massive data sets, phone

metadata, location histories, social graphs to be stored and definitely and analyzed continuously. What's interesting is also like, you know, most of these companies responded by saying they comply with the law, that they have internal safeguards and that they haven't found evidence that their tools were used to directly harm civilians. But the problem is that much of this activity happens inside classified or opaque military pipelines, which is like making the case that independent auditing is nearly impossible here. So the accountability gap is structural and it's really big. When harm emerges from a system rather than a single action, I think here responsibility becomes, you know, diffuse, and that's exactly what makes it dangerous for

people. Looking at this harrowing excerpt of your piece, on December 6th, I went home to check on my family shortly after I walked in a caller speaking Arabic, introduced himself as David from the Israeli, speaking Arabic introduced himself as David from the Israeli military. He called me Habibi, which means my dear in Arabic, and said we had 20 minutes to evacuate our three-story house crowded with family and neighbors. It felt like another form of harassment. We decided to stay. So next morning, around 7.30 a.m. I heard my son's feet patter down the hallway as I was reaching for my tea. The blast came without warning. The house folded in on itself. I didn't see the ceiling crack or the walls fall. Just a sudden weight, concrete, and metal pressing me

flat, my arms pinned, I called out for my wife, for my son, for my parents. At first, nothing than a small voice from somewhere I couldn't reach. Baba, you talk about this happening to you as a Palestinian journalist in Gaza City. Can you continue what happened that day? Um, this is very early moments in the aftermath of this track. We were just, I remember, you know, being buried in under the rubble of the house and, you know, just like hearing a few hours later after realizing that I had passed out, you know, rescue people, um, paramedics and, and first responders and neighbors were trying to pull us out, you know, from under the rubble and taking us to first aid treatment and, you know, the hospital that day. When we were, you know, sent back because, like, we were dealing with a very shortages of, you know, medical system and the collapse of the whole medical system in Gaza. So all we were offered at that day was first aid treatment, and we were sent back to stay at a neighbor's place before we started to bounce around the city across makeshift shelters. It was a story of the many stories that I

had, you know, to experience. But this time it was. happening to me as a result of my work as a journalist in Gaza. I've heard similar stories from colleagues and reporters and friends who were killed after they were being tracked and watched and threatened to stop their work. In my case, it was explicitly direct that I was receiving these threats to stop my journalism and reporting. What made me realize that it is also very tied to surveillance and I was being watched and tracked is that before, like, for a week before the bombing happened and my house was destroyed. I had been away a week or so, like, reporting from outside the house and running across the

city with, you know, other colleagues and journalists friends. As soon as I set foot in the house, my phone rang and I received this call from a stranger who identified himself as, you know, David from the Israeli military and who urged us to leave the house. I didn't leave that day, and I think it was mainly because I didn't really realize how serious he was. I mean, for someone calling me Habibi, which is a very endearing way of calling friends and loved ones in Arabic, I didn't realize that he was actually trying to kill me. And so I thought maybe this was another harmful, painful call to, you know, stop me from my work and just, you know, silence me. And it was scary enough to make me realize that I have to stop reporting

at least for a week or two in the coming, you know, days. But I didn't really know that it was to the point that they were actually intending to bomb the house, including on top of all of us. Like we were almost 30 people around that in the house, including immediate and extended family members and neighbors and people who had fled from different parts of the city to seek refuse in the neighborhood. And so this is a layer, and this is a pattern of targeting that happened to me and to many others as well in Gaza. And that was, yeah.

I want to thank you for being with us. It's an incredible piece, and I want to encourage people to read it. Mohamed Mahawish is a Palestinian journalist and writer from Gaza City. The piece is in New York Magazine, headlined, watched, tracked, and targeted, Life in Gaza under Israel's all-encompassing surveillance regime. We'll link to it at DemocracyNow.org. Coming up, the Trump administration intensifies its immigration crackdown. wealthy visa applicants can now buy a million-dollar Trump gold card or a $5 million

Trump platinum card to live in the U.S. as others are deported. Stay with us. Like it or not, you need a lot if you're going to make a life down here. Money talks, money spits, makes its presence felt. Wanna be broke, this is no joke when you're dealing with the cards you're dealt. Now the love of money took many a man. down the past to agreed and vice.

The rewards in heaven if you wait that long. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Me Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. As the Trump administration expands its immigration crackdown around the country, President Trump's making it easier for a select few to obtain a U.S. visa. Earlier this week, Trump officially launched a program that provides a pathway for wealthy non-citizens to receive expedited permission to live and work in the U.S. For a million-dollar payment, visitors can obtain a Trump gold card that promises to fast-track

U.S. residency applications in record time. The administration says it'll soon offer a $5 million Trump Platinum card, allowing visitors to also avoid paying some U.S. taxes. Meanwhile, new U.S. Customs and Border Protection Rules published this week would require visitors from 42 countries on the visa waiver program to provide up to five years of their social media history, along with telephone numbers, email addresses, and biometric data, including DNA, face, fingerprint, and iris scans. We're joined now by Shev Delal DeHenie, Director of Government Relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. This is a stunning new development.

If you can talk about what these two groupings are, one who will be fast-tracked to live in this country if you could afford between one and five million dollars to get your Trump platinum or gold card, and the other group who normally can come in and out, like let's say people from Spain of the United States, now have to give five or ten years of social media information, telephone numbers. they have used biometric data. Explain. Yeah, good morning and thank you for having me. I think what this is clearly indicating is we're showing a very clear sign of what the Trump immigration policy is. If you're wealthy, if you can pay to play, then you're welcome to come to the United States. But if you're not, if you're coming as a tourist or you're, you know, coming to seek humanitarian protection, then we're going to make it much tougher for you to come here and really put

a lot of hurdles along the way in the guise of security and vetting. And could you talk about how this is turning upside down the historic understanding of what immigration was to the United States? To what degree does the administration need any any authorization from Congress to institute these changes? Look, I mean, I think Congress sets forth are immigration laws. That is their responsibility. And you can't create a new visa category like the gold card or the platinum card just by executive order only.

That's not heard of. Only Congress has that authority. You know, we are really concerned about the fact that. that there is no legal authority. We don't even know what the legal analysis is behind this gold card because typically, as I said, Congress sets forth the policy, the laws, and the agency interprets those laws. But when it interprets those laws, they have to do detailed analysis about how this will work, what are the requirements, how is it justified under existing laws, and then what's the economic impact of these new proposals? We have nothing. All we have is a

website and a form. So you had this kind of news conference this week with Lutnik sitting next to President Trump. And you had these comments of Lutnik. Let's bring in the top of the best. Let's help them grow America and build America. Why should we take people who are below average? And then you have the Trump Platinum card, the Trump gold card. And you have then all this information that countries where people usually come and go from the United States have to now give.

Who is going to take in this information, this massive amount of information of all the social platform addresses, people have, handles, people have, phone numbers people have had. What do they do with this? Yeah. So to your first point, right, I just wanted to make clear, we are already bringing in the best and the brightest in the United States. The visas, the numbers that the Trump card is going to take away are being taken away from recipients of EB1 and EB2 visas, which are for people of extraordinary ability or those who are in our national interest. Those are Nobel Prize winners, award-winning artists and athletes, multinational CEOs, doctors, and engineers. So, you know, the best and the brightest who are contributing to American society are already coming here and they are already doing what we need them to do. Now, to your second question about the social media vetting, this is just a real, like, fishing expedition, right?

There is no evidence that we have seen that coming through years and decades, in certain instances, they're asking for, you know, your last email addresses for 10 years and your phone numbers and the family history, that does nothing to discover a possible, you know, security risk or a terrorist. terrorist. And so I think what it's only going to cause is a lot more delays in our legal immigration system. It's going to create backlogs. It's going to take the time and energy of people who are supposed to be adjudicating these cases at USCIS, at CBP, at the Department of State, and have them focus on really what I said before, our fishing expedition. Have Delaidehaney. We will continue to follow this. Thanks so much for being with us, Director of Government Relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez.

Democratic lawmakers repeatedly called on Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam to resign as they confronted her on Trump's immigration crackdown during a heated House Homeland Security Committee hearing Thursday. Noam's opening statement was briefly interrupted by protesters. I'm looking forward to discussing the worldwide threats that this country faces and the work that President Trump and his administration does each and every day to make America safe again. I'm very privileged and honored today to have my family with me.

I'd like to introduce them to you. Disruptions of congressional business is a violation of law as a criminal offense under federal law. Audience members are advised to take their seats and maintain order. The chairman may now ask Capitol Police to remove and arrest the persons

creating a disturbance. off our street, stop terrorizing your community. Get ice off of our streets, stop terrorists and your community. Get ice off our street, stop terrorizing your community. During the hearing, a Congress member, Delia Ramirez of Chicago, the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, announced she's taking the first steps to impeach Kristino. You lied on the record and you lied to members of this committee.

You violated court orders by not turning around deportation, flight bound for El Salvador, where we know that hundreds of people under your leadership have reported that they were raped, they were beaten, and they nearly died. And your agents use chemical weapons in Chicago despite court orders from district court Judge Ellis forbidding their use. Secretary Nome, you, Gregory Bovino, and your ICBPN, DHS deputized agents have waged unaccountable, unlawful, unconstitutional war against communities across the nation. Our residents have been surveilled. They've been threatened.

They've been tear gas. They've been hit with pepper balls. They've been shot. They've been subjected to warrantless arrest and precision in mobilization maneuvers. They've been kidnapped and disappeared under your leadership. Bottom line, you lie with impunity. You reject checks and balances and you ignore Congress on the courts. Your options are limited.

Either you're going to resign. Trump's going to fire you or you will be impeached. I've already called for your resignation. You may remember I hand delivered my request to you back in May. And I urge you to reconsider resignation because I've taken the first step towards your impeachment. And I've called on the Judiciary Committee to open an investigation into your lawlessness. That was Congress member Delia Ramirez of Chicago, who joins us now. Congress member Ramirez, that was a fiery hearing yesterday.

Explain what it would mean for Christy Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, to be impeached. Look, Amy, it would mean that we would actually go through the process and initiate the process through an investigation and then an impeachment committee to look at all of the things that have happened under her leadership over this last year through impeachable offenses to establish the articles necessary to bring before the body in Congress the actual vote to impeach her. It would mean, in essence, remove her. We've called for her resignation. You know, Amy, I've been calling for a resignation since May. Now other members of Congress, Democrats are calling for the resignation, but we're past resignation. We actually need to look at everything she's done, the ways that she's committed offensible, impeachable crimes as a secretary and actually move to a full formal impeachment in which it would mean that she would not be able to work as secretary, but also in any

of his leadership positions. And, Representative, if I wanted to ask you about a, A new report today in the media in terms of ICE claiming in response to a freedom of information request from the Freedom of the Press Foundation, that they have no records of any videos that they took during Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago. Your reaction to this assertion by ICE. I'm no longer surprised, right? And let's be clear, we can't normalize any of this. But they are operating as a criminal organization, the Department of Homeland Security under her leadership.

Of course, all of a sudden, they don't have any footage because the footage would show that what, in fact, happened via Midway Blitz was, to me, the highest offense of criminality under the leadership of Christine Hone. Someone got killed, shot and killed under her leadership. people were dragged out of their cars, they were beaten, they were disappeared, and what we also saw was that these agents that were weaponized across the city of Chicago and suburbs were identifying people abducting, beating, and attacking them based on the color of their skin. We also know what we saw at Broadview Detention Center repeatedly the way that ice peppered ball attacked, used these immobilization techniques to harm people, all of that. was excessive force and illegal in many ways in video footage, if they showed it, would show it. Fortunately, the people, the community had a lot of that footage that was used in courts to demonstrate that what she has done is unconstitutional, unlawful, and has violated her oath as Secretary of Homeland Security.

And in terms of the killing that you mentioned, could you talk a little bit? a little more about what was this, what has been discovered since then, about what the Isasans claim, the, the woman was assaulting them and the facts as have come out afterward? You know, they said that the woman, Marimad, had assaulted agents and assaulted Bovino when we actually, in fact, know that, no, she had not shot at them. They shot at her, not once, five times. This is a force of terror. That is what we are seeing. And what we saw from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle in committee yesterday was a thank you tour, every single one of them thanking her for committing crimes, thinking her for violating the rule of law, thanking her for killing people based on the color of their skin, thanking her for disappearing people in detention, thinking it for the people have died in ICE custody. We know that more than 25 people have died. And when I asked her about the 170 at least American citizens have been detained under her leadership, you know what she did? She laughed at it because she thinks that she is above the law as long as Republicans are in leadership.

And that's why to me it's so important for Democrats to be using every single authority, whether it's in committee, whether it's on the floor or in investigations, to hold them accountable. We can't allow her to think there's a laughable matter as people are dying under her. watch. I wanted to ask Congress member Delia Ramirez, if there is a move among Congress members to support Ilhan Omar and object to President Trump's comments calling a city, sitting Congress member, garbage. I remember when Adelita Grajava was not seated, Congress members like you, especially Congresswomen stood up and demanded that she be seated after she was elected. What about with Ilhan Omar now, to say the least, under assault from these extremely inflammatory comments? Yeah. No, look, a number of us have talked about establishing a resolution that confirms that we stand in solidarity with Ilhan Omar,

that we will not allow the president to use his authority to attack her to put her life in danger and call her to question a sitting member of Congress from Minnesota because of her hijab, because of where she was born. We know that it is setting dangerous precedent. It may start with Ilhan. Certainly some of us, they have attempted and talked about deporting us, the naturalizing us. I was born in this country and they still say this. And it's not Donald Trump, just Donald Trump.

We have five seconds. Donald Trump is using Andy Ogles and others, so it is our responsibility to stand with Elhan because it's standing with the body and the House of Representatives. And, of course, he didn't just call Ilhan Omar Garbage. He called the whole Somali community in the United States. Congressmember Delia Ramirez, Democratic Congress member from Illinois,

member of the House Homeland Security Committee. That does it for our show. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez.