Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-01-13 Tuesday

Episode Date: January 13, 2026

Headlines for January 13, 2026; “Stolen from Us”: Family Demands Justice for Keith Porter, Black Father Killed by Off-Duty ICE Agent; “State of Siege”: Iran Protest Death Toll Rises to 2,000 After U.S. Sanctions Spawn Economic Crisis; “Empire in Decline”: Historian Alfred McCoy on U.S. Aggression in Venezuela, Iran & Beyond

From New York, this is Democracy Now. We urge the Iranian authorities to halt immediately all forms of violence and repression against peaceful protesters and to restore full access to the internet and telecommunication services. As Iran continues its bloody crackdown on anti-government protesters, President Trump announces a 25% tariff on countries that do business with Iran, like China. and India. We'll speak with Professor Vallinassar, author of Iran's grand strategy, a political history. He says this time is different for Iran. As Trump threatens Iran, Venezuela, Mexico, Greenland, and more. We'll also speak with the renowned historian Alfred McCoy about his new book

Cold War on Five Contents, a global history of empire and espionage. His recent article, ending the American dream by 2029? But first, as ICE agents terrorized communities nationwide, activists in Los Angeles are demanding justice for Keith Porter, a 43-year-old African-American father of two, shot dead by an off-duty ICE agent on New Year's Eve. Porter's mother spoke a vigil this weekend. I just want to touch my baby one last time.

Kiss his face and hold him. I don't have a little. His life was snatched from us, Lord. Please, I just wish you can get justice for my child. We'll speak with Keith Porter's cousin, a member of Black Lives Matter, Los Angeles, and with Pan-African Studies Professor Melina Abdullah. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, DemocracyNow.com.org, the War and Peace Report.

I'm Amy Goodman. The State of Minnesota and the cities of... Minneapolis and St. Paul have sued the federal government and effort to halt an unprecedented surge of federal immigration agents into the state. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison likened the deployment of ICE agents to a federal invasion. Deployment of thousands of armed mass DHS agents to Minnesota has done our state serious harm. This is, in essence, a federal invasion of the Twin Cities and Minnesota. and it must stop.

DHS agents have shown chaos and terror across the metropolitan area and in cities across the state of Minnesota. To see our interview with A.G. Ellison, go to Democracy Now.org. The lawsuit was filed Monday, five days after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, sparking nationwide protests. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frye decried the action. of the ICE agents. What we are seeing right now is not normal immigration enforcement.

We are not asking ICE not to do ICE things. We are asking this federal government to stop the unconstitutional conduct that is invading our streets each and every day. You've seen the videos. At times, there are as many as 50 agents arresting one person. The scale is wildly difficult. disproportionate and it has nothing to do with keeping people safe. The state of Illinois has also sued the Trump administration over use of federal forces in Illinois.

On Monday, residents of the Twin Cities continue to protest the deployment of ice agents in their neighborhoods. Agents responded by firing tear gas, pepper spray, and other chemical agents. In one incident, agents rammed the car of a Latino man in South Minneapolis, then questioned his immigration status. Christian Molina said he was pulled over and only let go after he told agency was a U.S. citizen. It's not safe out here. It's not safe. People aren't safe, so just, I mean, I'm glad they didn't shoot me or something.

Because, you know, what if they start shooting me, you know what I mean? They have guns. In another incident, masked armed federal immigration agents broke down the door of a home in North Minneapolis on Sunday without a warrant. The agents used a battering ram to get inside the house in an attempt to arrest a Liberian man. Occupants inside the home included the man's wife and nine-year-old daughter. MS now is reporting four top officials that the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division have resigned in protest over the DOJ's response to the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis.

Last week, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Harmeet Dillon, decided not to investigate the ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, who fatally shot Renee Good. Iran says it's prepared for war but ready to negotiate as the Trump administration considers attacking Iran over Tehran's crackdown on the recent mass protests. Trump's expected to be briefed today on options including launching strikes inside Iran and offensive cyber attacks. On Monday, Trump announced a 25% tariff on countries that conduct business with Iran, including China, India, Turkey, and Pakistan. The Norway-based group Iran Human Rights says at least 648 protesters have been killed over the past two weeks. And Iranian official also reported today the number of dead could be as high as 2000. We'll have more on Iran later in the broadcast. In Gaza, an intense winter storm.

has killed at least eight Palestinians as strong winds have toppled numerous buildings and temporary shelters across the Gaza Strip. In Gaza City, three people died, including a 15-year-old girl, when a weakened wall collapsed on their tent. Earlier today, Qatar repeated its cause for Israel to allow more aid into the besieged strip. In other news from Gaza, a headstone has finally been placed on the grave of the Palestinian poet Rafat al-Ala-Ley. More than two years after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike, December 6, 20, 23. His body was not recovered until 10 months ago, inscribed on the headstone of the closing lines of his most famous poem, If I Must Die, Let It Bring Hope, Let It Be a Tale. A bipartisan group of former Treasury secretaries and other top economic officials have blasted

the Trump administration for launching a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. The probe was set in motion after Powell refused Trump's demands to lower interest rates. The former officials described the investigation as a, quote, unprecedented attempt to use prosecutorial attacks to undermine, unquote, the independence of the Federal Reserve. Signatories to the letter include former Fed chairs Janet Yellen, Ben Bernanke, and Alan Green, The Wall Street Journal reports Trump's own Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant, has privately warned Trump the move to investigate Powell could backfire. In other legal developments, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly has sued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The lawsuit comes a week after Hegseth formally censured the Navy veteran for joining five other Democratic lawmakers to urge service members to refuse unlawful orders.

Kelly spoke on the floor of the Senate Monday. Pete Higgs says, unconstitutional crusade against me sends a chilling message to every retired member of the military. If you speak out and say something that the president and secretary of defense doesn't like, you will be censured, threatened with demotion, or even prosecuted. The House oversees. Committee is facing growing criticism for voting to subpoena the prominent investigative journalist Seth Harp. After he posted publicly available information about a Delta Force commander who reportedly played a role in the recent U.S. abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Harp is the author of the book, The Fort Bragg Cartel, Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special

Forces. On Monday 20, Press Freedom, and First Amendment groups, including the ACLU and Reporters Without Borders, called on the House Committee to rescind the subpoena, saying Harp's reporting is, quote, fully and squarely within the protections of the First Amendment. This is Chip Gibbons of defending rights and dissent. The subpoena against Seth Harp has few parallels in recent memory. We have to remember Seth Harp has done some of the most important investigative reporting on U.S. foreign policy. It's been critical reporting. The House knows full well the dangers to press freedom that subpoenaing a journalist poses. That's why in 2024, they actually passed legislation to prevent executive branch

subpoenas against journalists about their news gathering. To see our interview with Seth Harp about his book, the Fort Bragg Cartel, go to Democracy Now.org or check it out on YouTube. The New York Times is reporting the Pentagon may have committed a war crime, by using a secret aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane to attack a boat in the Caribbean in September. Eleven people died in the attack. The Trump administration claimed without offering proof that the boat was carrying drugs. Under international law, it's a war crime to commit what's known as perfidy, disguising military equipment as civilian. Russia launched another massive drone and missile attack on Ukraine overnight, launching nearly 300,

drones as well as 18 ballistic missiles and seven cruise missiles. The attack targeted Ukraine's power infrastructure, leaving thousands more without heat. Four people were killed in Kharkiv. Meanwhile, the UN monitoring groups says about 2,500 Ukrainian civilians were killed last year, making it the deadliest year yet for civilians since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. In Sudan, the UAE-backed paramilitary rapid support forces, RSF, launched a drone strike on a Sudanese army base in the southeastern city of Sinja Monday. 27 people were reportedly killed. The attack came a day after Sudan's military-led government returned Sudan to Sudan's capital Khartoum after operating in the port city of Port Sudan for nearly three years. The government's return comes nearly a year after the military recaptured Khartoum from the RSF.

In a major reversal, the Environmental Protection Agency is no longer considering health impacts and lives saved when regulating air pollution from new power plants. Instead, the EPA will focus on the cost to industry as it regulates air pollutants, including fine particulate matter and ozone. The Trump administration suffered a number of new legal setbacks in its effort to slash funding for social services. A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has ordered the Trump administration to restore nearly $12 million in funding to the American Academy of Pediatrics. In a separate case, a federal judge ruled the Trump administration cannot freeze $10 billion in child care subsidies for five Democratic-led states, New York, California. Colorado, Illinois, and Minnesota. In labor news, nearly 15,000 nurses have launched the largest nursing strike in New York City history. Striking nurses have accused management at six private New York hospitals are refusing to negotiate fair contracts that improve safe staffing, fully fund

health benefits, and protect them from workplace violence. Striking nurses picketed outside New York Presbyterian and other hospitals Monday. I'm fighting for my health care insurance. I don't know how I can be here working at a hospital that will not give me health insurance. It is so important for me to have health insurance. It's so important to take care of the community. I love being a nurse. I want to take care of patients. I want to be at bedside.

And it's so important for us to strike because we are fighting for patient's safety. New York City mayors are on Mamdani join the striking nurses on Monday and praise their work. New Yorkers have a right to quality health care, as do the nurses who provide that care. My job as mayor is to protect both of those rights. And in Jackson, Mississippi, the city's only synagogue, Beth Israel, has been heavily damaged in a fire. A 19-year-old man named Stephen Pittman has admitted to starting the blaze early on Saturday. Pittman reportedly described the House of Worship as a synagogue of Satan in an interview with investigators. When a judge read Pittman, his rights, the teenager responded,

Jesus Christ is Lord. In 1967, the Ku Klux Klan bombed the same synagogue after the synagogue's rabbi spoke out against racism and segregation. 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 in 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 growing resistance to the Trump administration's mass immigration raids and federal agents escalating violence nationwide. Protests are continuing over ICE agent Jonathan Ross's fatal shooting of 37-year-old mother of three poet Renee Good in Minneapolis last week. On Monday, dozens of federal agents worn tactical gear and masks, fired pepperballs and tear gas, fired pepperballs and tear gas at a crowd of protesters in Minneapolis who shouted, shame, shame, and get the F out at the agents. This comes as the state of Minnesota has sued the Trump administration effort to block the crackdown and the surge of agents coming into the state. The cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul are also part of the lawsuit. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced the legal challenge Monday as Homeland Security Secretary Christy Nome vowed to deploy hundreds more agents. this week. Deployment of thousands of armed mass DHS agents to Minnesota has done our state

serious harm. This is, in essence, a federal invasion of the Twin Cities and Minnesota, and it must stop. DHS agents have sown chaos and terror across the metropolitan area and in cities across the state of Minnesota. Minnesota's lawsuit was filed shortly after Illinois and the city of Chicago also sued the Trump administration accusing DHS of terrorizing its residents in a, quote, organized bombardment, unquote. Federal immigration agents have terrorized communities across Minnesota carrying out hundreds of arrests. Last week, Border Patrol deployed chemical weapons, tackled people, and handcuffed two staff members at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis. In another case, just days ago, a door-dash delivery driver, sprinted into a home where she was delivering a food order as she attempted to take shelter from

ICE agents who chased her and sought to detain her. The woman is seen crying in video footage as the homeowners, also in panic, ultimately tell her to please surrender to ICE custody as they feared the agents would break into their home without a warrant. Come on. I have family. I'm sorry. You need to come with me, ma'am.

There's nothing we can do. Come on. There's nothing we can do. Come on. Come on. Ma'am, I am so sorry. I don't want to do this. I'm Native American.

This is against everything I stand for. In another incident, armed federal immigration agents broke down the door of a home in North Minneapolis Sunday without a warrant. The agents used a battering ram to get inside the house an attempt to arrest a Liberian man. Occupants inside the home included the man's nine-year-old daughter. Meanwhile, on Monday, agents rammed the car of a Latino man in South Minneapolis, then questioned his immigration status.

Christian Molina said he was pulled over and only let go after he told agents he was a U.S. citizen. It's not safe all here. It's not safe. People aren't safe, so just, I mean, I'm glad. I'm glad they didn't shoot me or something. Because, you know, what if they start shooting me, you know what I mean? They have guns. The man was leaning against his car.

The back of it was smashed in. He said an ice agent bashed in his car. This all comes as activists in Los Angeles are demanding justice for Keith Porter Jr. An African-American, 43-year-old father of two was fatally shot by an off-duty ice agent on New Year's Eve. His family's urging transparency in the investigation into his killing, Porter's mother, Franciola Armstrong, spoke at a vigil this weekend. From day one that he was born, I knew he was my joy. When he came around, people looked for him. He was a joy to be around.

My son, the biggest heart, sympathetic, appreciative, so much gratitude. On Keith Porter Jr.'s fatal shooting, New Year's Eve, we're joined by two guests in Compton, California. Junae Tyler, is the cousin of Keith Porter Jr. She is the parent and family organizer for students deserve, and she's a Black Lives Matter Los Angeles member. And in Los Angeles, we're joined by Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles. She organizes globally with Black Lives Matter grassroots, also a professor of Pan-African Studies at California State University. Los Angeles. We welcome you both to Democracy Now, Malina Abdullah. Let's begin with you. What do you understand happened on New Year's Eve when Porter was killed by an off-duty ice officer with his ice weapon? Yes, thanks for covering this, Amy. It's really important to

understand that as people are righteously and rightfully enraged and mourning the murder of Renee Good, that we also lift up Keith Porter, Jr. Keith Porter Jr. was a 43-year-old black father of two girls. On New Year's Eve, he was celebrating his own home, and like thousands around the country, we understand that he may have stepped outside of his home and fired a celebratory shot in the air, which many, many people do them, which is widely acknowledged by city officials. his apartment complex is fairly large, and an ice agent lived in that complex

who went inside, put on his tactical gear, came back outside, and shot Keith Porter dead in front of his own home on New Year's Eve. And, Melina, the LAPD and the L.A. County District Attorney's Office that said they're investigating the incident. What do you know about their investigation? And of course, this could take quite a bit of time to resolve. Yeah, what we know is nothing is happening in the community has been told nothing.

The family has been told nothing. There's not been a word uttered by the mayor of the city. Almost no elected official here has said anything. We know that we've been demanding the name of the ICE agent who killed Keith Porter. We've gotten nothing. We've demanded an arrest. An arrest has not been made. We've made demands of the district attorney that charges be filed.

He basically said he doesn't intend to do anything. And so the community is going to have to mobilize. We've been mobilized since day one, but we're going to have to add increased pressure on our elected officials. We have an absolutely terrible chief of police, Jim McDonnell, who was collaborating with ICE when he was sheriff of the county, who is refusing to really do anything to honor Keith Porter. Instead, early reports, when they were asked for comment,

early reports hailed the gunman, hailed the killer as a quote-unquote hero and called the victim, who is Keith Porter. Keith Porter is a victim called him a suspect and an active shooter. And so it's disgusting. And we have several demands that we're making that the, the murderer who killed Keith Porter, be named, arrested, and charged, as well as they stop with the character assassination of this black father worker, loved by his community and the only child of his mother. And so we're creating the pressure because ultimately it's going to be the

community that steps up for Keith Porter. I'd like to bring in Chenet Tyler into the conversation as well, the cousin. of Keith Porter Jr., our deepest condolences on your cousin's killing. Could you tell us a little bit about him and how your family learned of what happened? Oh, my goodness. First of all, I want to say thank you to you guys and thank you to Dr. Molina because she just centered everything that we're asking for as a family. Keith was an amazing human being.

he was a girl dad. I keep saying that because the most important thing to him was his children and his family. He loved on everyone around him. He was always the life of the room, you know, not just a party, but in any room. You know, when he walked in, he brought joy. He always had a laugh, a joke, a smile. He was the one that uplifted others, you know? And unfortunately, he's been stolen from us.

And what information has your family received since the killing? None, none whatsoever. We've not received any information in regards to whether there will be a full investigation or not. Again, like Dr. Abdullah said, they've not named the suspect. They've not arrested the suspect. What we do know is that night procedure was not followed, you know, even after the ICE agent finally went ahead. and called 911. I had to

sit and watch video that was shared privately by a neighbor of them calling for him to surrender or shelter in place, which is an oxymoron. You can't do both. And as it stands,

he was already presumably dead. There was no medical aid or emergency services on site that could have maybe saved his life. And so, we know that night Keith was celebrating he was waiting for you know company to come his girlfriend the young lady that he's been dating for a long time now the reason that he moved to the valley

he moved out there for love to be close to her and you know she he sent her for the food pick up that evening and she got a call excuse me when the place wasn't open where they decided their New Year's Eve meal was going to be from. She tried to call Keith. And when he didn't answer, she immediately returned home. And by the time, just that quick that she had left and come back, unfortunately, he had already been stolen from us. He had already been murdered. And so what we do know is that everyone in that complex has said that they loved him, that he was, you know, even amazing towards them.

He had only been there for 11 months, and they knew everything about Keith, but they knew nothing about his murderer. What we know is that there was no sobriety check, a sobriety test given for this officer. We don't know what state of mind he was in. We don't know what he was in his home doing as he was celebrating New Year's Eve. He could have been on drugs. He could have been under, you know, five bottles of vodka. We have no clarity in where this man's state of mind was. us. What we do know is that with this mask call for ICE agents with no experience, the people who seem to have shown up to take these positions, a majority of them are people that now feel like they have a right to consider us not valuable enough for them to follow procedure.

They're, you know, these are people who have had G.I. Joe dreams, I call them, you know, for a long time. And they're, you know, conducting themselves as vigilantes. And it seems that they're causing more harm to American citizens. They stole Keith from us. Make no mistake. As far as the family is concerned, this man is a murderer. And we want just Keith. Jean-A, our deepest condolences to you and your family. And Professor Abdullah, two quick questions. as we wrap up. One in Minnesota, the federal government is refusing to cooperate with the state in the city and investigating the death of Renee Good. And I'm wondering how it's playing out in California right now with the investigation of Mr. Porter's death. And also this connection

between the abolish ICE movement, you know, around the country with that play on words, ice out for good, referring to Renee Good, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Of course, she was killed just blocks from where George Floyd was killed five years ago. Professor Abdullah. Yeah, I think that when we talk about abolishing ice, it's really, really important. And we're grateful to Keith's family for saying that this is systemic, that they stand with abolishing ice. And we also have to remember that what we've seen in Minneapolis with at least local officials stepping up and being outraged by the murder of Renee Good, we have not seen in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles leadership, with exception of city council member Ionisus Hernandez,

has not said anything, has not made any demands of federal government around Keith Porter's murder. And we need to see that. We need to see leadership. So the conflict really that we see is the people versus ICE and the people versus the police with very little support from local elected officials and local government. And that connection with the Black Lives Matter movement all over the country right now? Absolutely. So from day one, as soon as Trump took office, Black Lives Matter grassroots, put out a statement about ICE. When ICE invaded Los Angeles, we put out another statement. We said, this is bad for black people, and we hate that it was shown to be true so clearly. In our statement, one of the things that we've said is never in the history of this country.

Has more police been good for black people? And we said, we foretold the murder of Keith Porter that when you have ICE agents who are police on steroids, living in community, plaguing community, claiming our community is under siege. Black people are going to catch the brunt of it, and that's what's happening with Keith Porter. One, if there's a silver lining, it's the solidarity. And so we're really, really grateful that black community and brown community, as well as visionary and progressive and courageous white allies and allies of color have stepped up. We've all said ice out of L.A. and ice out of everywhere, as well as an end to policing that seals the lives of our people.

I want to thank you for being with us. Professor Melina Abdullah, co-founder Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, teaches Pan-African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. And thank you so much to Jenae Tyler, joining us from Compton, California, cousin of Keith Porter Jr., killed by an off-duty ICE agent on New Year's Eve with his ice weapon. As Iran continues its bloody crackdown, President Trump announces a 25% tariff on countries doing business with Iran. We'll speak with Johns Hopkins Professor Vallinasser,

author of Iran's Grand Strategy. He says this time is different for Iran. Stay with us. They're marching down the street. Yeah. I see somebody. They're marching down the street. Oh, yes, they are.

This time we stop and pray to have a better day. Yeah. I see somebody marching down the street. They're marching down the street. Crying in the streets performed by Zichambi in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. President Trump says the United States will now impose a 25% tariff on countries that do business with Iran.

The move would mean higher prices for U.S. companies that import products from China, India, Russia, Turkey, and Iraq. Trump made the announcement Monday on social media where he also wrote, quote, we're screwed, unquote, if the U.S. Supreme Court rules against the tariffs and a decision expected this week. Iran has said it's ready for war or dialogue after Trump said the U.S. is considering very strong options to intervene if Iran's security forces kill anti-government protesters in an ongoing crackdown. The Norway-based group Iran human rights says at least 648 people have been killed since protests broke out in late December and more than $10,000. and people it's believed have been arrested. And Iranian official also reported today the number of dead could be as high as 2000. United Nations Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said in a statement read by a spokesperson

today he was horrified by the mounting violence. We are horrified by the mounting violence directed by security forces at protesters across Iran. As reports indicate hundreds have been killed and thousands of people. arrested. The killing of peaceful demonstrators must stop. The labeling of protesters as terrorists to justify violence against them is unacceptable. We urge the Iranian authorities to halt immediately all forms of violence and repression against peaceful protesters and to restore full access to the internet and telecommunication services. That's Jeremy Lawrence, spokesperson for the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. For more, we're joined by

Valley Nasser. Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins, Seis, that School of Advanced International Studies. His news piece for Project Syndicate is headlined, Why This Time is Different for Iran, author of several books, including Iran's Grand Strategy, a political history. He's joining us from Paris, France. Professor Nassar, thanks so much for being with us. Can you talk about what's happening? now on the ground what the anti-government protesters are calling for and President Trump threatening to militarily intervene in Iran. Well, these, the protests in Iran started on December 28th in reaction to a drop in the currency and the dire economic situation in Iran. They have seen since expanded

into much more anti-government, anti-regime protest, demanding an end to the Islamic Republic. They have spread across the country. But we don't know what the status is exactly because the government has imposed a news blackout on the country. No internet, no communication with the outside. A lot of international flights in and out of the country have been canceled. So we don't know what is actually happening. And also yesterday, the government.

brought crowds of its own to denounce the violence of the, they claim the violence of the protesters. But what we know is that the situation in Iran is very precarious, that the government is clamping down very brutally, that the protesters are still demanding major changes, including some demanding the end to the Islamic Republic altogether, and the country is in a state of siege. And, Professor, we've heard about the toll and turn. of the killings of the protesters, but the government is also claiming, and the Institute for the Study of War seems to have been backing the claims that there have been at least 100, 114 security force members killed. So how peaceful are some of these protests? Well, the protests have increasingly

grown more violent. First of all, even in major urban areas, there's a lot of angry people, and there have been clashes, and there have been setting off fires, American news, newspapers, New York Times, etc., did report that mosques, a number of government buildings, the state television in the city of Isfahan were set ablaze. So these are not just crowds that are in all occasions carrying placards and denouncing the government. And then also in some of the provinces, particularly in the Western Iran, there's also proliferation of guns. There have been ethnic violence there in the past. So there is a number of people who've been killed are members of the security forces, and the government actually held a funeral for them today

based on some reports coming out of Iran. But the majority of those who've been killed, the overwhelming majority of those who have been killed are the protesters. And the very fact that about 100 security people have been killed tells you about how ferocious and intense these protests have become. And how how. how angry the population is, and why exactly this is such a major challenge to the hold of the Islamic Republic over Iran. And to what the – can you talk about the economic situation in Iran and the impact that the U.S. sanctions, especially in the Trump period, have had on Iran? Well, the Islamic Republic has faced anger from its population for varieties of things,

for its authoritarian behavior, for imposing hijab and other religious rules on the population. The population as a whole is not happy with its government. But their anger has been intensified over the past five, six years since President Trump imposed maximum pressure sanctions because it has led to major scarcities in Iran's economy. the currency has depreciated, the inflation has spiked just over the past year between December 24th and December 2025, the currency lost about 84% of its value, and inflation on food products went up by about 72%. And that is squeezing the middle class. It's robbing people of their purchasing power. it's putting enormous amount of pressure on the population,

particularly the poor members of the population, lower middle class, lower class. And economic hardship has aggravated the tensions that already existed towards the Islamic Republic. And we saw two, three years ago that this already was a factor when enforcement of hijab and the killing of a young woman for not wearing hijab properly exploded in the form of, of a national protest around the hijab issue, and it became something bigger. And again, this year we saw that the bazaar in Iran, the merchants protesting the collapse of the currency

on December 20th has metamorphosed into something much bigger. So as much as the Iranian government tries to, has tried to brush off the sanctions and persist in its nuclear position on its nuclear program and confrontation with the U.S., it's very clear that its population is becoming more exhausted, more angry, and is demanding change. And as it gets crushed between its own government's policies and U.S. pressure, it is showing signs of enormous amount of restlessness. Before we go, Professor Nasser, if you could give us a little history lesson, if you could, if you see U.S. Trump saying he's supporting the protesters, so could militarily intervene, what U.S. intervention is met, like in 1953, in the form of grandson of Teddy Roosevelt, Kermit Roosevelt,

who came into Iran to overthrow the democratically elected leader, Mohamed Mossadegh, which he succeeded in doing. Then the Shah rose to power, and we see what we see coming out of that. And now the Shah's son being there saying that, you know, Reza Pahlavi, he is encouraging these protests and the possibility of him being brought back in. Well, I don't think any leader from outside of Iran could be brought back in without a full-scale U.S. invasion of Iran and having U.S. troops sitting in Tehran to dictate who would be ruler. That was the scenario in Kabul and in Baghdad after when the U.S. invaded those countries. So I think the Shah's son, the former Crown Prince of Iran, has ability to rally the crowds or call on them to do things and has a certain support.

But his ability to actually take over the government in Iran is absent. In 1953, the U.S. supported a coup that was led by Iran's own military. So there was a military on the ground. There were people on the ground, and the U.S. could support them to change the government. The U.S. does not have that capability in Iran right now. It doesn't even have an embassy. It has no relationship with any element of power in Iran, bureaucracy, people in the political circle, Iran's military, revolutionary guards. The United States has no relations with them.

So either it can wage full-scale war on Iran, which President Trump does not seem to be eager to do, or it can hope to squeeze Iran economically in order to create a, political unrest in Iran. So I think the model that is more apt for Iran is something like what happened in Libya or Syria after the Arab Spring. In other words, a massive popular uprising that eventually could overwhelm the state and its security forces. But that's actually a recipe for chaos and civil water in Iran. It's not recipe for a neat and clean regime change. So U.S. intervention right now looks very, very different. U.S. intervention is in the form of trying to create space for the protesters to continue to agitate against the government and then make

the live of the Iranian people miserable so that more of them would join the protests. Professor Valli Nasser, we thank you for being with us. Professor of International Affairs Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Seis, his new piece for Syndicate, Why This Time is Different for Iran. Next up, as Trump threatens Iran, Venezuela, Mexico, Greenland, and more. We speak with the renowned historian Alfred McCoy, his new book, Cold War on Five Contents, a global history of empire and espionage. Stay with us.

This is Democracy Now. The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. As President Trump threatens Iran, Venezuela, Mexico, Greenland, and more. We spend the rest of the hour with the renowned historian Alfred McCoy. His new book, Cold War and Five Contents, a global history of empire and espionage. And his recent article, ending the American dream by 2029, McCoy is a history professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison. We welcome you back to Democracy Now. in your book, you describe the 1953 coup in Iran as an act whose consequences were measured across decades, leading directly to the 1979 revolution. What are your thoughts on witnessing this escalating Trump threats against Iran saying the U.S. may possibly intervene militarily there? Professor McCoy. Thank you, Amy. The United States is an empire in decline.

And if you look back over the past hundred years, the lessons of history are pretty clear. Declining empires suffer from two things. One, they suffer from what's called micro-militarism abroad. They send troops abroad. They, and they're flailing decline, thinking that some form of military intervention will recapture the global power that is slipping

away from their hands. And then domestically, the other thing, they suffer from every single declining empire over the past hundred years, the Soviet Empire, British Empire, the Spanish, all the rest. They suffer from coups. And of course, we had our coup on January 6, 2001. So as American politics become increasingly contorted and irrational, I think the thing to do is to realize that we are an empire in decline and we are right. in this kind of irrationality, particularly in the international realm, and it will continue for another

decade or two until the power, American power, finally slips away. And Professor McCoy, in terms of this declining empire, the Trump administration, President Trump has said he wants to increase military spending by 50 percent from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion. How does this fit into the flailing of a declining empire as you talk, as you mentioned? And also this attempt to reassert control over the Western Hemisphere, to create essentially a fortress of the Western Hemisphere against the rest of the world, the likelihood of that succeeding. Good question, Martin.

First of all, the United States has been for over a century now, dominant in the Western Hemisphere, at least North America. and even with reduced global influence, the United States does have a capacity to exercise military force in the hemisphere. Whether that will produce good relations with our Latin American neighbors is highly questionable. But to turn to your question about this retreat from the world into the Western Hemisphere, that's effectively a near disastrous decision. Right now we are in a new Cold War, a Cold War between Moscow, Beijing and Washington. And the object of the new Cold War, just as it was for the old Cold War,

is dominance control over the vast Eurasian landmass. The way the United States won the Cold War, and we did win it, hands down, was that we encircled the vast Eurasian continent with an iron curtain, and we defended that iron curtain by rings of steel, naval armadas, aircraft, and above all, military alliances, the NATO alliances on the western end of Eurasia, and five bilateral military alliances with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, and Australia on the eastern edge of Eurasia. And Washington simply sat back with the Sino-Soviet block contained behind what was called the Iron Curtain and waited for a blunder. And the Soviet Union, like many declining empires engaged in this micro-militarism. It invaded and occupied Afghanistan in 1979,

and by the time the Red Army withdrew 10 years later, bloody and battered. It was incapable and unwilling to intervene when Eastern Europe, the satellite nations broke away, and the Soviet Republic's, the Soviet Union broke apart, and that was the end of the Soviet Union, and that was the end of the Cold War. So clearly, maintaining a position in Eurasia, particularly Western Europe, is critical to U.S. geopolitical position in this new Cold War. And Trump's retreat from Europe is damaging of NATO, threatening Greenland. And if that happens, the Prime Minister of Denmark, a foundation member of NATO, has said that that's pretty much the end of NATO. So in many ways, Trump is damaging the U.S. position in Western Europe.

And that constitutes almost a unilateral surrender in geopolitical terms in the midst of this new Cold War. So the retreat to the Western Hemisphere simply makes no sense. And the implications of this for the world are quite considerable because both Russia and China are expanding their dominance over this vast Eurasian landmass. And that threatens the stability of the entire international system of law, trade, and diplomacy. Well, you mentioned Russia and China. In your recent piece, ending the American dream by 29, you talk about China's electric vehicle production, which already is 70% of the global total,

how that could make the U.S. auto industry, which says for most of the post-World War II period, the mainstay of the American economy, almost obsolete. Could you talk about the significance of that? Sure. Right now, well, first of all, every major empire over the last 500 years has been synonymous with conquering or developing a new form of energy. For the Spanish, it was slavery, maximizing the energy output of the human body through cruel plantation slavery. For the British, it was the coal-fired revolution in steam power. For the United States, it was oil power. And we are now in the midst of a green energy revolution, switching to alternative energy, solar and wind power, particularly solar.

And China is absolutely dominant in every aspect of this green energy revolution. And so since imperial power, global hegemony, is synonymous with energy innovation, China's dominance in this sector is going to be a key factor in its rising global hegemony, displacing the United States as the world's preeminent power. China already dominates the production of solar panels and solar panel components, and they're now turning that into this very important consumer durable automobiles. And China's production of automobiles is extraordinary. They can produce a quick-charging, long-range electrical vehicle and sell it for $9,000. You can't get a second-hand Honda for $9,000 in the United States anymore. That's an extraordinary

price. And they have a fleet of ships that are custom-built, and their factories are robotic factories, barely touched by a human hand, are cranking out cars literally by the millions. They are heading for the ports where specifically constructed ships are crossing to world markets. So they're building robotic plants around the world. China is capturing the global auto market, and this is the cutting edge of Chinese global power and energy innovation. So the United States is, in fact, retreating from the world economy and the world in two rounds. One, a misuse of our military power and a gross miscalculation in terms of energy policy. And the two together, I believe, will serve as kind of accelerants for a U.S. decline in the global arena.

I mean, it's very interesting. A federal court in the United States has just ruled that President Trump cannot single-handedly stop offshore wind farms off the coast of the United States as he tries to completely move away from. renewables and back to oil, which brings us to Venezuela, where after he had the Venezuelan president and his wife abducted in the news conference, he repeated dozens of times in his reasoning. He talked about oil. Now, I wanted to go to Mexican President Claudia Shanebaum on Monday speaking with President Trump after he threatened U.S. military intervention. He said to combat drug cartels in Mexico.

President Donald Trump and I talked about the joint work done in security. There are important results from the joint collaboration. For example, the fentanyl crossings have reduced by 50% in Mexico and the U.S. How is that measured? By the fentanyl seizures they do on the other side of the border. So, CBP, which is a U.S. agency, makes public the amount of fentanyl seized on the other side of the border, and it has reduced by 50% in a year. So if you could talk about back to Latin America when it comes to Mexico, when it comes to Cuba, clearly setting his sights on Cuba.

Some say carrying out Marco Rubio, the Cuban-American Secretary of State's wishes that Venezuela is even a route to take down the Cuban government now forbidding Venezuela from selling any oil to Cuba, which could very well further destabilize it. Talk about what's happening there. If you look at last November, the Trump administration released what's called the National Security Strategy, the NSS document. And in this, Trump is very clear that the U.S. is going to reorient its military forces from a global position, essentially pull out of Europe, abandon the U.S. position on the vast Eurasian landmass, and relocate its forces into Latin America. and achieve absolute dominance over Latin America.

The U.S. still has formidable military power, tremendous economic resources. And when we concentrate that on the southern border, on our southern neighbors, we can be, as we have been since the 1890s, absolutely dominant in the Caribbean. Okay, and, you know, from 1898 until really 1933, the United States exercised gunboat diplomacy in the Caribbean. Theodore Roosevelt sent the Navy to block Colombian forces and force the secession of Panama and its creation as independent states so we can build the canal. The U.S. forces shuttled in and out of the Caribbean for the next 30 years. It wasn't until the Franklin Roosevelt administration

announced a good neighbor policy that we stopped that. But that's the Trump policy. We're returning to this gunboat diplomacy and this intervention. And frankly, we have sufficient power to do that. That will, of course, just as it did the last time, produce an enormous nationalist, anti-imperialist reaction in Latin America and undercut our serious long-term and diplomatic relationships with our Latin American neighbors.

And China is already the dominant economic trade partner in much of Latin America. And I think over the long term, that will arouse hostility, increase China's presence, and increased diplomatic ties between China and Latin America. So it'll be short-term dominance and control for a long-term loss of influence and power. We only have about 30 seconds, but the constant use of the United States, the war on drugs, as a means to impose its will on Latin America? Yeah, the war on drugs since President Nixon declared back in 1972 has been a monumental failure.

It's a very simple law of supply and demand. You attack supply, whether you're sinking drugboats in the Caribbean or you're trying to fumigate, defoliate crops in the hills. So when you attack supply, all you do is you reduce supply, raise price, and that's incentive for growers to produce more drugs. And the logic of that has produced a tenfold increase in the supply of illicit narcotics since the drug war began over 50 years ago. So it's what I call the stimulus of prohibition. Alfred McCoy, we're going to have to leave it there. But I'm going to encourage people

to read your article and your new book, History Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison's first book, Politics of Heroin, CIA, complicity in Global Drug Trade. His new book is Cold War on Five Continants. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. Thanks for joining us.