Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-02-27 Friday

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

Democracy Now! Friday, February 27, 2026

New York, this is Democracy Now. I did not know Jeffrey Hepstein. I never went to his island. I never went to his homes. I never went to his offices. So it's on the record numerous times. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is grilled by members of the House Oversight Committee. President Bill Clinton's testifying today.

The first time a former president testifies before a House pass. in over four decades. Meanwhile, questions are mounting over files, missing or withheld by the Justice Department, containing accusations of sexual assault of a minor by President Trump. We'll speak with Barry Levine, author of The Spider Inside the Tangled Web of Jeffrey Epstein and Gislaine Maxwell. Then to the ICE arrest of a Columbia University student Thursday. Shortly after 6 a.m., five federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security, without any kind of warrant, entered an off-campus Columbia residential building. The agents gained entry by stating they were police searching for a missing child. The student was released after New York mayor, Zoranamani, met with President Trump at the White House yesterday.

In addition to her release, Mom Dani asked for help in dismissing four other cases, three of them, Columbia or former Columbia University students. We'll speak with one of them, graduate student Moussa Madawin, then to Buffalo, where a blind Burmese refugee dies outside in the cold after Border Patrol agents took him into custody inexplicably, then released him without informing his family. The Department of Homeland Security, Border Patrol in ICE, they don't know what they're doing. Border Patrol officers had no protocol of what to do with a disabled man who doesn't speak English, who is confused and lost. And you know what they did?

They dropped them at a closed coffee shop. We'll speak with a Buffalo reporter. And finally, former Congress member Cory Bush is running for Congress again. She'll join us in New York. I ran for Congress to change things for regular people. I'm running again because St. Louis deserves leadership that doesn't wait for permission. Doesn't answer to wealthy donors and doesn't hide when things get tough. All that and more coming up.

Welcome to Democracy Now, DemocracyNow.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. U.S. and Iranian officials have concluded another round of indirect talks over Iran's nuclear program without a break. through, though, a mediator cited significant progress in the Geneva negotiations. Iran's foreign minister said afterwards, further technical talks are scheduled for next week in Vienna, the home of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and that progress toward a deal had been good. The talks came after President Trump assembled the largest fleet of warplanes and aircraft in the Middle East and decades ahead of possible U.S. strikes on Iran, even though Congress has not authorized an attack.

Pakistan's defense ministry declared an open war against Afghanistan's Taliban government as it launched cross-border attacks and airstrikes on the Afghan capital, Kabul. Pakistani officials claimed their attacks killed 133 Taliban fighters, while the Afghan government claimed its counterattacks killed 55 Pakistani soldiers. Thirteen civilians were reportedly killed in a refugee camp near the Tohqam border crossing, including women and children with several others wounded. Something fell and I thought it had landed on top of our tent. My wife's hand was injured badly and my nephew was injured too.

Both are now lying in the hospital in critical condition. The escalation follows weeks of violence along Pakistan's 1,600-mile-long border with Afghanistan. The fighting has largely shut land border crossings, worsening Afghanistan's already dire humanitarian crisis. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says another round of negotiations with Russia, will likely take place in Abu Dhabi in early March. His remarks came after U.S. and Ukraine officials wrapped up talks in Geneva Thursday, where they discussed post-war reconstruction and an economic package for Ukraine. Ahead of the talks, Russia launched massive drone and missile attack

against multiple cities in Ukraine, wounding 23 people, including a child. This is a resident whose apartment building in Zaporichu was attacked by Russia. It's been four years and they still haven't ended the war. We want this. We want them to reach an agreement, but there are no agreements. And now we don't know where to go or what to do. Our apartment is completely ruined. A congressional committee is deposing former President Bill Clinton today over his connection

to serial sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. This comes after former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denied ever meeting Epstein or knowing of his crimes during separate close. closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee Thursday, which the former Secretary of State and Presidential Candidate denounced as partisan political theater. Hillary Clinton spoke to reporters in Chappaqua, New York, after her closed-door deposition, which she had called to be open. I never met Jeffrey Epstein, never had any connection or communication with him. I knew Galane Maxwell casually as an acquaintance. But whatever they asked me, I did my very best to respond.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have called on President Trump to also be deposed following mounting reports that key documents related to a woman who accused Trump of assaulting her while she was a minor are missing from the Justice Department's release of the Epstein files. This is Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia. This committee has now set a new precedent about talking to presidents and former presidents. And we're demanding immediately that we ask President Trump to testify in front of our committee and be deposed in front of oversight Republicans and Democrats. We'll have more on the Epstein files after headlines with investigative journalist Barry Levine, author of The Spider, inside the tangled web of Jeffrey Epstein and Gislaine Maxwell. In Gaza, Israeli drone attacks on two police stations killed at least six Palestinians overnight.

One attack struck police posts in the barrage refugee camp in central Gaza. The other hit a police checkpoint in the Almwasi area of Han Yunus. Palestinian officials say Israel's violated the U.S. brokered ceasefire that began last October, more than 1,600 times killing over 600 Palestinians. Meanwhile, Israel's continuing attacks on southern Lebanon in violation of a November 2020. ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah. Lebanese officials reported 13 Israeli airstrikes on Thursday, including an attack on the Bechah Valley that killed a 16-year-old Syrian boy.

In New Jersey, a dangerous car chase involving ICE agents who attempted to make an arrest Thursday ended in a multi-vehicle crash in Newark that left three children injured. Newark Mayor Rasbaraka condemned ICE's operation as reckless. saying New Jersey state law prohibits law enforcement from engaging in car chases unless there's an immediate threat. In a statement on social media, Mayor Baraka said, quote, based on the damage they're inflicting on our communities, ICE has no business engaging in chases at any time, anywhere, but especially in densely populated areas and on roads still being cleared from a significant snowstorm, he said.

Mayor Barraco was arrested last year while protesting outside the troubled New Jersey Delaney Hall ICE jail. The charges were later dismissed. Here in New York, a Columbia undergraduate student detained by ICE agents who used false pretenses to get into her off-campus residential building was released hours later after Mayor Zoran Mamdani intervened with President Trump at his meeting at the White House. Willie Agueva, who's from Azerbaijan, was arrested Thursday morning when ICE agents entered the building without a warrant under false pretenses. Colombia's acting president, Claire Shipman, said security cameras captured the agents in the hallway showing pictures of an alleged missing child. Agueva posted about her arrest early that morning on Instagram saying, quote, DHS illegally arrested me, please help. We'll have more on this story later in the broadcast. Agueva's release from ICE custody came shortly after New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani appealed directly to President Trump as he made his second visit to the White House since his historic election victory in November.

On Thursday, Mamdani also gave White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles a list of four current and former students targeted by federal immigration authorities and asked the administration for help on dismissing their cases. There, Mahmoud Khalil, Yon Seo Chung, Mousan Madawi, and La Khakordia, all detained after they joined pro-Palestine protests. La Khacordia is the only one who remains detained nearly a year after her arrest at an ice jail in Texas. We'll speak with Columbia graduate student Mosemadawi later in the broadcast. At the White House, Mayor Mamdani also pitched an ambitious new housing project for New York City. He held the meeting as productive and shared a photo on social. media with President Trump in the Oval Office, holding a mock version of the New York Daily News with the headline Trump to City, let's build. The mayor's office said in a news release, the city is seeking some $21 billion in federal grants for the housing project, which Mamdani touted as the largest housing and infrastructure investment in New York City in more than 50 years.

Access to affordable housing was at the center of Mamdani's campaign. In media news, Paramount Skydance is poised to acquire. Warner Brothers discovery after Netflix declined to match Paramount's $11 billion offer. Netflix ended its bidding where shortly after CEO Ted Sarandos visited the White House on Thursday afternoon, where we met with top officials, including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Paramount's offer still requires regulatory approval in the U.S. in Europe. If completed, it would create the largest media conglomerate in U.S. history, spanning news sports movies, video games, theme parks, and more, all controlled by Paramount

chair David Ellison, a vocal supporter of President Trump. The deal would include acquiring CNN, consolidating Ellison's News Empire, which already now includes CBS News. And the FBI's fired about a dozen more agents tied to the investigation into Trump's mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after he left office in 2021. The purge by FBI director Cash Patel comes as he faces mounting criticism over his use of a government jet to travel to the Milan Olympics

where he was filmed chugging beer in the locker room with the U.S. men's hockey team after their gold medal win over Canada. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, DemocracyNow.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman in New York,

joined by Democracy Now, co-host, 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 with the latest on the Epstein files. Former President Bill Clinton is testifying today before a congressional committee over his connections with serial sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. This comes after Hillary Clinton denied ever meeting Epstein and knowing anything about his crimes during a more than six-hour closed-door door deposition in front of the House Oversight Committee Thursday.

Clinton spoke to reporters in Chappaquin, New York, yesterday after the closed-door deposition. I never met Jeffrey Epstein, never had any connection or communication with him. I knew Galane Maxwell casually as an acquaintance. But whatever they asked me, I did my very best to respond. In her opening statement, Clinton denounced the process as partisan political theater and accused House Republicans of using her as a prop to, quote, distract attention from President Trump's actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers, end quote. Democrats on the House oversight committee have called on President Trump to also be deposed following mounting reports that key documents related to a woman, who accused Trump of assaulting her while she was a minor, those documents missing from the Justice Department release of the Epstein files. According to an NPR investigation, the missing files

include 53 pages of FBI interviews and notes from conversations with the woman who claimed she'd been sexually assaulted by both Trump and Epstein in the 1980s when she was just 13 years old. This is Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia. We want to understand right now where the missing FBI files are. These are files that accuse the President of the United States about serious, serious accusations around sexual abuse. And the fact that they're not in the files that have been apparently either removed or discarded is incredibly concerning. And so we're calling on Attorney General Pan Bondi to immediately release those files. And lastly, I want to also add that this committee has now set a new precedent about talking

to presidents and former presidents. And we're demanding immediately that we ask President Trump to testify in front of our committee and be deposed in front of oversight, Republicans, and Democrats. Meanwhile, the fallout from the Epstein Files continues with a wave of resignations of powerful leaders and business, academia, politics over their ties to Epstein. On Thursday, President and CEO of the World Economic Forum, Porte Brendé said he was resigning. On Wednesday, former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, former Harvard President Larry Summers, said he would resign as professor at Harvard University at the end of the semester. Also Wednesday, former Nebraska Democratic Senator Bob Kerry confirmed he'd resigned.

from his role as chair of a clean energy startup, Nobel laureate Richard Axel also announced his resignation Tuesday as co-director of Columbia University's neuroscience institute over his association with Epstein. And Bill Gates has also apologized to the staff of the Gates Foundation over his ties to Epstein. For more on all of this, we're joined by Barry Levine, investigative journalist author of the book The Spider, Inside the Tangled Wed of Jeffrey Epstein and and Gailene Maxwell. Barry, thanks so much for being with us. Let's start off with these testimonies yesterday and today of the former president and first lady, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She had wanted, she said, open hearing, but it was closed door in Chappaqua, where they live.

Can you explain the significance what's taking place with this hearing and then move on to the missing DOJ Department of Justice FBI files? Sure, absolutely. I think, first of all, we're going to see the video of her testimony, as we saw with Jeffrey Epstein's patron Leslie Wexner. Recently, they released it the day after. We should get the videotape of Hillary Clinton's testimony today. Bill Clinton is testifying today. We should get his video of his testimony tomorrow. I think, first of all, that it's important for the sake of the survivors that we get accountability in this case.

This is something they've been demanding for two decades now. Certainly the more we can learn about individuals' interactions with Jeffrey Epstein and what they may have witnessed or what they may have been told by him is certainly important to the survivors. I think, however, that there's many other individuals in this particular case who are more important to getting to than former President Clinton or even our current president, Donald Trump. Both men have never been accused directly by any of the survivors that have done extensive interviews with the FBI and the SD&Y. Now, of course, both spent time with him.

So it is important to learn about their experiences with him. But I do think right now for the Oversight Committee and the administration, this is part of a bit of a political theater that's taking place. certainly with Hillary, who, as we know, never met him, never met him directly. So, you know, to me, it was wasted time when there's other individuals much closer to the case that we need to hear from. And Barry Levine, what do you make of the allegations that of these interviews, FBI interviews, with a young woman who claimed she was assaulted when she was 13 and the fact that these have not been released? No, that's a very good question. And it's important that the DOJ doesn't hold back documents from the law that the Transparency Act law on these files that President Trump signed into law,

the public and the survivors are entitled to see all the documents, including these FBI, what's called FBI 302 witness reports. These are interviews that were conducted. They should not be missing. There's no question about that. And I'm thankful that NPR and a couple other news organizations pointed that out. and the DOJ says that they are looking into that. So we will see, hopefully, the missing files.

Now, I have to say that as someone who has investigated this case for two decades, as an investigative journalist and then the author of my book, The Spider, I did devote a page and a half to this woman's allegations that came in a lawsuit in 2019 following Jeffrey Epstein's arrest. I do want to see the specifics. I think, however, that the timeline doesn't appear to be correct because the allegation center on actions that she claimed took place with Jeffrey Epstein and former President Trump back in the 1980, specifically in the 1983 to 85 range.

All of my reporting shows that former president or that Donald Trump didn't interact with Jeffrey Epstein until around 1987, both in Palm Beach, Florida and in New York. They continued to see one another socially for the next 15 years. But Barry Levine, isn't the issue more that the, I mean, all of these are allegations. We don't know what is true, but that all of the allegations against Epstein by this woman who alleges who was sexually assaulted by Epstein and also Trump, the ones on Epstein, they remain in the files. People can come to their own conclusions. But the documents around Trump were removed.

And the DOJ says they're not involved in any investigation and that they released all the files. So that's the point. Why were they removed? Not whether they're true or not. Yes. And I agree. we should be able to see whether these allegations are true or not. And of course, we need to continue to do fact-checking, as I have started to do on this particular case and find issues with the timeline. We still need to see the files. And there's no question that something is wrong here in terms of the Trump administration's

EOJ. If there are, and the law specifically states that material related to men in these files, even if they're embarrassing to these individuals in terms of allegations, whether they're true or not need to be made available to the public and to the survivors for the sake of accountability. So we do need to see each and every document. the only thing that they can hold back that they say could be privileged would be sensitive information related to national security.

And we know that Jeffrey Epstein was involved with many other countries. There's allegations that he may have even been a foreign asset for Israel, for Iran, for Russia. However, we're talking about incidents that took place domestically. involving this woman. So there would be no national security related to these documents. So by all means, we should see each and every sentence, no matter how embarrassing the statements are made by this woman against both Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump. And Barry Levine, based on your years of investigation of Epstein, what remains to be uncovered about his his influence and his accomplices that you have not yet seen reported or gleaned from the documents

so far released? Yeah, good question. There's still two million files that are still, that still haven't been released. I can't believe that each and every one of those files is related to national security. Why they're holding back, while the DOJ is holding back these additional documents. This is something that's been raised by Thomas Massey and Rocahanna, the co-sponsors of the transparency bill. So we need to see everything be released. In addition to that, we learned something very disturbing recently from these files, and that is that Jeffrey Epstein hid possible evidence in six storage lockers around the country. He had private investigators. take material out of his homes before the police raids took place.

This is going back as early as the police raid in Palm Beach, Florida in 2005. Material was taken out, computers, CDs, videotapes, all different types of evidence, 29 address books. We don't know to this day if the FBI ever recovered that information is. those storage lockers. And it seems to me, based on my reporting, that Jeffrey Epstein was tipped to the first police raid on his home in Palm Beach, Florida in 2005, December 2005, and he had this material removed. So we don't know what's in that material. We don't know if there's additional incriminating videotapes involving any of the 20 men that

Representative Thomas Massey said were allegedly trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein, rich and powerful individuals, six billionaires, a political government official, someone else in politics, people in entertainment. There are men who are out there who took part in the sex trafficking that have not been brought to justice. And for the sake of closure, for the victims, we need to see. more by the DOJ in terms of the possible apprehension of these individuals. I mean, very interesting that the House Oversight Committee went to Chappaqua to the hometown

of the Clintons right now to grill them. The Republicans overwhelming there. I think there were almost 60 people who went up. It came to Les Wexner, who may have bankrolled the pedophile criminal Jeffrey Epstein. when the House Oversight Committee went to his Ohio mansion, no Republican member of Congress may have bankrolled him to the tune of over a billion dollars went to talk to him. That's absolutely correct.

Really, the money that Epstein was able to use to bankroll his sex trafficking ring for two decades really came from Leslie Wexner. Leslie Wexner was listed as a possible co-conspirator. He denies all wrongdoing. He says he never saw or witnessed any sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein with any victims. And the DOJ and the SD&Y never filed any actual charges against Leslie Wexner. But he was certainly an important individual to get to coming up in March. the Oversight Committee is going to depose two very important men in Jeffrey Epstein's life,

Darren Indyke, his longtime, Jeffrey Epstein's longtime lawyer, and Richard Kahn, his long-time accountant who were with Jeffrey Epstein, worked for him for many, many years. These were men that intricately knew about Jeffrey Epstein's finances. his lifestyle, monies that were being sent out that presently, Senator Ron Wyden is looking into in terms of more than a billion dollars of suspicious wire transfers that took place over the years. So these men should be very enlightening in terms of what we learn from them. And as I said, I do think calling, I think it's valid to call president. Trump. He spent over in two years he traveled on between 16 and 27 flight legs with Jeffrey Epstein,

socialized with him on these two trips to Africa and also Asia and Europe. As I said, he has not been accused directly by any of the victims that we have investigated. So I don't think we're going to learn any significant bombshells from his deposition. today. But again, I do think that calling both of them, you know, was really about Donald Trump going after his perceived enemies. Barry Levine, I want to thank you for being with us, investigative journalist author of the book The Spider Inside the Tangled Web of Jeffrey Epstein and Galane Maxwell. Coming up, a Columbia undergraduate student is arrested by ICE and her residential housing after agents

using false pretences got into her apartment building. Back in a minute. When first unto this country, Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. Here in New York City, a Columbia undergraduate student was detained by ICE agents early Thursday morning at her off-campus residence. The agents gained entry to the residential building by pretending to be police looking for a missing child. The student, Amara Agieva, posted about her arrest early in the morning on Instagram saying, quote, DHS illegally arrested me, please help.

She was released just hours later following a meeting between New York mayors or on Mamdani and President Trump. Mamdani posted on social media, quote, just got off the phone with President Trump in our meeting earlier. I shared my concerns about Columbia student Elmina Agayevah, who was detained by ISIS morning. He's just informed me she will be released imminently. During Mamdani's meeting with Trump, he also requested four other cases in New York be dropped. those of Mahmoud Khalil, Yon Seo Chung, Mosin Madawi, and Lakar Kordja. This is Columbia University President Claire Shipman. We are all so relieved that our student, Elia Gaeva, has been released from federal custody.

Let me give you some details about what happened this morning. Shortly after 6 a.m., five federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security, without any kind of warrant, entered an off-campus Columbia residential building. The agents gained entry by stating they were police searching for a missing child. They made their way to the apartment of the student they were targeting with the same story. Our security cameras captured the agents in the hallway, showing pictures of the alleged missing child. Once inside the apartment, it became clear they had misrepresented themselves. A public safety officer arrived, asked multiple times for a warrant which was not produced,

and asked for time to call his boss, which was not given. The agents took our student. This was a frightening and fast-moving situation and utterly unacceptable for our students and staff. We started work immediately to gain her release. We are so grateful for the help and support we got from the mayor and the governor. Let me be clear.

Misrepresenting identity and other facts to gain access to a residential building, is a breach of protocol. All law enforcement agencies are obligated to follow established legal, ethical standards. Let me also add, nobody in our administration has ever provided any assistance to DHS or ICE as regards arresting or taking any of our students. Quite the opposite, we have labored often intensively behind the scenes to see them supported. That was Columbia President, Elie Agieva, describing, that was Columbia president, Claire Shipman, responding to the arrest of Elie Agieva, the detention of her. She didn't release a video talking about Mayor Mamdani's request

for the four other students to have their cases drop. We're going to speak with Columbia graduate Mosa Madawi, one of the people who wasn't a Columbia student, La Kakordia, has still in detention almost a year after particular. in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia. But first, we're going to Washington, D.C., where we're joined by Prem Thacker, political correspondent and columnist for Zeteo News. On Thursday, he reported on the dizzying sequence of events and the arrest and the release of L.A.

Prem, can you respond to what took place yesterday using false pretenses, saying they were New York police apparently, this is ICE, to get into Columbia. residential housing and using a picture of a five-year-old child to say they were looking for a missing person? Thank you both for having me. Yes, when you lay it out, it's as shocking as it sounds. And I'll tell you what, when I was first made aware of it, I was getting flashbacks to when I was first flagged of Mahmoud Khalil's taking almost a year ago, as you say, the sort of dizzying nature of it was descriptive of it. At first, it was very clear to me, based on different accounts from sources that something awry had gone on with how DHS had sought

to breach this Columbia building. Claire Shipman, the president, very quickly as she announced it, had said that there was some false pretenses being had and how the agents had tried to get in. And even over the course of the following hours, before Shipman made that subsequent announcement in the evening that you described, many sources were describing to me the sense that something something was wrong, that the agents had impersonated officers, that they were there, pretending to be doing something they weren't. And I just want to underscore something that is important, I think, for views to understand. Right now, the Department of Homeland Security's budget, its very bloated budget, is at stake because of massive public horror at its acts,

including the killings of Renee Good and Alex Preti. In that time, this is how DHS is choosing to behave. They are allegedly impersonating officers, pretending to be looking for a missing child, all to get into a university building to detain someone. And then, I might add, apparently lying about it. Because when we asked DHS about this, they explicitly said, our agents did not and would never impersonate NYPD officers. And that Claire Shipman, the president of Columbia, is saying, and based on security camera footage, that these agents did in fact impersonate police. So this is how DHS is behaving

even while their budget is at stake. And if that is the case, what does that tell you as an American about how DHS takes your concerns? And, Prem, what can you tell us in terms of this involvement of Mayor Mamdami in getting Trump

to release Eli Agieva? Yes. So one thing that should be underscored, and I'm sure this will be talked about more with Mosen as well, is that yesterday was a remarkable expression from city officials, from city council folks, to members of Congress in New York City to, of course, Zora Mundani. That was very concerted, very synchronized in expressing condemnation to this arrest. And that also included, of course, Columbia's strong response.

They were very outwardly insistent on how they were legally supporting Ellie, something that they didn't always express with previous detentions. And so all that culminated in Zorn Mamm D.C.'s surprise afternoon visit to Washington, D.C., which coincided with this arrest, funnily enough, I suppose, where he was visiting Donald Trump to pitch a housing project, a very ambitious housing project that he could request Donald Trump's support in. During that meeting is when Zorn Mammani also expressed his concerns about the arrest of L.E. as you mentioned, the ongoing cases against Mahmabun Khalil, Yon So Chung, Lika Cordia, who is, of course, still in the tension,

and then Mosul Madawi. Minutes later, after that meeting, Mamdani gets a phone call from Trump saying that Elie will be imminent and released, and then moments after that, Ellie posts on her Instagram story saying she's freed. And so that instantaneous reaction by Donald Trump to go ahead and make a phone call to release Ellie is remarkable not just because of how quickly, that was able to be done, but because it really puts a thumb in the face of DHS, who, you know, lied in order to breach a Columbia University campus building to detain someone. And all for that decision to be

quickly flipped is remarkable because it shows the power of opposition, but also how loose and flippant these arrests are and how maybe unnecessary they are. So let's go to one of the people who Mayor Mamdani raised. In addition to for the release of Ellie, which happened immediately. Mayor Mamdani called for the dismissal of cases against the Columbia student, now graduate, Mahmoud Khalil, Yon Seo Chung, Muslimadawi, who, like Yon Seo Chung and Mahmoud Khalil, and La Khark Cordia, who was involved with pro-Palestinian protests at Colombia, were all jailed. The question is, did Columbia intervene in those cases?

Mosen Madawi is now a graduate student at Columbia School of International Affairs, SIPA. Mosen, if you can talk about your response to what happened yesterday, there was mass protest. Hundreds of people came out to protest Ellie's arrest and the shock of that. But also who President Shipman is willing to talk about and who intervene on behalf of and who she isn't. Good morning, Amy, and thank you for having me. This highlights the serious hypocrisy and discrimination that Columbia University has. I'm glad that the president, Claire Shibbent, has shared that she is thrilled and relieved for the release of Ellie, as she should. And she should also check on her, meet with her, offer her with the support legally, legal support, psychological support, and financial support after that.

this term. But let's be clear. Colombia has participated in allowing this to happen. And that's because they have failed to stand up for their students, for me, for Mahmoud, for Yunsu, and for Ranjana and for Lechia as well. And this, this, what we see, DHS coming back to Columbia residential, because Columbia University administration did not have the backbone, in fact, to file any lawsuits against the Trump's administration for violating basic rights. And now, yes, she's free, but will Columbia University file a lawsuit based on this scam that DHS have done? Where is the accountability in this? In addition to this, Amy, I want the viewers to ask the question, why students are protesting at the streets not inside campus?

And the reason is because the university administration itself has participated in destroying and in deteriorating the democratic practices here. Free speech, they chill the speech on campus to the point that the students feel more safe, being under the risk of being detained or attacked by ICE or police outside of campus, because the university has cracked down against the pro-Palestine movements and has made an example of more than 100 students between suspension and expulsion. This is the chilling effect that the university administration and the dirty work that it is doing, I love my university. And that's the reason why I chose to come to Colombia.

But what the senior administration is doing and the hypocrisy that we are seeing, when I was released, there was not a video, there was not a word that says I'm thrilled and relieved, and there has not been any attempt to reach out to me and to offer me direct support by the senior administration. This is an issue might see like a micro issue, but this is actually what the Trump's administration intended to do, which is to fracture liberal institutions and turn the administrations against their students. And they have succeeded because the Columbia administration, and many other administrations have capitulated and have made deals with the Trump's administration.

The impact on the student body, especially the graduate students, given that such a large percentage, I've heard as many as 40% of graduate students at Colombia are international students from other countries. The impact of this continued repression of Colombia against dissent by students? The impact is huge. is huge and when we talk about 40% it is more than one third of the university and we're talking about 14,000 students roughly. I was in DC yesterday and the shock wave of this or the wave shock of this terror that ICE have brought to campus triggering so many students who were here when many other students were detained on campus has actually

chilled, like it has scared many students. And my phone was like literally tens of messages that are coming to me from international students and from actually students who are citizens, either checking on me if I am okay because they have not disclosed the name first, or asking for legal resources because they are afraid to leave their apartments and campus at international students. And the chilling effect is real because I see. see it in classes, even when I speak, especially when I speak with my fellow students who are international, about their mind, about their way of thinking, they are afraid to write their beliefs on papers because they don't trust the university that it would keep those papers

and their thoughts away from the government. This is the chilling speech. Maasamadawi, one, thank you for being with us. He is a Columbia University graduate student Today, he was jailed when he was a Columbia undergraduate student, came from the occupied West Bank, as was Mahmoud Khalil, who also graduated but was jailed after pro-Palestinian protests. And La Kharkhorja still is in jail. She's not a student, but she protested the policies of Columbia University at the encampment, and she remains in a Texas ICE jail after almost a year.

I want to thank you, Mosin, for being with us. I'm Prem Thacker, political correspondent and columnist for Zateo News. Up next we go to Buffalo, where a Burmese refugee legally here, was left by immigration agents in the cold and died. His family did not know where he was back in 20 seconds. Took me to the jail when they threw me in. They showed. When first onto this country, they're

first onto this country, renditioned by Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman at the Brooklyn Folk Festival. This is Democracy Now. DemocracyNow.org, the War and Peace Report, as we turn to a horrifying story

out of Buffalo, New York. It has sent shockwaves through the community where a disabled Rohingya refugee from Burma, also known as Myanmar, was found dead five days after he was abandoned by Border Patrol agents, about five miles from his home. 56-year-old, Nerul Amin Shah Alam, was mostly blind, spoke no English in the country legally. His family told reporters, no one at the Department of Homeland Security warned them or his lawyers

that he'd been released from jail last Thursday and dropped off alone. outside a closed coffee shop on a cold winter night. He wandered around in orange booties issued by the Erie County Holding Center for days before Buffalo Police found his dead body on Tuesday. Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan excoriated CBP at a press conference Thursday. I issued an order a few weeks ago saying the Buffalo Police Department will not interact or help the Department of Homeland Security in their civil immigration enforcement actions. The incident that we're talking about makes it so, of course, we shouldn't, because the Department of Homeland Security Border Patrol in ICE,

they don't know what they're doing. And it's been demonstrated. A Border Patrol agent picked up this man from the holding center of custody, drove him to an ice facility, and the ice facility said, we don't want this guy. And then the Border Patrol officers had no protocol of what to do with the disabled man who doesn't speak English, who is confused and lost. And you know what they did? They dropped them at a closed coffee shop. That's why we do not cooperate with ICE, Homeland Security, and Border Patrol. That's the Buffalo mayor, as congressional leaders and others across New York demand answers, calls for an investigation into the Border Patrol are growing louder.

For more, we're joined from Buffalo by Jay Dale Shoemaker, a reporter for investigative posts who's been closely following this story and attended Nur al-Amin Shah Alam's funeral yesterday. Thank you so much for being with us. Can you explain how this happened? His family did not know that customs and border patrols. had left him in the cold at night and he died there? Yeah, so the key issue here seems to be a miscommunication on whose part we're still trying to figure out as to which immigration agency was going to take custody of Mr. Shah Alam after he was released from the holding center.

His attorneys believed it was ICE who was going to take custody of him. And so they were waiting for him at the local ICE detention center, next day to get him out. His attorneys had confirmed, in fact, that ICE did not want custody of him. ICE's attorney said, you know, we don't want this guy. In fact, it was Border Patrol who the Erie County Sheriff's Office called. They took him in their system, saw that ICE didn't want to have custody of him. And then instead of, in their words, releasing him from the Border Patrol station, gave him a quote-unquote courtesy ride to the closed Tim Hortons. My colleague was there the other day and confirmed that while the drive-thru of that coffee shop was open, the lobby was not.

He was not able to enter and sit down in the quote-unquote warm safe location that Border Patrol said it was. He then wandered the city for several days. When the 911 call came in, the woman who called said that she had seen him three hours earlier alive, but did not call until three hours later when he was dead. This is somewhat ironic because Buffalo calls itself the city of good neighbors, yet there were many people over the course of those five days who saw him, perhaps even interacted with him and did nothing.

Dale, this was a person who was a refugee in the country. What was the, what did you been able to tell about why he was jailed for a year originally? So this is a, this is a tragic situation. He was resettled in Buffalo by one of our refugee resettlement agencies. He was living in Malaysia for a period of about a decade, I'm told. before eventually being allowed into the United States as a legal refugee in December of 2024. Now, as I'm sure you know, the winters in Buffalo are pretty cold, and he was used to warmer climate. So he and his family were cooped up in their new home in Buffalo for several weeks.

We had a sunny day in February last year, and he decided to venture outside for a walk. He is nearly blind. He's got totally no vision in one eye, and he has partial, a little bit blurry vision in another eye. He sets out for a walk in his neighborhood in the west side of Buffalo. and makes his way to a store where he purchases a curtain rod to use as a walking stick. When the weather turned bad, he got lost in the neighborhood, which, again, he was new to. He ends up in the backyard of a woman on Tonawanda Street. And when he's there, the woman thinks he's breaking in.

She says he let the dog out when he went into the backyard. Police roll up and they come in hot. We got the body camera footage yesterday showing that the moment that officers arrive, they are screaming at him to drop his weapon, that's his curtain rod, and to, you know, submit for arrest, basically. They, in the body camera footage that we reviewed, say after he is in handcuffs that they nearly pulled out their guns and shot him. He is then charged with assault. He again speaks no English. So he had no idea what was going on.

He had no idea where he was or what these officers were ordering him to do. So once he is, you know, on the ground with these officers, he does bite them at one point. and he gets charged with assault. He is taken to the jail, and at that time, the attorneys and the family agree that if he was bailed out at that point in time, ICE would take custody of him and he might get disappeared into the ICE detention system in the United States or possibly even deported to a country that he was not familiar with. Dale, we just have 30 seconds, your final words. Yeah, so instead of letting him get bailed out, they let him sit there. earlier this year, and that is when the issue with Border Patrol happens. They pick him up with no notice, no warning, and they drop him at the coffee shop. And his family reported him missing,

and the next thing they knew, he was found dead in the cold. Jay Dale Shoemaker, I want to thank you for being with us, reporter for investigative post. We'll link to your piece, headline Blind Refugee Abandoned by Border Patrol is dead. Dale attended Newell Amin Shah. Alam's funeral on Thursday. This is Democracy Now, DemocacyNow.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. We spend the rest of the hour with former Democratic Congresswoman

for Missouri and current candidate for Congress, Corey Bush, first elected to the U.S. House in 2020 to represent St. Louis in the surrounding areas. It represents St. Louis and Ferguson. Cory Bush is seeking to reclaim her former congressional seat after losing to

her opponent, Congress member, Wesley Bell in a heated Democratic primary in 2024. The Super PAC affiliated with APEC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent worth of $8 million to unseat Congressmember Bush over her criticism of Israel's war on Gaza. When she was first elected to Congress in 2020, she was a single mom and a nurse. She was also formerly unhoused in the 2014-Fergison uprising over the police killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown. She joins us now in our New York. York City Studio. Welcome to Democracy Now. So you lost your seat in Congress, but you're aiming to take it back. Why? What do you feel needs to happen right now? Well, first of all, I believe that

the seat was stolen, you know, and stolen in what I mean by that is the people of St. Louis did not make the decision based upon truth on what they believe would be, you know, someone else coming in that was going to do a better job, get things done quicker. They made the decision to elect someone else based on lies, deceit. A bunch of ads in a total of 15 million, including APAC and their affiliates and their allies. $15 million spent on the airwaves spent on radio, internet, saying that Cory Bush, you know, she's basically mean to Joe Biden. He's not a real Democrat, you know, just spewing lies and misinformation. And there was just so much, $15 million in the St. Louis media market.

It's just, it was really heavy. But the thing is, I was doing the work for my community. I was doing the work for the district. I was doing the work for this country. And I was doing exactly what I said that I would do when I was running, even before I started running. I was championing the Equal Rights Amendment, championing houselessness. and, you know, and livable wage, Medicare for All and so many other areas, championing reparations

and actually showing up for my community. The thing is this, I was a fighter in Congress before it was, before it was, you know, cool again, I'll say, you know, a fighter where people felt like, well, Corey Bush, you know, you're just a little too aggressive, you know, why would you camp out on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, you know, to get an extension of the eviction moratorium in 2021? Don't you know that's undignified to camp out. But to me, what was undignified was allowing 11 million people to become unhoused during a deadly pandemic when we just needed, you know, we needed more results from our federal government. 7,000 of those people in my district.

So I'm running again because the person in the seat is not, he's not meeting the moment. And he's someone that was basically placed there to quiet Cory Bush, placed there to stop a movement, placed there because they didn't want someone speaking out for the people of Palestine, speaking out for human rights and civil rights. They didn't want someone who was coming against Project 2025. They didn't want that loud voice. But that's what they're about to get again. Also, a report by Axios says that the autopsy by the Democratic National Committee on the 2024 that has not yet been released concluded that Kamala Harris lost significant support because of the administration's policy on Gaza?

Is the Democratic Party heading in the same direction again? I would hope not. I hope they're listening. And even though that autopsy has not, you know, really been released, but for us to have the information that we do have, we have to listen. You know, I think back to when Biden, President Biden was running in 2020, and we were in a pandemic, but people showed out in huge numbers because we were already, millions of people were hitting the streets after the, the, the, the, the, the,

murder of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor and so many others, people were hitting the streets and we were looking for someone that would at least, at least be, you know, amenable to what we, what we wanted to see as far as police accountability. And so we showed up to support that candidate. And that was Joe Biden. Right now, what people have to see is people sat out in 2024, but people sat it out saying, hey, listen to us and they didn't feel heard and they weren't hurt. So now, pay attention. Listen now, and don't blame it on the people when one or two other people could have made a different decision. Interesting, you're here in New York as Mayor Mandani just met with President Trump again yesterday talking about housing, an issue that you were one of the

major proponents of when you were in Congress. Cori Bush, former Democratic Congresswoman from Missouri, hopes to take her seat again, first elected in 2020. This is Democracy Now. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez for another edition of Democracy Now.