Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-03-18 Wednesday

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

Democracy Now! Wednesday, March 18, 2026

From New York, this is Democracy Now. Our warfighters are leveraging a variety of advanced AI tools. These systems help us sift through vast amounts of data in seconds so our leaders can cut through the noise and make smarter decisions faster than the enemy can react. As the U.S. and Israeli war in Iran enters its 19th day, we look at how the U.S. is using artificial intelligence to identify and prioritize targets, using a system created by Palantir. This possibly includes the strike on the Iranian Girl School that killed over 170, mostly girls.

It comes amidst a legal battle between the Pentagon and the AI firm Anthropic, which opposes its models being used for mass surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons. We'll get the latest. Then the highest Trump administration official yet, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center has resigned over the war in Iran, magnifying a rift within the MAGA movement over the war. Plus, we look at the Trump administration's escalating attacks on the media. President Trump says some news outlets should be charged with treason. Treason is punishable by death. FCC chair Brendan Carr is threatening to revoke the licenses of broadcasters and defense secretary Pete Hegs that's pushing for Trump allies to take over more of the media.

CNN doesn't think we thought of that. It's a fundamentally unsurious report. The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now. Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Israel says it's killed Iran's intelligence minister, Ismail Khad, in a strike overnight in Tehran. It's the latest assassination of Iran's senior leadership. This comes as Iran is set to hold funerals today for its security chief, Ali

Larajani, and besiege commander Golam Reza Soleimani, both of whom were also killed in an Israeli strike on Tuesday. Iran vowed revenge and launched retaliatory strikes against Israel. Two people were killed near Tel Aviv by an Iranian missile strike, Israeli emergency responders said earlier today. On Tuesday, the U.S. dropped 5,000-pound bunker buster bombs along Iran's coast near the Strait of Hormuz to target Iran's anti-ship cruise missiles. It comes as Joe Kent, the director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center resigned Tuesday over the U.S. Israeli war on Iran. In a letter to President Trump posted on X, Kent wrote, quote, Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it's clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful

American lobby, unquote. Kent is the first senior official to openly break with the White House over the war on Iran. He's a long-time Trump supporter who unsuccessfully ran for Congress twice. During his 2022 election bid, Kent hired a member of the far-right proud boys as a consultant. Meanwhile, top intelligence officials are expected to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee later today. It comes as senior Israeli officials have told U.S. diplomats, Iranian protesters will, quote, get slaughtered, unquote, if they demonstrate against. their government, even as Israel has been promoting anti-regime protests. That's according to a State Department cable reviewed by the Washington Post.

Iran's Ministry of Health says at least 1,44 people have been killed and nearly 19,000 injured in U.S. Israeli attacks on Iran since February 28th. This is a worker with the Iranian Red Crescent. During the operations of the imposed war from the U.S. and Israel against my country, the Islamic state of Iran, we have seen many heartbreaking scenes. Unfortunately, we have witnessed killing and injuring many of our civilian citizens that happened during the attacks to residential places at night or during other times and created tragic scenes.

Iran continues to launch retaliatory strikes against its neighbors in the region. In Iraq, Iranian rocket attacks have targeted the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and a drone sparked a fire at a luxury hotel in Baghdad's heavily fortified green zone. In the UAE, an Iranian projectile landed near a military base that hosts Australian troops. Several Gulf nations, including Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates said they're continuing to intercept Iranian missiles and drones. On Monday, Iran launched almost 100 drones at Saudi Arabia, according to the Saudi Defense Ministry. Israel launched airstrikes on Central Beirut earlier today, demolishing a residential high-rise building. The Israeli military issued an evacuation warning for the building in central Beirut, saying it was a facility used by Hezbollah. Meanwhile, in southern Lebanon, Israeli troops have been conducting ground operations ordering the evacuation

of several villages. According to the Lebanese public health ministry, at least 912 people, including 111 children, have been killed and 2,21 people have been wounded in Lebanon's assault on, and Israel's assault on Lebanon. The Norwegian Refugee Council said one million people, about a sixth of Lebanon's population, have been displaced. This is Tamin al-Hitan, a spokesperson for the U.S. UN Commissioner for Human Rights.

In many instances, Israeli airstrikes have destroyed entire residential buildings in dense urban environments with multiple members of the same family, including women and children, often killed together. Such attacks raise concerns under international humanitarian law. Iran's parliament speaker, Mohamed Farah Ghalabath, issued a stark warning about the the Strait of Hormuz, saying in a post on X that the straight, quote, won't return to its pre-war status, unquote. This comes as President Trump blasted NATO members as they informed the U.S., they will not get involved in Trump's coalition to reopen the strait. In a post on X, President Trump, wrote, quote, I'm not surprised by their action, however, because I always considered NATO, where we spend hundreds of billions of dollars per year protecting these same countries,

to be a one-way street. We'll protect them, but they will do nothing for us in particular in a time of need, Trump said. This is French President, Emmanuel Macron. We are not party to the conflict, and therefore France will never take part in operations to open or liberate the strait of Ramos in the current context. Gas prices in the U.S. continue to increase, as Iran has effectively blocked the strait of Hormuz. which sees the passage of about 20% of the world's oil supply. According to AAA, the national average price for gas reached $3.84 a gallon Wednesday, rising $5.00 a day.

Overall, gas prices have jumped 29% since the war began. This comes as the U.N. warms 45 million people around the world are at risk of acute hunger due to rising food prices sparked by the U.N. warms. U.S. Israeli war in Iran. Here in the United States, Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, are set to testify before the House Oversight Committee on the Justice Department's handling of the Epstein files later today. Committee Chair James Comer subpoenaed Bondi yesterday, writing in a letter, quote, As Attorney General, you are directly responsible for overseeing the department's

collection, review, and determinations regarding the release of files pursuant to the Epstein Files Transparency Act. And the committee therefore believes that you possess valuable insight into these efforts, Comer wrote. Meanwhile, a New York Times review of thousands of pages of Justice Department documents found the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein spent heavily on a rotating team of search engine optimization experts, self-described hackers and content writers to reshape how Epstein appeared on Google and Wikipedia after his 2008 sex crimes conviction. Senate Democrats late Tuesday sent the White House a new counteroffer to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which has been under a partial shutdown,

for more than a month. The Trump administration has so far ignored demands from Democrats, such as requiring officers to obtain a judicial warrant to enter private homes, and to address the excessive use of force by immigration agents. Earlier Tuesday, the administration signaled it's open to enforcing, quote, the use of visible officer identification, though Trump officials have not conceded to prohibiting officers from wearing face coverings. This comes as Trump's Homeland Security Secretary nominee, Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, is set to appear before a Senate committee today as his confirmation process begins. Trump appointed Mullen to replace Christine Nome, who was fired from the position

as head of Department of Homeland Security earlier this month. Several immigrants from El Salvador who were deported by the Trump administration last year have been disappeared and subjected to arborary detention in their home country. That's according to a new report by Human Rights Watch, which said at least 11 deported Salvadorans have languished in detention for months since being deported from the United States to El Salvador. They have not been allowed to communicate with their families or provide a due process. Some of them were deported last March, along with dozens of Venezuelans, and sent to the troubled Secaut megaprizen in El Salvador, where there are mounting reports of torture, including sexual violence. A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from terminating temporary protected status, that's TPS, for immigration. immigrants from Somalia. The judge's emergency order came as the relief was slated to end yesterday. The Council on American Islamic Relations Cares Minnesota chapter said in a statement,

quote, this decision brings a critical moment of relief for Somali families across Minnesota and the country who've been living under the weight of uncertainty, unquote. Minnesota is home to one of the largest Somali population. in the United States. The Trump administration is considering withholding HIV treatment, tuberculosis, and malaria medications from Zambia in order to force the country to open its minds to U.S. companies. That's according to a leaked State Department memo obtained by the New York Times. The memo says, quote, we will only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to

publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale, unquote. The proposed deal would offer Zambia $1 billion in health funding over five years, which is less than half of what the country received before President Trump took office. In return, Zambia would need to grant U.S. companies access to its copper, cobalt, and lithium reserves and agreed to restructure a nearly half-billion. dollar agricultural grant to require regulatory changes in its mining sector. About 1.3 million people in Zambia rely on daily HIV treatment provided through U.S. aid programs. Cuba's restored power. After a 29-hour island-wide blackout left millions of people without

electricity. Cuban energy officials said they'd reconnected the national power grid that had completely collapsed Monday. But blackouts are expected to continue. A U.S. energy blockade is cut off Cuba from accessing desperately needed fuel as the Trump administration intensifies its pressure to topple the Cuban government. The Justice Department's dismiss charges against an army veteran who set a U.S. flag on fire across the street from the White House last year. The protest held by Jan J. Carrie came in response to a Trump-exam.

executive order that mandated federal agencies to vigorously prosecute anyone who burns the U.S. flag. Carrie was not charged with flag burning, but faced two misdemeanors, including for igniting a fire in an undesignated area. A 1989 Supreme Court ruling determined the burning of the U.S. flag as protected speech under the First Amendment. A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to restore a union contract with 320,000 Veterans Affairs Department workers. This comes after Doug Collins, the VA secretary, canceled the union agreement back in August. U.S. District Judge Melissa DeBose agreed with the American Federation of Government employees that the VA canceled its bargaining agreement as retaliation for the union's opposition to the Trump administration's labor policies.

Everett Kelly, the president of the American Federation of Government employees, said the ruling, quote, holds this administration accountable and makes clear, no one can retaliate against workers for standing up for their rights, unquote. And in Illinois, Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton, won Tuesday's Democratic Senate primary in a race to succeed Senator Dick Durbin, who's retiring. Al Jazeera and the Intercept reported dozens of donor groups aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, known as APEC, gave money to Stratton's campaign. If elected in November, Stratton could become the sixth black woman to serve in the Senate in U.S. history. Meanwhile, Evanston Mayor, Daniel Biss, won the Democratic primary in a closely watched race for a U.S. House seat that's not been vacant for nearly three decades.

More than a dozen Democrats ran to succeed the retiring Congress member, John Chikowsky, who's been in office since 1999. Progressive candidate, Kat, Ubegazila, finished second. Groups linked to Apex spent millions of dollars attacking both her and BIS. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. As the U.S. and Israeli war extends into its 19th day, we turn now to look at how the U.S. is using artificial intelligence to identify and prioritize targets.

The system, known as Project Maven, was created by Palantir, and it incorporates the AI model clawed built by Anthropic. The Pentagon's investigating if the AI system played a role in the U.S. strike on the Iranian girls' school, that killed over 170 people, mostly girls. This is Sentcom Commander Admiral Brad Cooper talking about the use of AI in Iran. Our warfighters are leveraging a variety of advanced AI tools. These systems help us sift through vast amounts of data in seconds so our leaders can cut through the noise and make smarter decisions faster than the enemy can react. humans will always make final decisions on what to shoot and what not to shoot and when to shoot, but advanced AI tools can turn processes that used to take hours and sometimes even days into seconds.

Israel's used similar AI targeting programs in Iran as well as in Gaza and Lebanon. The Pentagon also reportedly used the AI tools during the recent military attack on Venezuela. when U.S. Special Forces abducted the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Silya Flores. This comes as a major rift has emerged between Anthropic and the Pentagon, after Anthropic moved to restrict the use of its technology for mass surveillance of Americans and for fully autonomous weapons. In late February, President Trump ordered federal agencies to stop using Anthropical. products. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared the firm a supply chain risk, effectively

cutting it off from government contracts and related work. It marked the first time the Pentagon's designated a U.S. company as a supply chain risk prompting anthropic to sue. On Tuesday, CNN reported that nearly 150 retired federal and state judges have filed an amicus spree supporting Anthropic and its lawsuit against the Trump administration. We're joined now by Craig Jones, senior lecturer in political geography at Newcastle University, author of The War Lawyers, the United States, Israel, and Juridical Warfare. He's the co-author of a new article in the conversation headlined, Iran War shows how AI speeds up military kill chains.

Why don't we start there, Professor Johnson. rounds. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, the U.S. military, the Israeli military, as your headlines have said, using AI. The kill chain is a, is a bureaucratic mechanism whereby militaries go from trying to designate targets to identify enemies and military targets to the process of actually killing them. They're in the process across the 20th century, early 21st century of speeding that process up. Military drones have helped greatly with that. And the latest front of that is AI. As Bradley Cooper talked about, you're reducing a massive human workload of tens of thousands of hours into seconds and minutes. You're reducing workflows and you're automating human-made targeting decisions in ways in which I think, you know, open up all kinds of problematic, legal, ethical and political questions. The U.S. Israel War and Iran is being described as the first AI war. Explain what that means, Craig. Yeah, I would say it's not quite the first AI war. As you mentioned, Israel has used AI in Gaza.

I think this was the first major use of AI in warfare. I think actually the history goes back a little longer with computer programs, with partially enabled with AI have been used in the background of military systems for several years now. It was used in a major way in Gaza in the first few months where we saw tens of thousands, of targets put in a target bank opted by military intelligence, up to 35,000 suspected Hamas combatants found themselves on this list, as Israel worked through that to assassinate them, as well as tens of thousands of targets that are ultimately part of a civilian infrastructure. As you said, the US has used it with Maduro, and now Israel and the US also using these systems in Iran.

The key innovation here is twofold. It is the use of AI for intelligence analysis. Intelligence, military intelligence is multi-format. There is so much of it at Hoover's up, what they call signals intelligence, so mobile phones, internet traffic, SMS, mobile phone tracking, all kinds of things. And the AI systems are being used to spot what military is called patterns of life. You know, who meets with who, who talks with who, what are the nature of the messages. is how are they interacting in ways which are deemed suspicious?

And AI systems look for those patterns and make recommendations, which is the second innovation for targets. They nominate targets to this bank of targets, which then has, which we can talk about, some technical human oversight. And that's problematic, I think. It's problematic because that's a really persuasive technology. It's nominating hundreds, thousands of targets, potentially a day, and it's working at speeds, which are just beyond, you know, the evolution of human cognition in, again, ways that are

problematic. Can you explain? I mean, this is being investigated by everyone, including the U.S. government and the Pentagon, how Palantir was used, it's believed, in the first strikes, the first day of the U.S. Israeli war on Iran, may have been involved in the targeting, of a girl's school in southern Iran using the tools of Palantir and Claude, which is a property of Anthropic. Yeah, so this strike on the girls' school is at the moment the leading kind of civilian casualty incident in which around, as you've said, 170 mainly girls were killed, innocent civilians.

At the start, we should remember that some of the history of this, it was, it was, it was, denied by the U.S. military. Trump insinuated in one point that it was an Iranian missile. It was later verified that it was indeed a U.S. series of Tomahawk missiles that struck this area. And a U.S. preliminary investigation has now found and confirmed indeed what many people thought, which was that U.S. is responsible. It looks, we're not yet clear the role of AI in that particular strike, whether that becomes clear in the coming days and weeks, we'll have to see. What we do know is that the Claude, an anthropic model by Palantir, have been extensively used to do several things,

including the intelligence analysis. So we can deduce that that AI system is not yet capable of detecting or is at least open to making system-wide errors. It did not identify the school as a school. in an extremely problematic way in which within a couple of days, organizations such as the New York Times are able to verify via satellite imagery that there is a wall that's been put up around 13 years ago between the school and an IRGC compound that was nearby.

If you'd have been watching drone footage from above, as militaries have the capability of due, just for half an hour before or a few hours before, you would have seen that morning 170 girls dropped off by their parents. And that would have been identified as a non-military target with clearly civilian usage. But let's get – let's drill down into this because, yes, there was this military facility right next to it. As you described, years ago, a war was built between the two. So you've got the school very clearly identified.

But how does AI work where you have this old, what, 10-year-old perhaps? information about it being a military base that's fed in. And then it is never updated. Where do human beings come in to this? Yeah, this is a really important question where it gets tricky, but we know a lot already. So it looks like it's just an intelligence failure that an area marked on a map, this is, you know, the whole entire area has been marked as a military compound. There is obligations, you know, legal obligations and ethical obligations and just political

obligations within defense intelligence agencies to check this. So what happens is some of these targets are nominated from U.S. military bases back in the United States. Some of those people I've worked with over the last several years on what they call target nomination, what it looks like. They hand that over to CENTCOM, who I know you cover, and they have bases in the Middle East. There's a central one based in Qatar where these targeting decisions are executed. There is an obligation for CENTCOM to check and double check that intelligence that it's up to date. that everything's kosher on the target. It's clear that that was not done,

whether that was, you know, there should be a human oversight of that, even if it's AI, you know, recommended, or even if it's human recommended, there should be some human intelligence checking. It looks like, for whatever reason, and we don't yet know why. So what happens also is a really interesting technicality

is everything in a society that the US military is targeting, de facto is labeled on a no-strike, list because everything is assumed to be civilian. And in order to strike it, you need to put it, get it off the no strike list to be able to target it. So the question here is, why was this school taken off a no strike list deemed a legitimate military target? It's, it looks like a combination of AI and human intelligence failure to produce something. And talk about how Palantir interacts with Claude, which is owned by Anthropic. especially for the Luddites who are listening all over.

For people don't quite understand how this all works. So, yeah, from what we know, you know, Palantir is a system, much like a deep software system that, you know, like a video game, that has all kinds of inputs that you can look at targets, you have all kinds of variables, like, you know, what size missile should we drop, what is the compound that we're looking at, what's it made out of, all these variables with intelligence overlays.

And in the same way that software works on a computer is the clawed is that thing which is in the background, which is kind of doing the processing of that data, making those recommendations. And then it provides the human, some parameters that the human or operator or targeteer can then kind of play with. Obviously, it's highly sensitive and secretive and beyond the very few people using it, you know, the designers, even with Anthropic, would be a very small amount of people who have the intelligence clearance and who've seen this stuff working with sensitive military data. We know from some of the things they've released, like the demos that they've

released, we can see some of what that looks like. And one of the most worrying developments that I've seen in from what's publicly available is the lack of attention and ability to track civilian casualties within those programs. That's something which we've seen, you know, this war on lawyers and war on civilian casualty harm, you know, that the administration's built for several years in the U.S. Department of Defense has been eroded by the Trump administration. And you actually see that now programs into the software. This is Palantir CEO Alex Karp interviewed on CNBC last week. These technologies are dangerous societally. The only justification you could possibly have would be

that if we don't do it, our adversaries and will do it, and we will be subject to their rule of law. So if you decouple this from the support of the military, you're going to have an enormous problem explaining to the American people. Why is it that we're absorbing the risk of disrupting the very fabric of our society, including the most powerful parts of our society, if it's not because it's about maintaining our ability to be American in the near term and long term. Craig Jones, if you can respond to the CEO of Palantir. Palantir has a long history of making serious tens of millions, billions of profit from what ultimately I see as killing people in faraway lands that are too easy not to care about. I think this latest endeavor is as we've kind of started this AI arms race, it's been good to see at least Anthropic,

you know, throw the hands up and say, we want some ethical parameters put on that. But even that, which seems to be, you know, and meanwhile, as that whole controversy has been preying out, as you've covered with the Trump administration, we see Sam Altman from Open AI rush in and take the contract that Anthropic has ultimately dropped. Huge profits.

There are huge, the DOD is a, Department of War's a huge customer for, many Silicon Valley firms. We've seen Microsoft use their platforms for the Israeli targeting. Apparently Microsoft are looking into that. We see Google AI analytics also used for Palantir and for US DoD contracts. This is huge money. And I think, you know, should the Silicon Valley community wake up to ultimately the consequences of the technologies which they're working on and see their effects on the ground, which is where I work with the people who have lost entire families who've had their homes destroyed, who've been displaced, who have, you know, had their

legs blown off. There's this real disconnect between those tens of billions being made for profits of war and those people who suffer its consequences. This is Open AI CEO Sam Altman, who you mentioned, speaking at the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi in February. We don't yet know how to think about some superintelligence being aligned with dictators in totalitarian countries. We don't know how to think about countries using AI to fight new kinds of war with each other. We don't know how to think about when and whether countries are going to have to think about new forms of social contracts. But we think it's important to have more understanding and society-wide debate before we're all surprised. So that's Sam Altman of Open AI. And just

quoting the Pentagon Secretary, Trump calls him the War Secretary, the Defense Secretary, the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth at a briefing in the last days. Unlike so many of our traditional allies who wring their hands and clutch their pearls, hemming and hawing about the use of force, America, regardless of what international institutions say, is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history, B-2s, fighters, drones, missiles, and, of course, classified effects, all on our terms with maximum authorities. no stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy-building exercise, no politically correct wars. Craig Jones. Those are two jarring statements. Sam Altman's, you know, ideas,

I think in what he said, he's right. We don't know about this. We don't know about that, what the future holds. My view would be that because we don't know of the potential dangers, risks, and damages that these technologies brings, we should pause as societies, as companies, as nations, as leaders, to have a serious conversation about what kind of AI future we want, whether this is a world that we want to build. Meanwhile, Heskef, the Department of War, in January, released a statement, a whole program actually called the AI Warfare Fighter Strategy,

which some of the quote that you've just read comes from. And it talks about maximum lethality, as you say, out with the rules of engagement. This is a deliberate sidelineing of the checks and balance. accountability for war, the firing of military lawyers, who are the community that I've worked with, they give legal advice to militaries, and just going ahead with it and saying, Heskev saying explicitly, you know, just because we don't know how these technologies work, we need this first move of advantage. And it's that classic move fast and break things. And, you know, we don't care about the consequences.

These are really worrying times and developments. You've referred to the war lawyer several times since the title of your book. Explain what you mean and how they've been fired and sidelined. So these military lawyers have been, you know, fighting alongside militaries for centuries. In fact, the U.S. corpse is the oldest law firm in America. And they do all kinds of things. But the thing that I've been interested in is they're giving advice to military commanders

and decision makers for operations. So any time a single target is struck in the last couple of decades, you would have a military lawyer present, looking at things, doing what's called a proportionality calculation. So, okay, here's the military target. What's the risk of civilians? Should we go ahead? Should we pause?

Are there certain measures we can take to avoid civilian casualties? And a host of other considerations. You know, one would be the girls' school. Is this a legitimate target or is this indeed a girl's school? So that's military necessity. And, you know, they've had a long history. And I worked with them. These are professional, serious people, educated at the best law school throughout America.

They're also soldiers. Israel has its own version of them. And they've done credible work with militaries. And the Trump administration, one of the first acts that he does after he swaned in his second term, is to fire the heads of those legal units. So, you know, the Navy, the Army, the Air Force, each have their own heads. He fired them and then further down the round. he fired and replaced them with yes men.

And beyond the firing and replacing, we are hearing from reporting and from some of my own contacts that the military lawyers are either just not being listened to when they raise objections or, you know, they're becoming silent in these war rooms where these decisions are made. Because much like in the Trump administration, where his, you know, civilian and his advisors are around him, unless you say yes and go along with it,

you're simply not welcome there and you'll either be fired or not listened to. And so again, you know, seriously worrying, especially when you put that alongside this simultaneous war on all these civilian casualty initiatives. So there was something called the Centre of Excellence, which was to do with civilian protection. It's been a decade in the making. Lots of senior people in the US administrations from Obama to Biden through Trump, term one. I've been involved in that. And Trump, you know, presses control, delete on day one and gets rid of the civilian center because they're not interested in avoiding. civilian casualties, which feels like we're hearkening back to Vietnam or something.

Finally, Craig Jones, we just have a minute. But if you can explain this rift between Anthropic and the Pentagon, Anthropics saying its company could not be used for mass surveillance of Americans and for fully autonomous weapons. And then the Trump administration retaliating after they sued President Trump ordering federal agencies to stop using Anthropic products. Pete Hegseth declaring the firm a supply chain risk. But then we hear that Claude, owned by Anthropic, is possibly used by Palantir in targeting this girls' school that killed well over 100 girls.

Yeah, there's lots to say here. One is that, you know, that seems like a disproportionate act when a military, when a company just exercises its right to disagree with what the government is doing. And, you know, I think the CEO at the time said, you know, disagreeing with the government is American as American pie. But the other thing is that this is infrastructure. I think some people think, you know, AI is just a tool. You know, it's something on your desk or it's something in the background. You just press delete.

It's infrastructure that's embedded in the entire, you know, intelligence apparatus. And therefore, you can't just delete it. So hence why it's still used, hence why it might take up to six months to try and get some of clawed products out of the software. The other thing is, you know, it was good to see that ethical objection. It seems like the only, you know, moral stance which has been taken on these conversations in the AI War is certainly in Silicon Valley. I would just object to their objection on two principles.

They're against mass surveillance of US citizens only. They say nothing about citizens around the world. And partly their objection to its youth for lethality is a technical rather than moral objection is to say right now the algorithms are not quite good enough because they have this error rate, but they're not necessarily saying that they wouldn't go along with its use later on. So it's not that they're against lethality and killing per se, but that just technically the algorithms are not quite ready and so they wanted to press pause. So there's lots to say about that. But it is a disproportionate act and response by the Trump administration, I think.

Craig Jones, want to thank you for being with us, senior lecture on political geography at Newcastle University, joining us from the UK, the author of The War Lawyers, the United States, Israel and Juridical Warfare, expert on modern warfare and aerial targeting, currently leading a research project on civilian casualties and war-related injury in Gaza and Iraq. We'll link to your piece in the conversation. Iran war shows how AI speeds up military kill chains. Coming up, the director of the National Counterterrorism Centers resigned over the war in Iran, magnifying a rift within the MAGA movement over the war. Stay with us. I don't want to play this game no more. The world is changing. See the end or near. It's a life of chaos and an age of fear.

Is this the price we pay? Is this the price we pay? Welcome to the New World. This is Democracy Now. This is Democracy Now.org, the war in peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran pose no imminent threat to our nation.

And it's clear we started this war due to pressure from Israel. and its powerful American lobby, unquote. Those are the words of Joe Kent, who resigned Tuesday as a director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center. Kent's the highest-ranking Trump official to resign over the Iran war. His resignation exposes a growing rift

within the MAGA movement over Trump's farm policy. Kent served in the Army's special forces and as a CIA paramilitary officer twice ran for Congress and lost. As a candidate, Kent faced war. widespread scrutiny for his ties to the far right, including Nick Fuentes, who once said Hitler was awesome. Hitler was right, unquote. Kent had acknowledged Fuentes took part in a call to help him broaden his campaign's social media outreach. During his 2022 election bid for Congress,

Kent hired a member of the far right proud boys as a consultant. Kent has also accused the FBI of orchestrating the January 6th insurrection. Last year, President Trump selected Kent to head the National Counterterrorism Center. The Senate confirmed him last July. The Southern Poverty Law Center had urged senators to reject Kent, citing what they called his associations with white nationalists, violent groups, and anti-democracy actors, unquote. On Tuesday, President Trump was questioned about Joe Kent's resignation. of national counterterrorism, Joe Kent, he just resigned today. He said he can't support your conflict with Iran. What's your reaction to that? And did you tell you? Well, I read his statement.

I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security. I didn't know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy. But when I read a statement, I realized that it's a good thing that he's out because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat. Every country realized what a threat Iran was. The question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it. To talk more about Joe Kent's resignation from his position, his director of National Counterterrorism Center would join by another former government official who resigned over another war. Josh Paul, former State Department official who worked on arms deals. He resigned in 2023 to protest the push to increase arm sales to Israel amidst its assault on Gaza. Now, Josh Paul is director at a new policy, the lobbying organization he co-founded with fellow resignee, Tara Kabash, to press for a change in U.S. policy on Palestine and Israel. Josh, welcome back to democracy.

Now, talk about the significant of Joe Kent's resignation, the highest Trump administration official to quit so far. Thank you, Amy. Good to join you. So I think it is a significant resignation in several ways. First of all, of course, on its face, you have here a very senior U.S. intelligence official who is resigning and saying essentially that the United States is at war, but we are not at war to support our own national interests. We are at war because we have been pushed to do so by a partner country, specifically by Israel. Of course, in saying that, he is not saying anything

that Secretary Marco Rubio, Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not himself say just days into this conflict. The difference is that Kent, and here perhaps his background as a military operator on the ground in special forces for covert operations, you know, coming into the D.C. political scene, I think, you know, probably pretty strongly objects to, given his own experience, and of course, the loss of his own wife in a terrorist attack in 2018. The second important thing here is that Kent is, by my count, the 16th U.S. official in the last three years to resign over the U.S.-Israel relationship. That is a trend that now spans both the Biden and Trump administrations. Of course, Kent is the first to resign from the Trump administration and the

most senior to resign from either administration. I think a third important factor here is the insight this gives us into the debate that is happening within the MAGA movement when it comes to the U.S.-Israel relationship. We know that there is a very visible, very vocal debate happening in the Democratic Party on that topic. It is clear that there is also a very vocal debate happening within the right wing of American politics. It is just less visible, and that's due to a number of factors, including, of course, President Trump's management of the political party that is the Republican Party. But I think what we see here is this really coming to the and perhaps a leading indicator of further breaks and shifts within the party on this issue to follow.

This is Joe Kent speaking in 2024 about U.S. policy towards Iran. We have to stop making ourselves easy targets in the region. Our presence in the region actually makes us much, much more in an unsafe condition, and it gives Iran the ability to access us in a very, very easy way. Deprive Iran of targets, deprive Iran of funding. strengthening, strengthen the Abraham Accords, let Israel take care of their own business. Your response, Josh Powell. So Jo Kent certainly knows the threat that Iran posed to U.S. forces when they are in the Middle East, having been awarded the bronze staff several times, including for actions in Iraq.

I think his point here is that this is, again, you know, whatever threat Iran may pose within the region, it is not a threat to the United States. And the reason that we are currently engaged in this is in great part. because of our presence in the region that is there to protect Israel, in many cases from the consequences of its own actions, and we see that most vividly here. I think it is very clear that we would not be in this conflict if it would not for that presence, if it were not for that relationship. And I think at the end of the day, U.S. national security officials, intelligence officials, are there to put America's interests first. It's interesting how the MAGA movement, the House Speaker, has just changed the

rationale for attacking Iran saying that this attack on Iran avoided a mass casualty event. And the question of whether this could provoke attacks on U.S. soil. It's interesting that Kent, this is in Mother Jones magazine, Trump's pick for counterterrorism, called for arresting BLM leaders as terrorists, who they were focusing on people like Kent. He said, we need to treat Antifa and BLM like terrorist organizations. we need to use the tools of the federal government, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals, go after them like organized criminals and terrorists. This is how he spoke when Trump was supporting him. And of course, you have Tulsi Gabbard, who is head of national intelligence, and instead she is spending

her time looking at how Trump actually won the election, currying favor with Trump. And she was down in Georgia when they were taking something like 700 boxes from the Georgia election office. Yes, and, I mean, let's be clear, Joe Kent is very much within the core sort of of the MAGA movement. At the same time as the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, and prior to that as Chief of Staff for the Director of National Intelligence, he and the NCC have provided core support to the FBI's so-called 10-7 or post-October 7th Task Force, of course, engaged regularly in two-way intelligence sharing with Israel. and you heard his previous comments when it comes to advancing Israel's

interest in the region and enabling Israel to take that leadership on its own behalf rather than the US exercising that leadership for it at cost to our own equities. So I think that there are a number of factors here. At the end of the day, I think what's clear

is that Kent is someone who has, you know, I think was at the top of his career here, was only in the job for a year. I don't think went into that job with an intention of leadership. it, but at the end of the day, saw the dreadful impact that we see now on the global economy, on the U.S. economy, on U.S. interests of this war that Prime Minister Nuss Nizhnyahu has dragged us into and felt he had to stand up and speak.

You're the former director at the Bureau of Political Military Affairs in the State Department where you worked for 11 years. Josh Paul, as we wrap up, what do you think Congress can do at this point? There is a lot of criticism, of course, of Congress members and senators of what Trump is doing with Iran right now, dropping these bunker buster bombs, for example, today. But what actually can they do? So what they can do, of course, is much more than what they will do. What they can do is, of course, exercise their oversight.

At some point in the coming weeks, there is going to be a very important vote when the administration comes forward with a funding request for the Iran war. If members of Congress mean what they say about not wanting to support this war and not believing we should be part of it, they should vote against that funding. So I think there are a number of steps Congress can take. There are also, I should note, emergency arms sales that the administration has put through in the last couple of weeks for Israel, some of which are coming out of U.S. stockpiles. Again, if members of Congress are serious about protecting U.S. military global leadership, then they should be voting against those sales that are coming out of critically needed. U.S. stock. So there are a number of things Congress can do. I think the question remains to be seen of whether they will do those things. Josh Paul, veteran state department official, resigned in 2023 to protest the push to increase arms sales to Israel amidst its assault on Gaza,

now director at a new policy lobbying group. He co-founded with a fellow resignate to press for a change in U.S. policy on Palestine, Israel. Coming up, we look at the Trump administration's escalating attacks on the press. As President Trump threatens to charge journalists news outlets with treason, treason is punishable by death. Stay with us. What still remains by Sebastian Swadsky. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org.

I'm Amy Goodman. The Trump administration's escalating threats against media outlets. In a post-Sunday, President Trump said, news organization should face treason charges for disseminating false information. FCC chair Brendan Carr has also threatened to revoke broadcasters licenses over their coverage of the U.S. Israeli war in Iran. Carr wrote online, quote, broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions, also known as the fake news, have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up, unquote.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut blasted cars, saying, this is the federal government telling news stations to provide favorable coverage of the war or their licenses will be pulled. A truly extraordinary moment. We aren't on the verge of a totalitarian takeover. We're in the middle of it, Senator Murphy said. This all comes as allies of President Trump consolidate their control over several major media outlets, Paramount Skydance, poised to acquire. Warner Brothers Discovery, which includes CNN and HBO. Paramount CEO is David Ellison, the son of Larry Ellison, a close Trump ally. Last week, Defense Secretary Pete Higgseth made this comment about CNN.

Or more fake news from CNN reports that the Trump administration underestimated the Iran war's impact on the Strait of Hormuz. patently ridiculous, of course. For decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the strait of Hormuz. This is always what they do, hold the straight hostage. CNN doesn't think we thought of that. It's a fundamentally unsurious report. The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better. At the Oscars Sunday, late-night host, Jimmy Kimmel, made this remark about CBS, which is now owned by parents.

amount. We hear a lot about courage at shows like this, but telling a story that could get you killed for telling it is real courage. As you know, there are some countries whose leaders don't support free speech. I'm not at liberty to say which. Let's just leave it at North Korea and CBS. We're joined now by Craig Aaron, co-CEO of Free Press and Free Press Action, not to be confused with Barry Weiss's The Free Press, which is now owned.

by Paramount and she's head of CBS News. His news article, his news article, is headlined, Warmongers Come for the Media. Craig, talk about the significance of this moment. Senator Murphy says, we're not on the precipice or the edge of totalitarianism. We're in the midst of it. Thank you, Amy. Yeah, this is a very clear abuse of power.

The idea that the chairman of the FCC would be, you know, threatening broadcasters with losing licenses for not echoing Trump administration propaganda. The idea that the defense secretary is out there cheering on a mega merger so that Trump cronies can be put in charge of the media to get more favorable coverage. This, we really haven't seen anything like this in recent memory. And it has been going on throughout the Trump administration, just a complete abuse of power by FCC Chairman Carr, performing really for an audience of one that is Donald Trump, jumping on his every utterance to saber-rattle,

to threaten broadcasters. And really, the threat is the point. They want these companies to be afraid. They want them to change. And they are, sadly, too often willing to do it in order to push through mergers, in order to get special favors, in order to guarantee their other divisions, big fat government contracts,

they've shown a willingness from CBS on down to warp and alter coverage to make it more favorable to the Trump administration. And as we've seen, whether it's lawyers, universities, media companies, when the bullying works, you just get more and more bullying. Craig Aaron, he's talking about threatening news organizations with treason. Presumably, this also means the journalists. within them. It's extremely serious because if you were convicted of treason, you face death. You have, for example, Hegsef responding to journalists covering the death of the service members

in the U.S. Israeli attack on Iran saying that this is unfair to cover this. You have when a reporter asked President Trump on Air Force One to talk about the deaths, for example, of the six service members. He goes next. He doesn't want to answer this question. Craig? Yeah, this is really unbelievable. You're talking about basic coverage of the most important and serious issues. And you have an administration that wants to hide and warp coverage of their own incompetence, of their own failings, of their own crimes, like these, that you covered earlier in the program and the deaths of hundreds of school. children, they don't want the U.S. media covering this story, and they are showing that they are willing to threaten the use of regulations, of government policy, of changing owners in order to

push those media companies into silence, in order to have journalists question, what stories are they going to cover, wonder if their bosses are going to back them up when they do serious reporting on the crimes of this administration, whether that's kidnapping people and sending them to other countries, whether that's launching a war. The most serious stories that we need the newsrooms with the biggest resources covering, the Trump administration is signaling, you better think twice. And unfortunately, the billionaire owners of these companies are signaling back, if you'll give us favors, if you'll give us mergers, we're willing to do your bidding. This works because the CEOs have backed off, and they're going to keep doing it until these media companies start standing up.

Craig Aaron, co-CEO of Free Press and Free Press Action. We'll link to your new article, Warmongers, come for the media. We'll be livestreaming our 30th anniversary event at DemocracyNow.org next Monday. I'm Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.