Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-03-27 Friday

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

Democracy Now! Friday, March 27, 2026

From New York, this is Democracy Now. From illegal wars to massed and violent agents in our streets to driving up costs for everyday families, this administration's actions are angering. Not just Democratic voters or folks in big blue city centers, they are crossing a line for people in red and rural areas in the suburbs all over the country. In America, we have no kings. That's the message of more than 3,000 protest parties. nationwide for Saturday, March 28th. We'll talk to one of the organizers, Leah Gold Greenberg, of Indivisible,

among the issues bringing Americans out into the streets, the unprovoked war in Iran, and fears of another forever war. President Trump's insisting there's an off-round. And they'll tell you, we're not negotiated. We will not negotiate. Of course, they're negotiated. They're obliterated. Who wouldn't negotiate?

They are begging to make a deal. We'll speak to Jeremy Scahill of DropSight News about what he says is really going on behind the scenes. And finally, in a major win for child safety advocates, juries in New Mexico and California find that, yes, big tech companies knowingly put profits over protection on their social media platforms. Being in that courtroom and hearing those answers from the jury, it's really validated. been a complete validation of what we've been screaming on the top of roofs about for years. They knew the harm, right? They knew the damage. They assessed the risk and they move forward anyway.

All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. The U.S. and Israel are continuing to bomb Iran after President Trump said he would once again delay his ultimatum for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz. or face renewed attacks on energy infrastructure. On Thursday, Trump said he'd extended his deadline 10 days until April 6th. He'd previously set today as the deadline. And before that, March 23rd, Trump also said Iran has offered him, quote,

eight big boats of oil as a goodwill gesture of goodwill. He later revised that number to 10. He made the claims despite Iran's repeated denials of any direct negotiations with the U.S. And they'll tell you we're not negotiated. We will not negotiate. Of course, they're negotiated. And they've been obliterated. Who wouldn't negotiate? They are begging to make a deal. We'll see if we can make the right deal. Axios reports the Pentagon's developing military options for what it's calling a final blow against Iran that could include an evasion by ground forces. One plan would see the U.S. invade or blockade Kharg Island.

Iran's main oil export terminal. Another plan would send U.S. forces deep inside the interior of Iran to secure the highly enriched uranium buried within nuclear facilities. Meanwhile, Wall Street on Thursday suffered its worst day since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Earlier today, the price of Brent crude oil topped $110 a barrel after Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps declared the Strait of Hormuz closed, warning, quote, any passage through the Strait will face a harsh response.

In Israel, air raid sirens sounded across Tel Aviv and other cities overnight as Iran and Hezbollah fired waves of missiles, rockets, and drones. One man was killed, another seriously injured after a Hezbollah rocket fell in Israel's northernmost city of Nahrir. Israeli media report at least 25 people were wounded Thursday. Meanwhile, Iran's continuing attacks on U.S. military bases and oil and gas infrastructure across the Persian Gulf region. In Kuwait, officials said Iranian missiles and drones had damaged infrastructure at two ports. Israel's military says it's expanding its invasion to southern Lebanon, sending more ground forces to set up a so-called buffer zone along Israel's northern border. The deployment of more Israeli troops came after. Israel's finance minister and defense minister both suggested Israel should annex southern Lebanon.

This comes as UNICEF warns, Israeli attacks have killed at least 121 children in Lebanon with more than 370,000 children displaced from their homes. On Capitol Hill, House Democratic leaders have chosen not to force a vote on an Iran War Powers resolution this week, putting off any potential vote until Congress returns from a two-week recess in mid-April. The delay has angered progressives, demand progress, said in a statement, quote, this is a moment for anti-war leadership, not hesitation. The House should be on the record now, especially when reporting suggests the votes are there to pass a war powers resolution, unquote. Journalist Ryan Grimm of DropSight News went further, writing that House Foreign Affairs Committee

ranking member Gregory Meeks is delaying a vote precisely because it might pass. Grimm wrote, quote, Dems secretly want this war to continue because it hurts Trump, unquote. Meanwhile, a bill introduced Thursday by Congressmember Meeks and Washington Democratic representative Pramilla Jaya Paul seeks to block President Trump from using any federal funds to take military action against Cuba without congressional authorization. Mexico's Navy says a search and rescue operation is underway after two ships carrying humanitarian aid to Cuba went missing in the Caribbean. The ship set sail March 20th, found for Havana as part of the Neuestra America Flotilla,

our America Flotilla, but failed to arrive as expected and have not been in communication. There are at least nine crew members aboard two ships, including a four-year-old child, They're from Cuba, France, Poland, and the United States. In Cuba, doctors report many patients are dying as a direct result of the U.S. oil blockade, which has led to rolling blackouts and severe shortages of food medicine and equipment. This is Fernando Chugio, Cuba's National Director of Hospital Services. Our country, which has managed to perform more than 1.2 million operations annually, has had to reduce in recent times to 700,000, which is still a significant number due fundamentally

to the blockade. Now, with all these limitations, we've had to prioritize and limit surgical activity, giving priority especially to serious cases and to what cannot be postponed. Former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife Celia Flores appeared at a federal court here in Manhattan Thursday, nearly three months after they were abducted by the U.S. military in Caracas. They've pleaded not guilty to narco-terrorism and drug trafficking charges. Maduro's lawyer asked the court to dismiss the case, arguing the Trump administration's violating his and his wife's constitutional right to counsel by blocking Venezuela from paying their legal fees. The Treasury Department has borrowed the funds citing sanctions against Venezuela. Judge Alvin Hellerstine, who's presiding over the case, asked, quote, what's the interest of the government now in blocking those funds?

We're doing business in Venezuela. The defendant is here. Florida is here. They present no further national security threat, he said. Judge Hellerstein did not issue a ruling on Maduro's legal fees and has not set a trial date. The Senate voted overnight to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security after a partial shutdown left tens of thousands of federal workers without pay. The deal funds the TSA, the Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard, FEMA. and cybersecurity and infrastructure agency, but leaves out ICE, immigration and customs enforcement, and border patrol.

Senate negotiators failed to agree on ICE reforms demanded by Democrats after immigration agents killed. Alex Preti and Renee Good in Minneapolis. More than 40080 TSA officers quit during the shutdown, and absences reached as high as 40 percent at some airports. The bill now goes to the House for a vote. ICE will continue operating on $75 billion in separate funds already approved by Congress. A federal judge in San Francisco Thursday blocked the Trump administration from designating the artificial intelligence company Anthropic as a supply chain risk. U.S. District Judge Rita Lynn also blocked Trump's order that the government cut all contracts with Anthropic. The Pentagon blacklisted Anthropic last month after the company refused to allow it.

it's clawed tool to be used for autonomous weapons or the mass surveillance of Americans. District court judge, Rita Lynn, wrote, quote, Nothing in the governing statute supports the Orwellian notion that an American company may be branded a potential adversary and saboteur of the U.S. for expressing disagreement with the government, unquote. Anthropic had signed a $200 million contract with the Pentagon back in general. July. The Financial Times is reporting oil futures contracts worth around $580 million were traded just minutes before President Trump's social media post about alleged peace talks with Iran earlier this week. Separately, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy wrote that $1.5 billion in S&P 500 futures were sold minutes before President Trump announced his five-day pause.

on attacking Iran. Senator Murphy wrote on X, quote, $1.5 billion. Let me say it again, a $1.5 billion bet bigger than any futures purchases made at the time, five minutes before Trump's post. Who was it? Trump, a family member, a White House staffer, this is corruption, mind-blowing corruption, Senator Murphy wrote. CNN's reporting an unknown trader made $1 million from dozens of bets about Iran on the prediction market platform polymarket. Meanwhile, House Republicans Wednesday blocked a Democratic motion to subpoena Donald Trump Jr. over his venture capital firm investing in a rare earth minerals company months before it received

a $620 million loan from the Pentagon. In Russia, Ukrainian drones have struck ports and refineries along the Baltic Sea in the Western Leningrad region, sending a huge column of smoke into the sky that was visible all the way in Finland. Reuters reports the attacks halted at least 40 percent of Russia's oil export capacity, the largest oil supply disruption in Russia's modern history. This comes as the Washington Post reports the Pentagon's considering a plan to redirect weapons originally meant for Ukraine to the Middle East, including air defense interceptor missiles. In Kyiv, Ukraine, Ukraine, President, Volodymyr Zelensky, said this week the White House is making U.S. security

guarantees for Ukraine in any future peace deal contingent on Ukraine giving up its defense of the eastern Dombas region. In my view, the Russian side is shaping the atmosphere in its dialogue with the Americans around this very idea, that Ukraine should withdraw from Dombas. The United States will then provide the security. guarantees Ukraine is seeking, and Russians will certainly end this war. The International Olympic Committee announced Thursday. It'll bar transgender women from competing in women's events.

The ban will take place at the 28 Los Angeles Games. The policy requires all female athletes to undergo a mandatory gender screening, which is a cheek swab or blood test to detect the presence of the SRY gene associated with sexual development typically seen in males. That's despite the fact that the scientist who discovered the SRY gene has publicly opposed using it to determine biological sex. The IOC's decision follows President Trump's executive order last year, barring transgender women from competing on women's college sports teams. And here in New York, unionized professors at NYU have ended a strike after reaching a tentative contract with their university.

Nearly a thousand full-time faculty members launched the two-day work stoppage, demanding higher wages, job stability, and relief from heavy workloads. If they ratify the five-year deal, they'll receive an average raise of 20% this year. The contract also includes new guardrails for academic freedom and the use of artificial intelligence. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, DemocracyNow.org, the War and Peace Report. by Mimi Goodman. In America, we have no kings.

That's one of the rallying cries for Saturdays nationwide protests against President Trump. More than 3,000 no kings protests are planned across the country. Millions are preparing to take to the streets and what's expected to be the largest no king's protest to date and what the Nation magazine says could become the biggest day of protest in U.S. history. One of the largest no kings protests will be. in St. Paul, Minneapolis, just miles from where federal immigration agents fatally shot Renee Good and Alex Preti to death in January. Performers and speakers in St. Paul will include Senator Bernie Sanders, Bruce Springsteen, Jane Fonda, and Joan Baez. On Thursday, Edwin Torres de Santiago of the

Immigrant Defense Network spoke about the Minnesota protests. Right now across Minnesota and across this country. Immigrant families are living in fear that something as simple as going to work or taking their children to school could separate them from their loved ones. That is the reality. A mother texting her child just to say, I made it. A father calling in the middle of the day to just say, I'm okay. I know this because this is exactly what both of my parents do every single day. For 25 years, I lived without documentation, and my parents still do. And let's be clear about what is happening. You don't send mask agents into neighborhoods, into airports, into communities to keep people safe.

You send them to keep people terrified. And that fear is not accidental. It is part of our larger escalation, and we're already seeing the consequences. We've seen the consequences. Keith Porter Jr., Renee Good, Alex Prattie, Dr. Linda Davis, Dr. Linda Davis, Ruben Ray Martinez, and dozens of others that have been killed by this administration's escalation, and let's not forget the 40 death inside detention centers since this administration has taken office. Silence and inactions are not an option anymore.

Supporters of the No King's protests include the AFT, that's the American Federation of Teachers. This is the group's president, Randy Weingarten. A billion dollars a day for this war, and yet we couldn't find the money for the Obamacare tax credits, then now we're seeing a huge increase in premium payments that people have had to pay. We couldn't find the money for Medicaid that is closing rural hospitals all over America.

We couldn't find the money for SNAP when people were having parties at Mar-a-Lago. The people are saying we need to find a way to support ourselves. We don't want a war that's costing billions of dollars. We don't want a war that is increasing the cost of gas. We don't want a debate that is actually making the lines of TSA, like the line I had this morning hours long.

People in America are saying, you have been elected to help us and our families have a better life. Not to help the billionaires, not to create robots as teachers, not to just create ways that you and your family get rich, Donald Trump. And that's why more and more people see him as a king. The unprovoked U.S. and Israeli war on Iran will also be a focus of Saturdays no king's protest. This is Navid Shah of the group Common Defense. This illegal war with Iran is built on the same lives as the one with Iraq 20 years ago.

I know because I lived it as an army veteran who served in Iraq. Me and my friends know that our leaders lied to us into a war with no strategy and no endgame. I swore an oath to this constitution, not to a king, not to a politician, and I will not stay silent while we marched down that same road into another forever war. Those speakers all took part in an online No King's Press conference on Thursday because they were all over the country. We're joined right now by Leah Greenberg, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, which is part of the No King's coalition, helping to organize Saturday's protests. Leah, can you start off by talking about the scope of these protests? You're talking about the possibility the nation says of the largest protests in U.S. history,

with 3,000 protests taking place across the country. Explain how it's being organized. Well, I'm proud to say that as of this morning, that number is up to 3,200, including every congressional district in the country and six of seven continents around the world. What we are fundamentally doing with this is we're issuing a call to regular people all over the country. In some places, this is anchored by, you know, in a city,

it's anchored by a coalition with, you know, indivisible groups and labor. your local labor council, human rights organizations, everybody, everybody's collectively throwing in together. In some small towns across the country, it's, you know, one woman who raised her hand and said, I can't take it anymore. I've got to get my community together. But what we're seeing is that the scope and the breadth of what is happening across this country is enormous.

People are coming out in every state, every county collectively and saying, enough, we are going to stand against illegal orders abroad. we are going to stand against secret police at home. We don't have kings in this country. I understand that in Spain and Barcelona, it's actually called No Tyrants Day because they have a king. We've heard a couple versions of that. You know, in Hawaii, obviously, there's cultural sensitivities around, you know, the history of the monarchy in Hawaii. What we want people to take a stand against fundamentally is an imperious, unaccountable governance that substitutes the judgment

of one man in his cronies and his corrupt billionaires for the actual will of the people, because that is what we are seeing right now. And then talk about why the No King's National Flagship Rally is in St. Paul, Minnesota, with Bruce Springsteen, I guess you could say, headlining, with Jane Fonda there, with Joan Baez there, and other political figures of course across Minnesota. Well, we think the story of Minnesota is incredibly important. for everyone in America to hear and to understand because fundamentally what we saw there was the occupation of an American city, the unleashing of a reign of terror and racial profiling that was

pushed back by organized, nonviolent, disciplined people power. You had immigrant rights organizers, labor, faith leaders, regular people, soccer moms and retirees collectively organizing to say, no, you're not going to take our neighbors. You are not going to impose this on our city. we're all in this together. And they have successfully organized an extraordinary resistance that everyone in America should understand and should learn the lessons up from. Because fundamentally, we are not going to get out of any of this mess without building the collective people power all across this country that pushes back on authoritarianism, that pushes back on secret police like ICE. And that demands that we look up to and protect, or that you look to and protect our neighbors. So your data shows two thirds of the RSBP.

are coming from outside of major urban centers, nearly, what, 40% up from the first No King's action. If you can talk about the significance of this and your message to former Trump voters, we see MAGA splintering with Joe Rogan and others seriously questioning what they thought was the non-interventionist stance of President Trump, challenging, running on a platform of no more forever wars? Well, what we're seeing with this March and all of our data suggests the same when we look at who is organizing new indivisible groups or new activist collectors around the country is that

the resistance to Trump and to MAGA is reaching farther and deeper and more significantly into red and rural areas than it ever has in the past in the first Trump term or ever before. And I think that's a factor. That's being driven by a number of things. People, whoever they are across political lines, do not like it when you send massed police into their neighborhoods and take their neighbors. That is something that the vast majority of us can agree on pushing back against. People do not want a catastrophic war that is killing people, thousands of innocent folks abroad, that is driving up costs at home. They do not want their health care funds going to bombs that are being dropped on an Iranian school girl or girls school.

they want to see a government that is accountable to them. And what we're seeing with this moment is that this is a real opportunity to reach out to people who thought, you know, I'm going to roll the dice with another Trump term. Maybe they lower the cost of living. Maybe they lower the cost of gas and eggs. He's certainly not going to get us into any wars. Those folks, those are people who we want to pull in right now while they are questioning what the heck bill of goods they were sold and say, come on over to our side.

Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, all showing up with double-digit events. What do you think this portends for the midterms? Well, look, I think we've seen this over and over again with the off-year elections, with the special elections, from Florida to Virginia, what we are seeing is that if you're Republican, this is not a year in which you should assume your safest seat and your seat is safe. and it doesn't matter whether it was safe a couple of years ago. Fundamentally, there is an extraordinary amount of backlash brewing in this country everywhere, and you should be worried about whether you are being accountable to your constituents right now because they are angry.

And I can guarantee you that is the case whether you represent a ruby red area or a deep blue area. Leah Greenberg, I want to thank you for being with us. I know you have to get onto a plane, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, the grassroots movement, part of the No Kings Coalition, helping to organize Saturday's protests. And Democracy Now will be covering these protests, and you can tune in on Monday for the voices from the streets. Coming up, our negotiations happening between U.S. and Iran. We'll speak with Jeremy Scahill of DropS. News. Stay with us.

People have the power. That's Patty Smith, performing at Democracy Now's 30th anniversary celebration, along with Bruce Springsteen, Michael Stipe, hooray for the riffraff, and more. To see the full event, you can go to DemocracyNow.org. We'll be playing, hooray for the riffraff, singing Palante later in this broadcast. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. Amy Goodman, the U.S. Israeli war in Iran has entered its 28th day. Iranian officials say the wars killed nearly 2,000 people in Iran. Earlier today, Israel's defense minister said Israeli attacks on Iran will escalate and expand. Meanwhile, President Trump's extended his deadline for Iran to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Trump is now threatening to obliterate Iran's power plants on April 6 if the strait isn't reopened. Trump claimed talks with Iran are going,

Well, this is Trump speaking during Thursday's cabinet meeting. They now have a chance to make a deal, but that's up to them. And they'll tell you, we're not negotiated. We will not negotiate. Of course, they're negotiating. They're not obliterated. Who wouldn't negotiate? They are begging to make a deal.

We'll see if we can make the right deal. And if they make the right deal, then the straight will open up, almost straight will open up. Iran has repeatedly denied its engaging in direct talks with the U.S. earlier today Iran's foreign minister of Asa Raji said friendly countries have conveyed messages between the two countries but no dialogue has occurred. On Thursday, supporters of the Iranian government rallied in Tehran. Trump's whole approach is psychological warfare.

He's only playing psychological and media games and making a mockery of himself in front of the world. Everyone knows that Trump is a bluffer and a major liar. That has been proven to everyone. We're joined now by Jeremy Scahill. He's been closely following the war in Iran and the reports about negotiations. Jeremy is co-founder of DropSight News. Hi, Jeremy.

Thanks so much for being with us. Well, why don't you start off with the latest news that yesterday, President Trump said, at Iran's request, he's extending the deadline for bombing Iran's infrastructure by 10 days. Well, Amy, I, within minutes of Trump posting that message on truth social, I spoke to a senior Iranian official who told me immediately that Trump is not being truthful and that Iran made no such request. And if it is the case that Trump is lying about this, it's part of a multi-week pattern that has extended basically throughout the duration of this war that the U.S. and Israel initiated on February 28th. What I'm told by Iranian officials, is that on roughly the third day of the bombing, Steve Whitkoff, President Trump's special envoy, began sending WhatsApp messages and other messages through intermediaries to Iranian officials asking for talks about winding down the war.

This is just in the initial first few days. And, you know, there's some indication that Trump believed that by assassinating Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, and other senior Iranian. officials that somehow the Iranian government was going to collapse quickly. And it seems that they really underestimated both Iran's will to fight this war, but also its capacity to continue striking. Almost every day, you have war secretary Pete Hagseth standing before the American people at the

Pentagon and saying Iran's missile capacity has been degraded by 90 percent. It's strong capacity degraded by 95 percent. And Iran continues to strike at U.S. military facilities across the Persian Gulf and is intensifying its attacks against Israel, while Hezbollah, which the world was also told was decimated by Israel a year ago, has continued to fire missiles and to inflict deaths and other casualties on Israeli occupation forces. So the U.S. is the party that has been consistently asking for talks. And early last week, I did a story, Amy, where I learned from Iranian officials that Steve Whitkoff had been directly text messaging Abasarachi, the Iranian foreign minister.

And when I went for comment to the White House, just to say typically, when I asked for comment from the White House, they respond by saying, we direct you to the last truth social post of Donald Trump or the comments he made on Air Force One. But this time, the White House went ballistic and accused drop site news of carrying water for Islamic terrorists, called us abhorrent, said that we're engaged in, quote, America last behavior. and then they quickly leaked to Barack Ravid of Axios and some other journalists, an alternative bizarre world version of this story where they said it's actually the Iranians that have been begging Steve Whitkoff for talks. So then what happened is that a few days ago, the White House began

saying that when Trump himself said it, that there are direct talks happening between Iran and the White House. I spoke to Iranian officials. They said this is completely false. That once again, the U.S. is asking for talks and is sending messages through Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt. And so it's clear here that Donald Trump is not being truthful. You could say at some points, he's just blatantly lying. But the question is why? It's possible, as the Iranians allege, that a large part of this is market manipulation, you know, that people are making a lot of money off of these announcements, but also trying to calm oil markets. It's also possible that the United States is trying to float these ideas to sort of spy on or do surveillance on the Iranian

chain of command to see who the actual deal makers are. It's also possible that given the fact that the United States has bombed Iran twice in the past year while claiming to be in negotiations, that this entire thing is a front, a facade that is being presented, albeit in a clumsy Trump-esque way, because the U.S. is planning some sort of a larger essential. or operation against Iran. And again, the whole issue of the deploying thousands of U.S. power troopers to the Persian Gulf, the possibility of a land invasion of perhaps Karg Island? You know, Amy, I've looked closely at these deployments.

And, you know, I don't think that the United States has a large enough presence of troops and other weaponry to engage in a full-scale, invasion of Iran imminently. There certainly are the types of forces that would be used, Tier 1 operators, special operations forces, rapid expeditionary units of the Marines to engage in some sort of limited incursion or attempt to seize a part of territory or perhaps even to do some kind of a special operations raid. I've heard from some sources that there are concepts of operations that have been worked up by the Pentagon to explore possibly a targeted operation at Iran's enriched uranium disks. And the purpose of such an operation, you could call it like a

spectacular operation, something akin to an Osama bin Laden night raid, is because Trump has painted himself into a corner. He is undoubtedly in a quagmire. They completely underestimated Iran's military capacity. And so part of what may be happening is that the Pentagon is giving Trump options where he could sort of declare a fake victory by having something tangible to point to. There's also been a series of really bizarre cryptic posts on the White House's Twitter feed over the past 24 hours or so with these pixelated images and then a video that if you play it backwards says that like a surprise is coming. It's possible that the White House is contemplating some form of a raid or special operation that they believe would

give Trump an ability to say, you know, we've won our victory. The Iranians have repeatedly said both publicly and to me also in private that they would welcome an attempt by the United States to actually seize part of Iranian territory because it would allow Iran to use shorter range weapon systems. It would almost certainly inflict deaths and casualties on American occupation forces. While it's possible that the U.S. may want to try to seize Karg Island, while they may want to do some massive military operation in the Strait of Hormuz, which, by the way, remains open. Despite the U.S. saying it's closed, it remains open. The Iranians are making arrangements with what they call friendly countries that want to pass ships through the Strait of Hormuz. If the U.S. does

do something like that, it would, again, put them in range of close range missiles of the Iranians, ground troops, and other weapons that are not available to the Iranians to strike at the U.S. with right now. But it could also be that the U.S. has been implying that it wants to do an operation, the Strait of Hormuz or Karg Island as a distraction because they have some other military operation planned. Well, isn't that the present that President Trump is talking about? He said Iran has given him a present and it's worth a lot of money. It's allowing what tankers to go through.

He said that Iran offered him to allow Pakistani-flagged vessels. He said they wanted, you know, to give me aid of them. But I say, you know, I said, you know, oh, it can be. They originally wanted to give me 10. I said, no, it's okay. You can give me eight. But when open source researchers started looking at the traffic through the straight of Hormuz, this is all publicly traceable, it doesn't seem like those tankers that Trump is referring to actually pass through at all.

And in fact, the Iranians have said that they offered him no such gift whatsoever. The Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, who the U.S. has implied it's negotiating with, has been one of the most aggressive posters on act. kind of poking at the United States and posting memes about Donald Trump's claims and saying that all of this is total nonsense. So, you know, it's reminiscent in a way of some of the lies that were told during the so-called negotiation process related to Gaza. But I think that we now have to recognize the very public record, which is that Donald Trump has made a mockery of the word of the United States when it comes to negotiations because he's twice bombed Iran in the middle of. of negotiations. So they're using the veneer and, you know, previous, I guess, credibility of the United States in an effort to try to lure Iran into a position where they think that they have time

because they're negotiating and then launch a surprise attack. Iranian sources have told me consistently they're aware of this. They have not responded to U.S. requests for direct talks, that they've essentially left a lot of Steve Whitkoff's messages on two checks without them lighting blue. you know, on WhatsApp, because they know that this is the U.S. game plan. What does Iran want? You know, it's interesting. The Iranians said that this talk of a 15-point plan, you know, the White House is making it sound like Trump has sort of extended an olive branch.

He's put on paper 15 points, and it's the Iranians that are rejecting it. Iran does acknowledge that the U.S. through intermediaries has sent position points, but they said that from different intermediaries, they've gotten different messages. So let's take it as a whole and say that roughly the 15 points that the U.S. claims are the conditions that Trump has set are in some way based in some form of reality that has been communicated to the Iranians. The Iranians are not responding and saying, oh, in point number six, can we edit this or point number 10, if we could edit this. That was the process that the U.S. was supposedly engaged in in February when the U.S. decided not to bring a single technical expert on nuclear enrichment to the talks and just sent to business. men, one of whom is the son-in-law of President Trump and both of whom are deep in investments in the Middle East. And so what the Iranians did is they said, here's our conditions for ending

the war. The Iranians do not seem like they're in a panic, despite what the White House says. In fact, the Iranians are saying they think that Trump is in deep, deep trouble with his Gulf allies who are in utter panic about what Iran has been able to do to their economies, how easily Iran is able to strike, that Trump is causing political problems for his own party. in the United States with the midterm elections coming up. And so what they've said is any end of the war can't just be a ceasefire. We're not going to repeat June 2025 again when the Israelis and the Americans asked for an unconditional ceasefire to end the June attacks that were launched against Iran. They say that they'll only accept the comprehensive settlement on the war that would include

not only Iran, but also the other fronts of resistance, meaning Lebanon, Iraq, and more recently they've added Palestine. They haven't gone into detail about what that means, but that's their first term. The second term is that they're saying that they want compensation paid by the United States for the damage done by the United States and Israel. That could come in the form of direct payments or the unfreezing of Iranian funds. They also want long-term guarantees that there isn't going to be a resumption of the war, and they want it certified by the United Nations Security Council and guaranteed publicly by both Russia

and China. And then on the issue of nuclear enrichment, the Iranians are not so much publicly messaging, this because they have to do their own domestic messaging to their public. But what I understand is that they are willing to make agreements about enrichment that would solely be dedicated to medical purposes or non-military purposes. But interestingly, a senior Iranian official told me that as much as the U.S. focuses on its ballistic missile program, that after any deal is made, Iran is going to continue and, in fact, advance its ballistic missile program because they say that that is proven to be the only deterrent that Iran actually has on a military level.

against the U.S. and Israel. So Iran's position, and they said this publicly from the beginning, Trump says, oh, no one knew that they were going to attack the Gulf. They said it to me. They said it publicly. They said it to other journalists that this is exactly what they were going to do. And so Iran, the sense that I get from Iranian officials is that they want to cause enough pain to the world economy because of its ties to the Gulf countries and because of the United States dominance in the world that any nation that thinks of attacking Iran again is going to do so knowing that these are the consequences. Now, Iran could also be engaging, and I'm sure this is true, in its own form of kind of maximalist demands. They've said, we want the U.S. to withdraw all of its

military bases from the region. Now, they've damaged an enormous quantity of them. The New York Times even acknowledged it this week. They've had to move their soldiers into hotels. And by the way, the United States, you know, you can make an argument. The U.S. is putting its soldiers in Gulf country's hotels and effectively using those civilian objects as human shields, which is exactly what the Israelis claim, Hamas, although it was false about Hamas, Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups were doing in hospitals and elsewhere. So I think at the end of the day, the Iranians are going to be flexible when it does come to negotiations on certain issues, but I don't think that the U.S. is going to get the terms it could have gotten in February when Trump could have declared victory

and said, I did what Barack Hussein Obama never could have done. He had terms in that. deal that went far beyond the 2015 JCPOA, and instead they used it as a veneer of negotiation to then launch a surprise attack against Iran. Jeremy, what's the point of President Trump saying this on Fox News being questioned by Jesse Waters? You kind of suggested that we'd knocked out Ayatollah Jr. Have we? And did the CIA tell you that Ayatollah Jr.'s gay?

Well, they did say that, but I don't know if it was only them. I think a lot of people are saying that, which puts them off to a bad start in that particular country, you know. Your response, Jeremy? This is part of a long pattern of the U.S. and Israel, claiming, oh, we found pornography at this person that we've declared the next Hitler's headquarters, or question, sort of implying the, you know, immorality of various enemies of the United States. I mean, this is a classic U.S. propaganda campaign that is just, sort of a naked attempt to try to further dehumanize the Iranian side or to try to, you know, raise some, you know, issues that have nothing to do with the fact that the U.S. and Israel

waging a war of aggression. This is part of U.S. psychological operations for many, many decades. And the latest news, as we wrap up, that oil futures contracts worth around $580 million or traded minutes before Trump's social media post about ledge peace talks. I mean, this is remarkable. This has happened throughout Trump's presidency, both going back to the Gaza War and the Iran War. It is very, very clear that this is White House incorporated, that Trump is not just representing the American people or the American government. It's the most naked form of corruption that we've ever seen in the White House. Always corruption is part of the United States. We have legalized bribery in our election system because of the role of corporations. But Donald Trump is the extraversion of the most heinous aspects of American imperial history and corruption. Jeremy Skaho, co-founder of Dropsite News, will link to your recent piece. Iran blast Trump's claims of direct talks as fake news aimed at manipulating markets. Up next two landmark trials have just found big tech liable for harm caused by their social media

platforms, especially to children. Stay with us. Palante, performed by Hereto, Palante, performed by Hurray for the riffraff at Democracy Now's 30th anniversary at Riverside Church. We'll hear more from them in a minute. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman. In two landmark court decisions this week, juries in California and New Mexico, found tech giants, alphabet and meta are liable for knowingly causing harm to kids and teens

on their social media platforms. The verdicts are being held as a watershed moment for big tech accountability. Alphabet's the parent company of Google, which owns YouTube. Meta owns and operates Facebook and Instagram. On Wednesday, a Los Angeles jury

sided with a plaintiff who accused Alphabet and Meta of designing products to addict young users. The plaintiff in the case was a 20-year-old referred to as KGM, who says she became addicted to social media at a young age with severe harm to her mental health. The jury awarded her $3 million in damages. The case was considered a bellwether

for thousands of other similar lawsuits that have been filed. Many parents attended the trial. This is Juliana Arnold, who says her daughter Cocoa spiraled into self-doubt and depression after becoming addicted to social media platforms like Instagram. She spoke outside the courthouse after the verdict. Being in that courtroom and hearing those answers from the jury, it's really validated, been a complete validation of what we've been screaming on the top of roofs about for years. They knew the harm, right? They knew the damage. They assessed the risk, and they move forward anyway. And on Tuesday, a jury in New Mexico ordered Medidapeh, $375 million in civil penalties for knowingly harming children and concealing child's

sexual exploitation on its platforms. For more, we're joined by two guests. Here in New York, Matthew Bergman is with us, founding attorney of the social media victims law center. The L.A. Plaintiff, KGM, is their client. And joining us from Washington, D.C., Zaman Qureshi, 23-year-old co-founder of Design It for Us. He testified in the New Mexico trial. We welcome you both to Democracy Now. Matthew Bergman, let's begin with you. The significance of these two massive verdicts.

Well, this is just an inflection point in the effort to hold social media companies accountable for the carnage that they are inflicting on the mental and physical health of young people, not just in the U.S., but around the world. So a trial, you get discovery. What did you discover? What did you find out you didn't know before? Well, what we didn't know before was that in internal documents, meta and YouTube knew.

that their platforms were addictive and deliberately design them to addict young people. How do they deliberately do that? They take advantage of the undeveloped frontal cortex of young people and their emotional need for validation by showing them things not that they want to see, but what they can't look away from. They literally take advantage of the fact that young people's brains aren't fully developed. They know that. And they specifically, in these documents show, they specifically use the term addicts mentality or YouTube says the goal is to make our product addictive.

So this is not just some theory anymore. These are the actual documents that were released for the first time in this trial. You represented KGM. I did. Explain who she is and the significance of the many young people who are not in the courtroom, their parents were. Yeah, well, KGM is a young woman from Chico, California. She could be anybody's daughter who suffered severe mental health.

harms after being addicted to YouTube and to Instagram. Thank God, she's still with us. In the courtroom where parents whose children have died of suicide, who bore moral witness, some of them literally camped outside the courthouse before Mark Zuckerberg testified so that they could look him in the eye while he testified. And that's interesting because when he testified before Congress, he looked forward. They were behind him. Now they looked directly at him.

And more importantly, he looked directly at them. They looked directly at them and through Mark Lanier's adept examination, Zuckerberg had to admit that he did not testify accurately to Congress. What do you mean? He misled Congress by saying we don't allow children under 13 on our platform. And he had to admit that that was somewhat of a pervarication because they know and they specifically target. Their document says to get teens, we have to target them as tweens. and he had to acknowledge that document. So then, I mean, he had to testify under oath in Congress.

That means that may he could be charged with perjury? I would have to leave that to Congress. You recently testified in front, let me ask you about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Can you talk about what this is? Yeah, it's basically a license to kill. It was a statute that was passed in 1996 when Netscape was the biggest internet browser. Facebook didn't exist. and Googled didn't exist.

It provides immunity, absolute immunity, for social media companies for their publishing of third-party content. And unfortunately, it's been interpreted far beyond what Congress ever intended to provide carte blotch immunity versus for virtually anything that was done. We developed a new theory of liability about four years ago

and pushed it forward in this case, holding them responsible, not for the content that they host, but for their design decisions. And that was a legal argument that ultimately allowed us to take this case to the jury. I want to turn to Zaman Qureshi, co-founder of Design It for Us. You testified, you were the last one to testify in the New Mexico trial, New Mexico versus meta.

You refer to your generation, Gen Z, as the Guinea Pig Generation. You are 23 years old. Explain what you told the court. Yeah, so I was the last witness for the state in New Mexico. And I told the court about what it's like to grow up as a young person on Instagram when you have to quantify your self-worth through likes and views, and you are constantly inundated through push notifications and these design features, which are designed to keep young users on these products for longer than they want to be.

And in Instagram's case in particular, the company knew that this was its strategy. This was its strategy all along and that young people were telling the company that the product was harming their mental health. And yet they were still not taking steps to actually create a safer space and safer product for our generation. Can you tell us, Amund, your reaction when you saw the documents from Francis Hogan and explain her significance? Yeah, so I really wouldn't be in this work if it wasn't for Francis Hogan coming forward to bring forward documents that showed that META knew that its products were causing harm. Francis Hogan, through the Wall Street Journal, brought forward these documents that

showed that young users felt worse about themselves after using Instagram, that they were being exploited on these products, and that in many cases, it was the design features of Mehta's products themselves that kept young users on the product longer than they wanted to be longer on Instagram than they wanted to be. And this was significant because this is things that we know as young people growing up online. Zaman, I want to thank you for being with us in five seconds, your response to the huge win against META in the New Mexico case. Meta's House of Cards is falling and it is absolutely clear that they will be held accountable.

Zaman Koreshi, co-founder of Design It for Us and Matthew Bergman, founding attorney of Social Media Victims Law Center. This is Democracy Now. I'm Amy Goodman. We end today's show with Hooray for the riffraff, performing their song, Palante, Democracy Now's 30th anniversary. I just want to go to something. I just want to fall in line.

To my time be something. I just want to prove my word. on the planet earth and be something I just want to fall in love and now ruin it and feel something I don't understand what I am treated as a fool

not quite a woman or I guess I don't understand the plan hypnotized be something sterilized dehumanized I'll be something They tell you take your pay But stay out the way Go be something

They tell you do your best Forget the rest Be something It's been mighty hard to see Just searching for my Lost humanity But do you look for me Not too afraid to die

I want to leave it all behind I think of a bad I think about it sometime My time's been moving slow I don't know it just give me time and hooray for the riffraff

performing their song Palante at Democracy Now's 30th anniversary on Monday at the historic Riverside Church here in New York to watch the full event go to DemocracyNow.org It included Angela Davis, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Steep,

Aaron Destner, Mossab Abu Toha, V, Juan Gonzalez, Nermine Sheikh, and more. Check it out at DemocracyNow.org. And the film about Democracy Now's 30 years is opening in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and more. You can check it all out. Stealthisstory.org. We will be doing Q&As at all the theaters. I'm Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.