Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-04-02 Thursday

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

Democracy Now! Thursday, April 2, 2026

From New York, this is Democracy Now. We're going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We're going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong. Iran is threatening to escalate attacks in the Middle East. After President Trump gave a prime time address where he provided no timeline to end the war, we'll get response. Then Supreme Court justices appear skeptical. of Trump's efforts to end birthright citizenship.

Trump broke precedent by attending the arguments in person sitting in the front row. But he left the court early. We'll air excerpts of the arguments and hear from lawyers involved in the case. I come out of the court today with the thought of my parents and so many of our parents and ancestors who came to this country seeking refuge, seeking new opportunities, and who relied on the rule that we've had in this country for 150 years, that everyone born here is a United States citizen, all alike. Then to Israel's new death penalty law, which was designed only to apply to Palestinians. All that and more coming up.

Welcome to Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Iran's military says it's launching crushing, broader, and destructive attacks. After President Trump threatened to bomb Iran, quote, back to the Stone Ages, unquote, Trump made the threat in a nationally televised primetime address Wednesday night from the White House. He said the U.S. would continue strikes on Iran for them. next two to three weeks but provided no timeline for an exit. He said countries that receive oil through the Strait of Hormuz should show courage and seize the waterway. I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America's military objectives shortly, very shortly. We're going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks.

We're going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong. In the meantime discussion, are ongoing. Regime change was not our goal. We never said regime change, but regime change has occurred because of all of their original leaders' death. They're all dead. Oil prices soared and stock markets fell across Asia as Trump promised to continue attacks on Iran. Today, foreign ministers from 35 nations, including several EU countries, are holding a virtual meeting to discuss Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. is not among nations attending the meeting, which was organized by the British Prime Minister, Kyr Starmer. On Wednesday, supporters of Iran's government rallied in the streets of Tehran, even as the U.S.

and Israel continued bombing. However much they terrorize, however many of us are martyred, we will still have others to take their place. Our country has countless young people, young people who will stand firm, remain, and continue the path of the martyred. Meanwhile, Iran is continuing retaliatory attacks across the Middle East. In the United Arab Emirates, officials say shrapnel from an intercepted drone fell on a farm, killing a Bangladeshi national. Qatar's defense ministry says shot down two cruise missiles fired by Iran, while a third missile evaded air defenses and struck an oil tank released to Qatar energy. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan also reported missile attacks from Iran. In Israel, millions of people ushered in the start of Passover Wednesday evening in bomb shelters as missiles fired by Iran and Hezbollah triggered air raid sirens.

Israeli authorities said 14 people, including an 11-year-old girl, were wounded when an Iranian missile fell near Tel Aviv. In Iraq, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad's urging all U.S. citizens to leave Iraq immediately, warning Iran-aligned militias may be planning attacks within. in the next 24 to 48 hours. The warning came after U.S. journalist Shelley Kittleson was abducted in Baghdad after a car chase on Tuesday. The New York Times reports Israeli military officials are privately urging Christian and Druze communities in southern Lebanon to force out Shiite Muslim residents sheltering among them. Human rights groups condemn the plan as ethnic cleansing. This comes as Israel's order the expansion of its so-called. buffer zone in Lebanon from the Latani River to areas north of the Zahrani River, displacing about a

fifth of the Lebanese population. Israel's finance and defense ministers have called on Israel to annex southern Lebanon. More than 1,200 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon since March 2nd. The World Health Organization has recorded at least 120 attacks on medical infrastructure across Lebanon, Iran, and Israel since the start of the war. Meanwhile, the world, the World Health Organization has recorded at least 120 attacks on medical infrastructure across Lebanon, Iran and Israel, since the start of the war. Meanwhile, the UN says three Indonesian peacekeepers killed in southern Lebanon last weekend may be war crimes victims that an investigation is underway. Repeatedly these incidents are unacceptable and demand full accountability. Attacks on UN peacekeepers may constitute war crimes under international law. Russia's military leaders say they've taken complete control of eastern Ukraine.

La Hansk region. It's one of four Ukrainian regions, Russia, and next in 2022. On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized Russia for rejecting a proposed Orthodox Easter holiday truce. He says Moscow instead fired more than 700 drones into Ukraine in daytime attacks targeting civilian infrastructure. At least four people were killed. Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports President Trump's threatening to halt military. aid to Ukraine if U.S. allies in Europe don't join efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. House Speaker, Mike Johnson, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, have announced a two-track plan to end the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. Under the plan, Republicans

would fund most of DHS except ICE and Border Patrol through the end of September. Then they would attempt to fund those two immigration agencies for three years through a party-line budget reconciliation bill requiring no Democratic votes. Democrats have refused to fully fund DHS until it implements changes in its immigration enforcement policies. DHS has been partially shut down since February after federal agents killed Alex Preti and Renee Good in Minneapolis during an immigration crackdown. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in Trump v. Barbara, a challenge to President Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship. Both liberal and conservative justices expressed deep skepticism of Trump's executive order. Trump became the first sitting

president to attend Supreme Court oral arguments, staying for about 75 minutes before leaving. After departing, he claimed in a social media post, the U.S. is, quote, the only country in the world stupid enough to allow birthright citizenship. In fact, roughly three dozen countries offer it from Mexico to Canada. This is Cecilia Wong, the ACLU's National Legal Director, who argued before the Supreme Court for birthright citizenship. I come out of the court today with the thought of my parents and so many of our parents and ancestors who came to this country seeking refuge, seeking new opportunities, and who relied on the rule that we've had in this country for 150 years, that everyone born here is a United

States citizen, all alike. And I'm confident that the court is going to turn back this president's effort to radically rewrite our 14th Amendment rule of birthright citizenship. We'll have more on this story later in the broadcast. DACA recipient Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez. has returned to California after a federal judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security to bring her back, ruling her deportation to Mexico was unlawful. U.S. District Judge Dina Kagan said her deportation was, quote, a flagrant violation of her DACA protections.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is supposed to protect undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from deportation. In February, Estrada Juarez was detained during an interview to obtain permanent residency and deported to Mexico the next day. She's lived in the United States for nearly 30 years. DHS has deported dozens of DACA recipients since Trump's return to office. The Erie County Medical Examiner's Office has ruled the death of Murul Amin Shahalam, a visually impaired Rohingya refugee, a homicide. side. Fifty-six-year-old Alam died on the streets of Buffalo, New York, five days after Border Patrol officers dropped him off at a Tim Horton's coffee shop that had already closed for the evening. The medical examiners determined the cause of Alam's death was complications of a perforated ulcer, precipitated by hypothermia and dehydration. Alam had arrived in Buffalo under legal, FUG status in December

2024 before he was taken into custody last year following a trespassing incident. Dr. Gail Birstine is the Erie County Commissioner of Health. The medical examiner's office determined to be

homicide, which refers to death resulting from volitional or through a choice or decision or an act of another. And so this includes negligent acts or omissions or in action. And for the first time in over half a century, humans are headed to the moon.

NASA's Artemis II mission blasted off from Florida Space Coast on Wednesday evening with four astronauts aboard on a 10-day voyage that'll take them around the far side of the moon and back to Earth. The crew includes the first person of color to visit the moon, pilot Victor Glover, and the first woman to make the trip, mission specialist Christina Koch. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now. Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.

And I'm Nirmin Sheikh. Welcome to our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. Iran is threatening to escalate attacks in the Middle East after President Trump delivered a primetime address in which he threatened to bomb Iran back to the Stone Ages. global stock prices tumbled and oil prices jumped after Trump vowed to continue striking Iran, even though he claimed Iran had already been decimated militarily and economically. The progress we've made, I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America's military objectives shortly, very shortly. We're going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We're going to bring them back.

to the Stone Ages where they belong. President Trump also repeated his threat to attack Iranian civilian infrastructure, which is considered a war crime. If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plans very hard and probably simultaneously. We have not hit their oil, even though that's the easiest target of all, because it would not give them even a small chance of survival or rebuilding. Earlier in the day, Trump spoke at an Easter lunch event at the White House.

He gave attendees a preview of his primetime remarks. Tonight I'm making a little speech at 9 o'clock, and basically I'm going to tell everybody how great I am. What a great job. What a phenomenal job. What a phenomenal job I've done. We're joined right now. by two guests. Spencer Ackerman is a Pulitzer Prize and National Magazine Award-winning reporter,

the author of Rain of Terror, how the 9-11 era destabilized America and produced Trump. And the Forever Wars newsletter, his latest peace headlines, So You Lost a War to Iran. Behrouz-Gamari-Tabrizi is a fellow at the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics at the CUNY Graduate Center. was previously professor and chair of the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, the author of several books, including Islam and descent in post-revolutionary Iran, as well as a memoir about his years on death row in a vene prison in Tehran called Remembering Akbar inside the Iranian Revolution. His latest book just out this year is titled The Long War on Iran, New events, old questions.

We begin with Betu Izgmari-Tabrizi. Thanks so much for joining us again. Why don't you respond overall? Many people were waiting with bated breath to see what President Trump was going to announce in his prime time address, the first one since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. What did you make of what he said?

First of all, thank you for having me back in the show. So I think it was a very anticlimactic kind of speech. And as we expected, he structured his speech around lies and delusions, I think. And he did not add anything new about what we already have heard from him. and I think possibly the most important part of this speech last night was the timing of it. And this was a speech that one should have expected to hear before the start of the war, because it was mostly about justification of the war. And my take on it is that it was, in a sense, a kind of admission to defeat,

in the war of narratives. And I think that the White House feels that they need to go back to point zero and to speak about why are we in the war with Iran and what the objectives are and what the end goal is and how we can find an off-ramp to end this war. And so, yeah. And Spencer, I mean, one of the things, as Behrouz just said, it's not only that Trump seemed to repeat without any variation at all,

various comments he's made in the past weeks on social media. But some of the key issues, if you could talk about, some of the key issues he did not mention, including the surge of U.S. troops, the military personnel who are en route to the Middle East now. Indeed, good morning, Noreme and good morning, Amy. Lovely to be here with Beiruz especially. We're going to learn a lot from this conversation.

This was a speech that we shouldn't normalize, even for Trump. This was a cavalcade of lies on top of the delusions and the incoherence there. But most importantly, as you mentioned, while Trump is trying to domestically reassure his base and more perhaps to the point reassure markets that he hasn't just plunged the United States and the world into a compounding economic disaster, is that there is an aircraft carrier with 6,000 sailors, three destroyers on its way. It will be the third such carrier strike group committed to this conflict, as well as the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit and elements of the 802nd airborne that are on their way for purposes.

that Trump neither explained nor even really mentioned at all. So while he is trying to kind of, as he has frequently throughout this conflict, send a message that this is not a forever war, this is not an open-ended conflict, this is not like those other foolish presidents in the Middle East. What he's doing is entrenching this conflict ever deeper without any mechanism to resolve it. While Trump emphasized that, or attempted to emphasize, that he has been consistent in his explication of what American goals are in Iran, which he hasn't. He's been all over the place. He called the very first day of the war for an Iranian uprising to overthrow the Islamic Republic, which hasn't happened, and frankly doesn't seem like it's going to happen. What in fact

has happened is that Iran has changed the entirety of this conflict. It is pivoted this conflict onto its own territory and its own goals. And the United States does not have a military mechanism to address that, primarily the throttling of the Strait of Hormuz. And so, Beru's, you had mentioned that there is a risk. I mean, so, as Spencer said, there are thousands and thousands of troops on their way to the Middle East. You'd said one of the possibilities what these troops would do there is to try to take one of the islands, Iran's islands and that not necessarily Haargh Island, which is the only one

really hears about. Yeah, I mean, obviously the taking over of Kharg Island is extremely dangerous and risky. And it would threaten not only the stability of the region, but

I would go as far as to say that it would threaten the stability of the entire world order. And we are indeed in that moment that the instability of the world order is at the table. And Iranian side knows this very well, that they hold that card in their hands. And if they can't compete militarily with the U.S., they can really play that card in a very, very effective way.

My sense is that, you know, the invasion of Kark Island is highly unlikely to happen, unless the U.S. feels so desperate that there are no other alternatives available to them. There are other smaller islands that are disputed between Iran and the UAE, the two Tomb Islands and Abu Musa, which don't have oil reserves, but they have strategic significance and less risky for the U.S. forces to land there and declare that they are invaded at the islands. But even that would escalate the war to such degree that it would be out of control of any of the players

who are now engaged in this war. Iran's president, Pazashkan, sent a letter to the American people hours before President Trump gave his speech last night, asking if this war is putting America first. Tell us who, where Peschkan is. Where does he fit into what's happening right now? Peschchian was quite an unlikely candidate to become Iran's president.

He was a member of the Iranian parliament, and when he nominated himself to run again, for re-election, the government basically disqualified him from running for the parliament. But a year later, he was qualified to run for the president. So you get the picture that how unlikely president he is. And he is not the key decision maker in Iran at this point, but he has a very important role in keeping the entire political system on the same level.

And he's a good communicator with Iranian people. He's a man of the people, so to speak. And I think that his discourse, his political conversation with Iranians, although he comes across as a very naive kind of politician, but nevertheless, I think he's opening some space for his political position inside the country. Why hasn't Israel tried to kill him? And they've killed so many of Iran's leaders, one after another. Do you really want me to speculate on that? I don't know.

But, I mean, I think, first of all, they've tried to kill him. He was injured in June attacks. And he was severely injured. And he was limping for a while after June war. And they did try to kill him. I don't know how they are keeping him safe at this moment. But nevertheless, you know, Israel did. try to kill him. And I think that he is not in that position of game changer in Iran at this point.

Israel and the U.S. are mostly attacking. Israelis mostly are attacking people who are in the position of game changing, like Ali Lari Jani, or I read yesterday that they attacked Kamal Kharazi, who was a former prime foreign minister in Iran, and he's severely injured. Supreme Leader Mushdba is in the country? Do you think he's alive? I don't know. I don't know. And I think that it's possible that they are playing this kind of game with Mustafa, that, you know, he's acting as an hidden imam, because that hidden imam has a very significant role in Shi'i theology and whether or not he's injured and he can't appear in public or this is a political game to keeping him hidden. I'm not quite sure. But we'll find out soon.

And Spencer, just to go back to the speech and Trump's kind of shifting objectives for this war, one of the things he said is that he terminated what he called the disaster of the 2015 nuclear deal because it sent billions and billions of dollars to Iran, first of all, if you could explain that. But then he said nothing at all about the fact that just in this week, he allowed Iran to sell oil, thereby enabling Iran to earn billions and billions of dollars. Yes. So let's peek behind what actually is going on here. Because going back to the 2015 deal, one of its primary terms was that Iran would get out from under the sanctions regime that was put in place precisely to have leverage in order to. produce the nuclear deal. And that reaped Iran something around a billion dollars worth of sanctions relief. That was its own money that the United States had basically frozen. The rejectionists for this deal, the people who would never allow this deal to get to yes, precisely so it would

take away the option of attacking Iran militarily, raised an enormous hue and cry about how now this was funding the so-called terrorist regime in Iran. What Trump has done to reassure the markets after launching this very ill-thought-out war was provide for Iran to sell oil once again. Oil, of course, is a global commodity. It can't really be throttled in one place or another without affecting the price everywhere. And so now Iran stands to benefit by the terms of the current price of oil that Trump and Israel have forced to go up, something like $13 to $14 billion, vastly, vastly beyond, the sanctions relief they got in the 2015 deal. And if you could also, this was a very crucial point and has been a major issue in the war, Iran using the Strait of Hormuz to retaliate against Israel and the U.S.

Last night, Trump claimed that the Strait of Hormuz would, quote, automatically open once the U.S. leaves and simultaneously urged countries reliant on oil from the region to go to the strait and, quote, just take it. and he also urged countries, of course, to buy U.S. oil instead. So your response to that, and in particular this idea of the Strait of Hormuz, which for the longest time he was saying that's one of the objectives, we have to have this strait open, despite the fact that prior to the war, the Strait was open, so he's trying to resolve an issue that the war itself created.

And the fact of, you know, the implications of Iran's effective blockade of the Strait, which we're already seeing the effect in so many parts of the world. You can see how even just summarizing the circumstance brings out not just the absurdity, but the tragedy and the horror of the misjudgment that this war is predicated upon. The most important thing to understand about the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important energy and commercial waterways, is that Trump has no military way of forcing it open. everything that he is about to do, the war crimes that he has promised.

When we hear both him and the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegeseth talk about destroying Iran's defense industrial base, what they mean is they will bomb every civilian industrial target that they can find, much as they bombed the girls' school at the outset of the war and claim this is some kind of military target. All of this is going to be designed to force enough pain on the Islamic Republic that it opens the Strait of Hormuz back up. That's because there is no way that the United States has to force it otherwise. I want to ask you, Spencer, about the role of Israel. Does Trump's incoherence, and let's make no mistake about it, when someone is completely unpredictable,

that gives them a great amount of power. But does that chaos serve Israel? And what is the relationship here with Israel fighting this war on so many fronts? attacking Iran, attacking Lebanon, moving higher and higher into Lebanon, and of course, continuing to kill people in Gaza, and a number of Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank during this time. Starting around the time of the Israeli assassinations in 2024, spilling out from the Israeli genocide in Gaza, a great deal of people within Israel and within Israel's support base inside the United States believed that they had an opportunity to transform the Middle

East by permanently disabling or at least structurally weakening Iranian power, not only in its broader ambits in Lebanon, in Syria, in Yemen, and in Iraq, but now in Iran itself. That's what Israel is going for. Israel is not simply going for a weakening of Iran. What it was hoping to do, was collapse the Islamic Republic and bring Iran into some sort of failed state situation. Some of the indications from media and from political statements from Israel seem to indicate that they know they can't bring Trump into that open-ended conflict that would give them the leverage to do that. I think one of the things they're trying to leverage through that is an overwhelming focus on the front in Iran to give them cover, to seize Lebanon south of the Latani River.

Already they're aiming for the Zahraani north of Latani. And they're killing, I think they've killed something like 1,300 people. They're trying to transform not only the boundaries, not only the shape of the state of Israel, but establish Israel as the only real regional superpower, displacing Iran. I don't think that will work. I think what we've learned is that for better or for worse,

I will leave Beiruz to describe the cleavages within Iran and how the Islamic Republic relates to its own people. But nevertheless, the Islamic Republic has proven not only its resiliency beyond what Israeli and American war planners had thought, but it's shown that its strategy for defending itself and for inflicting pain on the broader American and Israeli coalition in the Gulf is undisturbed by what Iran and Israel. sorry, by what the United States and Israel have thrown at it for a month. And, okay, that is a key question. You're a journalist, Spencer. So let's put that question to Beiruz. Is what's happening to the population of Iran?

Also, is the Internet still largely out? How do people communicate with each other with the outside world? But the rifts, the fissures within the Iranian Republic right now. And where does the resistance stand? It would. Iranian society has been quite a vibrant society in the past 40 years. Iranian society has always been engaged in a very meaningful struggle to expand civil liberties, to create a space for breathing simply, and for a space for struggle for social justice. You yourself were part of that.

Of course, you know, and that never ended up in an end up. and it continued, and people gained a lot of grounds and lost a lot of grounds. And one of the, I think one of the most tragic consequences of this war is that this war destroyed that space within which people struggled for this transformation of Iranian society. And I always say that we need to delink this war,

from the situation of repression in Iran and the question of social justice in Iran. But this war has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the question of violations of human rights or civil liberties in Iran. That has nothing to do with that at all. And what this war is doing, and I want to pick up on something that you mentioned, and Spencer mentioned

at the beginning, that this war is normalizing different kind of conversation about how wars are fought. And I think this war began, I think, in Gaza with the Israelis' attempt to basically openly, blatantly, flagrantly violating all rule-based conditions. of fighting a war. And this was a genocide openly done and even posted on social media. And the world stood silently

and not only stood silently, but also helped Israel to carry out that genocide. And I think now we witness, and it's not a coincidence, that Trump openly talks about war crimes from the podium at the White House. House and no one actually says anything about it because he's openly advocating war crimes by attacking civilian infrastructure, sources of energy, salineage, water salination in Iran.

And so I think this is a very, very important point that we should not allow the normalization of that kind of discourse. Well, before we conclude, Beru, I'd like to go to comments, made by the anthropologist at Johns Hopkins University, Nargis Bajokli, in her recent Peace in Foreign Affairs magazine, headlined Iran's long game. She wrote, quote, In the Iran-Iraq War, the loss of commanders had created dangerous vulnerabilities for Tehran. To avoid the same result during a U.S. or Israeli campaign, over the past four decades, the regime has deliberately decentralized its military command, distributed political authority

across regional nodes that can operate autonomously and cultivated multiple potential successors at every level of the IRGC and the governing establishment. So that's Nargis in Foreign Affairs. Could you talk about what the implications of that are in terms of regime change? Regime change, it basically is a chivalet that Trump is using and it's totally meaningless at this point.

And it's very clear that the Islamic Republic has created at least four levels of replacement possibilities. And not only militarily they have trained and put in place commanders that can take over in the matter of minutes, but also politically they have given governors of different states full political autonomy in case of the collapse of the central government, they are in the position of making independent decisions to carry on their political responsibilities. So the idea of regime change and the possibility of it is so remote. And I think that has become very clear for Trump administration and for the Israelis who basically don't have a plan for regime change. They want a plan for a failed state, not a regime change. I want to ask about another Nargis.

Nargis Mohammedi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner. I want to ask about Avine, a place you know well, you're on death row in Avine prison. Are you afraid that Iran or the U.S. or Israel will bomb Avine where Nargis and so many other dissidents are? I think Naguismanadi is not in Avian at this point. They transferred her to a different town. But that's always the fear that, you know,

I said that this war doesn't have anything to do with the question of social justice and civil liberties in Iran. And people who are inside prison are not basically people this war wants to protect. And these are people who are trying to promote and fight on behalf of social justice and civil liberties. So if they bombed the prison, I think that would be consistent with the way this war has been carried out. Spencer, 30 seconds. This war has already lost. I don't know how long it will go on, but Iran has so thoroughly out-foxed the United States that you heard Trump say he is willing to walk away from a conflict he began without reopening the Strait of Hormuz. That is not how winners operate, just to be really frank about it. If the United States leaves the Strait of Hormuz closed or basically throttled in the possession of the Iranians, the Iranians will have set the terms of the Middle East and quite possibly with spillage effects on the entire global economy. That is a recipe for returning to war, not ending it. Well, we have so much more to

talk about, but we have to end it now. The conversation continues. Spencer Akerman. Pulitzer Prize winning National Magazine Award-winning reporter will link to your newsletter Forever Wars. And Beruze Gamari-Tibrizi, fellow at the Center for Peace Culture and Politics at the CUNY Graduate its center. Latest book, The Long War on Iran, New Events, Old Questions, Everyone Should Read it. Coming up, Supreme Court justices appear skeptical of President Trump's efforts to end birthright citizenship. Back in 20 seconds. Here in our home, they killed and wrong in the winter of... Who remember the name to the...

On the streets of Alex Predigley in the snow to dead. Claim was self-defense, sir. Just don't be these whistles and phones against never. Streets of Minneapolis, Bruce Springsteen, performing a democracy now's 30th anniversary last week at Riverside Church. On Tuesday, Bruce launched his new tour in Minneapolis and from the stage described the Trump administration's corrupt, incompetent, racist, reckless, and treasonous. Just before we went to air this morning, President Trump,

attacked Bruce Springsteen in social media. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermine Scheher. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday on one of the most consequential cases of the year, the constitutionality of President Trump's attempt to end birthright citizenship. On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order declaring children born in the United States to parents without permanent legal status. would no longer be granted citizenship automatically.

The case has been working its way through the courts. Last July, a federal appeals court in California said the order violates the plain language of the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to, quote, all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, unquote. In 1898, the Supreme Court reaffirmed birthright citizenship. That case was brought by Wong Kim Ark,

a Chinese American man born in San Francisco to Chinese parents. He was barred from re-entering the U.S. despite being a citizen. Questions from both conservative and liberal members of the court revealed skepticism of the Trump administration's arguments. Cecilia Wong of the ACLU argued against the constitutionality of the court. Speaking to reporters and supporters after leaving the court, she, a birthright citizen herself, said she was confident in their arguments. I come out of the court today with the thought of my parents and so many of our parents and ancestors who came to this country seeking refuge,

seeking new opportunities, and who relied on the rule that we've had in this country for 150 years, that everyone born here is a United States citizen all alike. and I am confident that the court is going to turn back this president's effort to radically rewrite our 14th Amendment rule of birthright citizenship. I want to thank the whole team behind me who have brought this case from the very beginning. We have a nation of millions on our side and we couldn't be more confident about our arguments here. Thank you. President Trump broke precedent by attending the arguments in person, sitting in the front row before leaving the court early.

During a luncheon at the White House afterwards, he criticized the justices. You could have a case where the person you're suing admits they're guilty. And if you're in front of a Democrat judge, you'll overturn that admittance. Now it's very unfair. Republicans, judges, and justices. They always want to show that they're independent. I can, I don't care if Trump appointed me. I don't care if he doesn't make any difference to me.

I'm voting against him because they want to show their independence, you know, stupid people. So Pam and I were over there with some people. We watched and actually nobody knew what the hell was going on. Simple subject, simple subject. It's, look at the time. It was passed right at the end of the Civil War. it was for the babies of slaves. For more, we're joined by two guests.

Norman Wong joins us from Washington, D.C., great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark. He gathered with supporters outside the Supreme Court yesterday. Artie Koli is the executive director of the Asian Law Caucus, co-counsel in the case. She attended oral arguments yesterday, joining us from Oakland, California. Artie, let's begin with you.

Talk about how the oral arguments went yesterday. Trump walked out. after his side was argued. But the significance of what the justices across the political spectrum asked and where you think this case is headed. Yeah, I think the oral arguments went really well for our side. As you may know, the Asian Long Caucus is co-counsel in the case with the ACLU. And I thought Sotilia Wong did a phenomenal job.

and the justices had a lot of questions for General Sauer. And I think it was also pretty notable that President Trump came to the courtroom. I was clearly an attempt to intimidate the justices. But, you know, once he sat down, people were focused on the court and the questions, and there was really, you know, not much attention paid to him. So, yeah, I think the oral arguments went really well. I felt like justices were quite skeptical of General Sauer's arguments. And, Arti, if you could talk about what specifically Trump is attempting to do,

because, of course, there are many levels of birthright citizenship and what he, he's trying to do is eradicate unrestricted birthright citizenship, which I understand only Canada and the U.S. have, at least among developed countries or advanced wealthy countries. A very simple and clear rule, and it actually has made America what it is, which is a very vibrant and diverse society. And so the current rule is, if you always... are a child born on American soil and you are a U.S. citizen and with very limited narrow exceptions unless you're born or your child of an ambassador or part of a tribal community. So what the executive order does is say if your parents, at least one parent has to be

either a green card holder or a U.S. citizen. So we're talking about students, researchers, undocumented people, H-1Bs, asylum seekers, people who have not yet been granted asylum, temporary protected status, DACA. I mean, we're talking about hundreds and thousands of babies. And for some of them, they would get citizenship through their parents

birthplace, but many would be stateless. So, you know, they would have no documentation and no ability to travel. And, you know, it would be a game changer for not just those children, but for the United States. Norman Wong, I'd like to bring you into the conversation. Tell us what happened to your great-grandfather, Wong Kim, the Chinese American, whose citizenship was challenged. by the U.S. government in 1895? Well, like Bruce Springsteen, Wong-K. Mark, my great-grandfather was born in the USA.

In San Francisco, Chinatown, specifically. His parents weren't allowed to become U.S. citizen, but they were allowed to come man and wife to America. they were trying to make the dreams here. The parents in Wonk and Mark left, but he came back as a child to live the American dream because when he was born here and raised here and left here when he was, I think, about seven, in his soul was really American. His behavior was American.

And so he came back at a very young boy, I believe, to work in the United States, in the gold mines as Cook's help. And everything I find out about him says he definitely was born in the USA. And I grew up. I was born in the USA. I was born here. and I believe I thought like the way he must have thought. And that's why he had a sense, not of entitlement, but of a fair play, he had a sense that America was a land of opportunity

and that he could do things that he couldn't do if he was in China as Chinese, actually the Chinese in a sense were a concrete people, the Manchus ran that country and was being carved up by the Europeans. So it was under great, great stress. America provided the opportunity that his parents didn't have here or in China because they were chased out in 1877 when the Chinatowns were burned down. So he saw America as a safe place and a place of opportunity. I saw that too when I was a child. And I thank people like Bruce Springsteen for singing, standing up for us. In San Francisco, we took his words and used them in our speeches to convey how we felt. And so I appreciated. Yesterday,

we had African Americans who spoke eloquently in front of the Supreme Court. in our behalf, and I thank them, because we need to stand as Americans together, regardless the color or religion or where we came from, because most all of us, I understand more than 300 million Americans owe their citizenship ultimately to birthright citizenship. Only the indigenous people came, are the first. people of the First Nation are not birthright citizenship.

They had their original place in our country. And I feel that we haven't always gotten it right with all the people here, but that doesn't mean we should make it worse. We should try to fix what we've done wrong

and make amends what we can make amends and try to make this indivisible one country under God with life, liberty, and justice for all. I'm sorry if I got the pledge wrong because it's been many years since I had to say it. But I think we all understood what it meant even as a child. Thank you. Articoli, as we wrap up, we just have 30 seconds, but the reference to enslaved people, how they fit into the issue of birthright citizenship. Yes. I mean, we have the 14th Amendment because the government at that time, Lincoln wanted to make sure that the children of enslaved people were born Americans

and wanted to make it clear that anybody born on American soil was Americans. And that's how the law has been. interpreted for the past 150 years since the amendment was ratified. And that's what Wang Kim Arc decided. And, you know, that court, the Wongham Arc Court was not a progressive court. This is a court that decided Plessy v. Ferguson. And they reluctantly affirmed this right. And it's something that all Americans have benefited from since its inception. Well, I want to thank you both for being with us. We'll be talking much more about this in the coming weeks. Arti Coley, Executive Director of the Asian Law Caucus, co-counsel

in the birth citizenship case, oral arguments heard before the Supreme Court yesterday, and Norman Wong, great-grandson of Wang Kim Ark. Coming up, we look at Israel's new death penalty law, designed only to apply to Palestinians. Back in 20 seconds. Well, I woke up this morning with my mind. Stay. Woke up this morning with my mind. Stay. Woke up this morning with my mind.

Resistance Revival Chorus. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Mimi Goodman with Nirmin-Sheikh. Israel is facing a global outcry after the Israeli Knesset approved a death penalty law. to only apply to Palestinians. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel petitioned the country's Supreme Court to strike down the law minutes after it passed,

calling it discriminatory by design. We go now to Tel Aviv, where we're joined by Salih, McAeil, International Outreach Director at the Israeli Human Rights Group, Betzelam. Explain what the Knesset just passed, Sarit. Thank you. It's a privilege being with you, Amy and Narnan.

So the Israeli Knesset, the Senate, I'll simplify a law that applies only to Palestinians, both in Israel's civil courts and in the Israeli military courts that are run in the West Bank. And essentially it means that if Palestinians in these circumstances, in these instances are found guilty of killing, of murder with an opposition or an intention that is terroristic in nature that is opposed, quote unquote, to the state of Israel, then essentially there is a death penalty. There are some differences between the two systems, but the basic discriminatory nature, the basic fact that this will be. only applied to Palestinians is across the board, is the same across the board. This shocking, this egregious draconian law pretends to be somehow based on any sort of grounded in some sort of objective criteria. But essentially, it's basically specifically written to apply only to Palestinians. So, Sarit, so it's written to apply to Palestinians, though Palestinians

aren't specifically named in the law. But could you talk about the fact that Palestinians, unlike Israelis, are already tried in military courts and what that means effectively in terms of their access to justice? Yes. So, of course, Palestinians who live in the occupied West Bank under Israeli control are tried by Israeli military courts where Israel and Israeli soldiers are basically the prosecutors, the judges, and where Israel sets the law.

And Israel decides what is right and wrong, what are offenses and what is legitimate. Palestinians do not take part in any sort of decisions that apply to these military courts. So essentially, it's basically like a military dictatorship that is ruling over Palestinians. And now with the change in Israel's law, so the new amendment adopted by our parliament,

this will mean that if Palestinians are convicted of murder under Israel's terror laws, then there will be a default death penalty attached to them. There is also a possibility under very extenuating and rare circumstances that they will only, quote, unquote, face a life sentence, but the default will be a death penalty. This will also be in a very difficult situation for any sort of way to challenge it because there is no real option for appeal. The execution, which has already been decided will happen by hanging, will happen in most circumstances within 90 days. So this, of course, does not leave a lot of room for correcting errors or for any sort of attempts to try and

get people off of death row. But then there is another system. So this is when, so Israeli occupation that applies in the West Bank will then basically condemn Palestinians to death for offenses that Israel decided are against Israeli security, terror offenses. Sarit, if I could just, before we conclude, we have 30 seconds, Sarit. How are human rights groups going to challenge this legislation? So I would just want to add one important thing, which is that this law actually enshrines it makes formal a situation where Israelis and Israel are killing Palestinians with impunity in huge numbers. I mean, for the past two years in our genocide of Gaza, in our vast numbers, the vast numbers of Palestinians who are also killed in the West Bank. These things have happened with impunity.

And the new law that will impose a death penalty is simply. making this formalized. However, I think there is also the issue of what this means in terms of Israel's culture, Israeli society's dehumanization of Palestinians. I think this is an example, or this is proof of how low our society has sunk. Saadit McAele, we have to leave it there. I thank you so much for being with us, International Outreach Director at the Israeli Human Rights Group, Petzelam, speaking to us from Tel Aviv. That does it for our show. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermin-Sheik for another edition of Democracy Now.