Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-04-07 Tuesday

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

Democracy Now! Tuesday, April 7, 2026

From New York, this is Democracy Now. Eight o'clock, Eastern Time, and after that, they're going to have no bridges, they're going to have no power plants, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. I mean, complete demolition by 12 o'clock, and it'll happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to. President Trump's threatening to unleash the U.S. military on critical Iranian civilian, infuriated. infrastructure if negotiators don't make a deal by his deadline. Israel's warned people in Iran to stay away from trains and railway lines. Trump's refused to say if schools or hospitals would be off limits. We'll go to the Iranian capital of Tehran and to Shanghai to speak with the co-authors of Hormuz

is not a tool to end the war but how Iran wins the aftermath. then a one and a half trillion dollar U.S. military budget? We'll look at where the money will be going and where it won't. It's not possible for us to take care of daycare. Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing.

Military protection. We have to guard the country. We'll speak with public citizens Rob Weissman about his argument. Trump's budget proposal is a moral obscenity and former State Department official Josh Paul. But before them, Juan Gonzalez on a historic gathering this week at the City University of New York Graduate Center, Latinx freedom, power and protest in the 1960s. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.

President Trump's renewed his threats to attack Iran's civilian infrastructure warning every power plant and every major bridge in Iran could be destroyed if the Strait of Hormuz is not fully reopened by 8 p.m. Eastern time this evening. Speaking to reporters Monday at the White House, he shrugged off questions about war crimes and threats against civilians, saying, quote, very little is off limits. Trump also claimed Iran, a country of more than 90 million people could be, quote, taken out in one night. where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o'clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business burning, exploding, and never to be used again. I mean complete demolition by 12 o'clock. And it'll happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to. Republican lawmakers defended the president's threats while Democrats condemn them as unhinged.

Arizona Congresswoman Yasmin Ansari, who is Iranian-American, called on Vice President J.D. Vance and Trump's cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. She also announced she'll introduce articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Higgs, citing as, quote, reckless endangerment of U.S. service members and repeated war crimes, unquote. In Iran, state media reports U.S. Israeli attacks target at least a dozen cities on Monday, killing at least 34 people, including six children. Among the targets was the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, which was badly damaged by airstrikes. University has been called the MIT of the Middle East. It's among at least 30 universities struck by the U.S. and Israel, according to Iran's Ministry of Science and Technology. Meanwhile, Iran missiles and drones continue to target U.S. military bases and other infrastructure in the Gulf countries. In Kuwait, CBS News reports 15 U.S. service members were injured in Iranian drone attack on the Ali al-Salem air base. In Saudi Arabia, officials temporarily closed the King Fad Causeway, the only bridge to the island nation of Bahrain.

It's one of eight major bridges Iran's threatened to blow up if the U.S.-Israeli coalition, escalates its attacks. Bahrain is home to the headquarters of the U.S. Navy's fifth fleet, but the Pentagon is largely evacuated its naval base thereafter came under persistent fire from Iran. On Monday, Iranian officials rejected a U.S. proposal for a 45-day ceasefire, saying it'll only negotiate a permanent end to the war with guarantees it won't be attacked again. The United Nations says the number of people displaced in Lebanon has grown to over 1.1 million as Israeli forces continue to invade Lebanon South while bombing Beirut and other sites across the country. Hezbollah responded with waves of rocket attacks on northern Israel. Lebanon's health ministry reports one Israeli air strike on Monday targeted a civilian car in southern Lebanon, killing four civilians, while another strike on the town of Harris killed two civilians.

This follows a bloody Easter Sunday that saw Israel kill more than three dozen people, among them the Lebanese politician Pierre Mawad, his wife and another woman, killed in an Israeli attack on an apartment building east of Beirut. Mouad was an official in the Lebanese forces, a longtime adversary of Hezbollah. In the Gaza Strip, Israeli strikes killed at least 10 people and wounded several others Monday at a school housing. displaced Palestinians in the Magazi refugee camp. In a separate attack, an Israeli strike on Gaza City killed a Palestinian man on a bicycle and wounded a child who just collected food from a soup kitchen. This is an eyewitness to the drone strike. A youth on a bicycle, a young man in his 20s, he was on the bike and two drones fell.

God protected the people that were getting food. Innocent people, they are all innocent. The man in the bike is a civil. A civilian youth. We were surprised. Two drones tore them apart. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization said Monday it's suspending evacuations from Gaza. After a WHO contract worker was killed, the Palestinian Health Ministry condemned the attack,

saying Israel continues to directly target health and humanitarian workers. The ministry reports 1,700 health care workers have been killed in Gaza since October 2003. The head of the International Monetary Funds warning the U.S. Israeli war in Iran will lead to higher inflation while slowing the global economy, even if the conflict ends swiftly. IMF director, Kristina Georgieva, said Monday, the war has already led to the worst ever disruption of global energy supplies and that poor, vulnerable nations with no energy reserves will be hit the hardest. Had we not have this war, we would have seen one small upgrade of our growth projections.

Instead, all roads now lead to higher prices and slower growth. Meanwhile, drop-site news reports the U.S. Israeli war in Iran has prompted Gulf Nation's sovereign wealth funds to undertake a sweeping review of U.S. investments. Those include funding for U.S. artificial intelligence data centers and the merger of U.S. media giants Paramount and Skydance and Warner Brothers Discovery. More than a fifth of pledges for the Blockbuster $11 billion deal come from wealth funds connected to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Drop site news reports the deal remains likely to go through, but that could change if the war drags on for weeks or months and if gold, foil and gas assets come under even greater attack.

In Turkey, one attacker was killed and two others were wounded in a gunfight with police near a building housing, the Israeli consulate in Istanbul. Turkey's interior minister said the three attackers had links to an organization that, quote, exploits religion, unquote. There had been no Israeli diplomatic staff at the consulate for two and a half years since October, 2022. The Trump administration's terminated civil rights settlements that previous administrations reached with five school districts in a college to protect transgender students, a move unprecedented in U.S. history. The Delaware Valley School District, which reached its original settlement with the Obama

administration in 2015, received notice of the termination in February and has since voted to roll back its anti-discrimination protections for transgender students. Shuali Patel, Senior Director of Education Justice of the National Women's Law Center, said, quote, there's absolutely no basis for what the Department of Education is doing, and it's unimaginably cruel, unquote. Meanwhile, in Iowa, the state can now restrict teachers from discussing LGBTQ-plus topics with students in kindergarten through sixth grade and can ban certain books in school libraries and classrooms after the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a lower court's temporary block

on a 2023 state law. A pair of Democratic lawmakers is calling President Trump to immediately end his oil blockade of Cuba, Democratic Congress members Pramilla Giapal of Washington and Jonathan Jackson of Illinois, concluded a five-day congressional delegation to Cuba during which they met with Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canal, foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez, and members of the Cuban Parliament. element. Congress members Jayapal and Jackson said they witnessed premature babies and incubators at risk because their ventilators could not function without electricity and reported that food production on the island has dropped to just 10 percent of the population's needs. In January,

President Trump signed an executive order threatening tariffs on any countries supplying oil to Cuba, intensifying the six-decade-old U.S. embargo. But Trump made an exception for a Russian ship that reached the island last week, carrying over 700,000 barrels of crude oil. It was the first petroleum shipment in three months to dock in Cuba. This is Congressmember Jayapal. The moment is here for us to have a real negotiation between our two countries and to reverse failed U.S. policy of decades, a Cold War era remnant, that no longer serves the American people or the Cuban people.

Vice President J.D. Vance is in Budapest today for meetings with Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban days before Hungary's April 12th parliamentary elections. It's the toughest electoral test. Orbán and his far-right ultra-nationalist movement have faced in years. Orban's party is trailing in polls behind the center-right opposition party. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also traveled to Budapest in February, where he told Orban, quote, President Trump's deeply committed to your success because your success is our success, unquote. Over the weekend, Orban convened an emergency national defense council meeting after Serbian authorities said two backpacks containing U.S.-made plastic explosives were discovered near the Turkstream pipeline in northern Serbia, which transports Russian gas to Hungary. Opposition leaders accused Orban of staging a false flag operation with Serbian and Russian assistance aimed at influencing the outcome of next week's election. And the U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for the

Justice Department to dismiss the criminal case against Steve Bannon, President Trump's former Chief White House strategist. The justices set aside a lower court decision that held Bannon's conviction on two counts of contempt of Congress, paving the way for the district court to dismiss the case. Bannon was convicted after he refused to comply with a subpoena from the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attack on the case. Capitol, which required him to provide documents and testimony. He served four months in prison. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman in New York, joined by Democracy Now's Juan Gonzalez in Chicago.

Hi, Juan. Hi, Amy. And welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. President Trump has renewed his threats. to attack Iran's civilian infrastructure, warning that every power plant and every major bridge in Iran could be destroyed if the Strait of Hormuz is not fully reopened by 8 p.m. Eastern time tonight. Speaking to reporters Monday at the White House, Trump shrugged off questions about threats to civilians, saying very little is off limits. He also said Iran, a country of more than 90 million people, could be, quote, taken out in one night.

They have till tomorrow. Now, we'll see what happens. I can tell you they're negotiating. We think in good faith. We're going to find out. We're getting the help of some incredible countries that want this to be ended because it affects them also. A lot of people are affected by this. But we're giving them until tomorrow, 8 o'clock Eastern Time.

And after that, they're going to have no bridges. They're going to have no power plants. Very little is often. Are there certain kinds of civilian targets, though, I'm thinking? I don't want to tell you that. I don't want to tell you that. We have a plan because of the power of our military where every bridge in Iran will be decimated

by 12 o'clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. We have to have a deal that's acceptable to me, and part of that deal is going to be. We want free traffic of oil and everything else. A spokesperson for Iran's foreign ministry condemned the Trump administration's approach to negotiations. Negotiation in no way involves an ultimatum, a crime or a threat to commit war crimes.

The Islamic Republic of Iran and the Iranian nation have very, very bitter experiences of negotiating with America. And we did not gain these experiences lightly to simply ignore them. For more, we're joined by two guests. In Shanghai, China, we're joined by Zeneb Malakuti, senior fellow at the Global Peace Institute and Research affiliate at the Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore. She previously served as director of the Human Rights Department at the UNESCO chair for human rights peace and democracy in Iran. And in Tehran, Iran, we're joined by Muhammad Islami, research fellow at the University of Tehran, a president of. and co-author of the Second Europe, a study of Iranian nuclear, Iranian-European nuclear negotiations.

He was also the editor-in-chief of Khorasan Diplomatic Magazine and traveled regularly with Iranian negotiators during the Iran-nuclear deal talks. They've just co-authored a piece together for responsible statecraft headlined, Hormuz is not a tool to end the war, but how Iran wins the aftermath. We welcome you both to democracy now. Muhammad Islami, you're in Tehran, the capital of Iran. First of all, can you just talk about how the war is unfolding on the ground in Tehran? First of all, thank you so much, Hemi, for having me in your program. I'm a follower of your program, Democracy Now from yours.

Here in Tehran, the people are waiting for Trump's reaction to his own deadline, and they're not thinking this deadline as a kind of powerness of President Trump's, but considering his inappropriate rhetoric talking about this deadline, they are thinking that it's a message of weakness from him. So the Iranian, the ordinary persons or ordinary people, there are understanding what's going on in terms of the war, but it's not in a way that they think that the government should, stop the war because they know that after the war, another war will become again.

And the question here in Iran, which every person is talking, is all this operation, if all this operation is against the Islamic Republic, but or is about the Iranian people and Iran as a country. And it is interesting that Donald Trump himself continuously said that he's talking about Iran and Iranians. It's not. talking about the Islamic Republic. He tell, I'm sorry to say that, but recently when they asked him about bombing infrastructure all around Iran, I'm sorry to say that, but he said that they are animals. So people here are taking about Trump and within Netanyahu, and everyone knows that right

now it's not about Islamic Republic, it's about Iran as a very powerful country in the region. And, Mohamed, you said, quote, that Trump appeared. to assume that Tehran is using the strait as a bargaining chip in exchange for a ceasefire or even sanctions relief, but that that assumption is mistaken. How so? Very interesting question, because from the Iranian point of view, after Trump started the war on Iran, they recalculated about the straight of foremost. And it is interesting to say that they discovered that it is a kind of historical mistake for them not to control the straight of foremost. So they are not thinking about the search for most as a card to have a ceasefire or to stop the war.

They know that the war has two dimensions. One is a tactical dimension. And the second one is about the strategy. The tactical dimension is the battle and the strategy is the war. So while the Donald Trump and the U.S. Army and the Israeli army are focused on the battle, Iranians are thinking about the war. So one of the points, that Iranians are thinking about is about deterrence. In the previous 12-day war, and in the current war, the Iranian officials understood that their missile program is important. They are targeting the U.S. bases. They are targeted in Israel, but it's not enough.

So they should have something more in terms of deterrence. So one of the things about deterrence and which the Iranian official think they should rebuild after the war is the deterrence, is the straight of foremost. But it is not only about the deterrence. It is also about a court to reestablish their relations with other countries out of the regime of the sanctions, regime of sanctions, unilateral sanctions by the United States, and the UN sanctions that is again after the snapback. So the Iranians are thinking about this sort of foremost

in a strategic way, and they want to have a constructive role. in global economy rather than a destructive rule. And this sort of foremost, for them, is acquired to have a bilateral relations with European countries, with also the regional countries, with Asian countries. And they are thinking about this, as I told you, it is not about the Islamic Republic. It's not about defencing the Islamic Republic. They think that it was a historical mistake for them. I'm sure that Zainab will explain more.

but legally speaking, it is their right to control the state of humos. I wanted to ask you about the Trump's threat to bomb Iran back to the Stone Age. It seems to me that throughout this conflict, the President Trump has not really grasped the size and power of Iran and has consistently over-estimated the power of the United States, States to do what it wants. I'm wondering your thoughts about that. And you know that President Trump doesn't have any plan for this operation. Who has the plan? Bibi Netanyahu has a plan for this operation.

But what's the problem with Bibi Netanyahu? Netanyahu is the Prime Minister of the country with 10 million persons. But the persons and the population of Tehran in night, I'm not talking about in the morning. The population of Tehran in night is more than 10 million persons. So it's the question of scale. They cannot understand a big country, a big economy, a big society of the Iran. So they thought that by killing the Iranian supreme leader, by killing the high-ranking negotiators, by bombing the infrastructure, by bombing the bridges as they're talking about,

they can push Iranians to surrender. But it's not the way that they wanted. And the problem of scale and the matter of scale is what they cannot understand. They didn't have in their previous calculations. Muhammad Islami, you're right there in Tehran. At 806 Eastern this morning, 12 hours before Trump's deadline, he just wrote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.

I don't want that to happen, Trump writes, on truth social, but he says it probably will. Your response? I think there are two scenarios. The first one is Trump belothing and beloping and loying again and again and again. We should wait because this is not the first time. that he's declaring a decline. So the second scenario is he is promising, I mean, I mean, having the operation and ordering the operation, the same as he said.

But from the Iranian point of view, if Trump is going to do this, it means that he's going to make lots of problems for the global economy. And I'm telling you that the Iranian officials have a plan of at least, three months of war, at least three months of war. And they are calculating about the oil prices. They are calculating about lots of indexes globally and also United States domestically. There are, I mean, monitoring every happenings inside the United States. And also, as I told you, globally, they are in contact with European countries and on other markets in East Asian market, for example, in oil and gas. So the Iranians are waiting.

for Trump. Trump will bomb Iran. He cannot, he cannot achieve their goals by bombing power plants and bridges because because the country is much more bigger than his understanding. So yes, there is a scenario in Tehran, but everybody is waiting for him. Even people are waiting for him. That's it. Not anymore. I want to bring Zeneb Malakuti into the conversation. She's in Shanghai, China. She's part of, she teaches at National University of Singapore. We also have this breaking news, that the U.S. military conducted strikes on military targets on Iran's Harg Island, the Axios news outlet, reported today. You have a piece together with Muhammad Islami called Hermuz is not a tool to end the war, but how Iran wins the aftermath.

If you can explain exactly what you mean, Harg Island, by the way, is not in the straight of Hormuz. It's in the Persian Gulf. But if you can also link the two and talk about the significance of this attack, we're just reporting. Yes, thank you so much for having me. First of all, I should say that Iran's reaction and any retaliation should be understood in the context of what Iran sees as an illegal war initiated by the U.S. and Israel under international law. So the situation, and the situation of Hormoz needs to be viewed as a whole, not in isolation. Specifically regarding the Strait of Hormoz, Iran has both opportunities and challenges in this regard. The S-Raeft is not just a short-term bargaining tool for a ceasefire or ending the war.

Even recently, Iran has rejected proposal linking a syspire to reopening the estrade. So I think that this shows that Iran sees the Strait of Hormuz as a longer-term strategic level, especially for the post-war period. So in terms of the challenges that Iran might face, one is legal dimension. Domestically at the parliament, now they are discussing about. a bill on a state security arrangement. If it's passed, it could give Iran greater control over the straight of hormones, including financial measures and tool regulations and to somehow cooperation with Oman, which they have already had a meeting.

But it's not just a domestic legal situation at the international level, the situation is also complex. The Strait of Hormuz is generally considered as an international strait under UN Convention on the Law of Sea. But Iran is not a party to this convention. And repeatedly, during the years, rejected the transit passage regime. Some argue that transit passage is part of customary international. law, which means that Iran must follow this regime. But I believe that this is the questionable issue under international law.

I think that personally, from the legal perspective, I should say that more important than the Estrade of Hormuz, which is a gray area under international law, there are certain principles of international humanitarian law or the way. law of war that are being violated right now when I'm speaking with you by the U.S. and Israel attacks on civilian objects, infrastructure, and a recent threat of the President Trump for bombardment of a power plant inside Iran. And Senaub, I wanted to ask you what Mohammed mentioned earlier, that the Iranian leadership is prepared for at least a three-month of war with the United States.

What would be the impact if this war dragged down for so long, especially on the countries of Asia that depend so much on the Persian Gulf for their oil supply? You're speaking to us from China. China is heavily reliant on oil from the Persian Gulf, but especially countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, South Korea. What is already happening there and what would happen if this war dragged on for three months? Short answer is that it would be a disaster for these countries because limitation on the strait and the restrictions on vessel movement have a major impact on energy markets. If the

Strait and foremost remains close, East Asia would face not only an oil price shock, but also a broader their structural energy crisis that exposes deep vulnerabilities in their supply chain. As you mentioned, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia are already under pressure. We can say to somehow the situation of China is a bit different because some Chinese vessels have been allowed to pass the Strait of Hormuz with Iran's permission. and also China also has a more diversified energy mix, including domestic coal, renewables, and oil and gas. For the short time, I can say that no physical shortages China will face, but in the longer time, they will face a problem. Zeneb Malakuti, you're speaking to us from Shanghai.

You're at the National University of Singapore. I wanted to ask you about the UNESCO heritage sites. UNESCO has said it's deeply concerned about the fate of Iran's 29 world heritage sites after Tehran's palace, often compared to Versailles, a historic mosque, and a 17th century palace and Isfahan were damaged by Israeli and U.S. strikes last month. Last week, the head of Iran's National Commission for UNESCO warned the extent of the damage to Iran's historic and cultural sites is far higher. As of last night, I was told that 132 of our cultural heritage sites had come under attack. Zeneb Malakuti, if you can talk about this, you have been following what are UNESCO World Heritage sites? what is the extent of the damage, as you understand it, and what are we losing as a world community? Yeah. As you probably know, more than 100 cultural sites are destroyed or damaged during these 30 days of war by the U.S. and Israeli attacks. These are, most of them are under the UNESCO protect, but not all.

These are all damaged or even completely destroyed in Esfahan, Shiraz, and Tehran. Some said that these are collateral damage of the attacks, but if you look at the amount of the damages, you can see that and you can say that these are not collateral damage. These are just destroying of the cultural heritage.

And the important thing is that people are getting angry more and more every day. Because they can see the real face of war, the destruction of cultural heritage. And now I can say

that people decides to rally around the flag and support Iran. I'm hearing Mohammed back into the conversation. Muhammad, the Trump administration keeps saying that they are determined not to allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. But the world forgets that it was Trump himself in his first term that pulled the United States out of the international agreement that was limiting nuclear enrichment

in Iran. I'm wondering, you're familiar with the Iranian-European negotiations? Could you talk about that? Trump lied about J.C. He said that this Obama did. It was not Obama deal. It was a deal endorsed by the UN Security Council. It was a deal negotiated

more than two years by five permanent members of United U.S. Security Council. It was a deal discussed in lots of institutes all around the world. So Trump lied about JCPUIA. And what he said about enrichment facilities in Iran and the Iranian intention to have nuclear weapon, it is not true because because all the Iranian program was under the IAEA monitoring.

So Donald Trump, it is a question for the Iranians. What is the main objectives of Donald Trump to have war in terms of diplomatic war, economic war, and now operations against the Iranian people? And as I told you, the Iranian think that, you know, I'm telling you that in Iran, before the war, there was a debate if the United States is going to start this war or not. And some said that it is not rational for the United States to instart these law of choice. So right now, people are thinking about the real objectives behind Trump actions against Iran. And it seems that the Trump administration, and Donald Trump himself, is under a real, real influence by the Israelis, naming Donald, I mean, Bibi Netanyahu. And I don't want to mention absent files, but ordinary people in Iran,

And they are thinking maybe there are something in absent voice that Trump is accepting every order by being it to me. Muhammad Islami, I want to thank you for being with us, research fellow at the University of Tehran, speaking to us from Iran. And Zinab Malakuti, senior fellow at the Global Peace Institute speaking to us from Shanghai. We'll link to your peace for responsible statecraft. Headlined, Hermuz is not a tool to end the war, but how Iranians. Iran wins the aftermath. We're having this discussion as Donald Trump has just tweeted, A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will, the president said. Up next, a one and a half trillion dollar U.S.

military budget will look at where the money will be going and where it won't. We'll also speak with Juan Gonzalez about a historic gathering at the CUNY Graduate Center here in New York this week called Latinx Freedom. Stay with us. Well, I just want to go to work. Get back home, be something. I just want to fall in line. Do my time be something. I just want to prove my worth on the planet Earth.

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 a... Palante, performed by Hooray for the Riffraff at Democracy Now's 30th anniversary at Riverside Church to see the whole two-and-a-half hour event, go to DemocracyNow.org. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. Juan, you're going to be here in New York, Thursday and Friday, for a historic gathering

called Latinx Freedom, Power and Protest in the 1960s. It'll be at the CUNY Graduate Center. You'll be giving a keynote address on Thursday. Can you tell us more about the gathering, who will be there, and a preview of what you're going to talk about. Yeah, Amy, well, this amazing conference has been organized by two historians, Professor Johanna Fernandez of Baruch College and Professor Felipe Inohosa of Baylor University in Texas.

And it's bringing together, I think, for the first time, of veterans of the Latinx freedom and revolutionary movements of the 1960s to be in conversation with academics, university students and the general public. And it's actually the prelude to a series of events that are going to occur this year, sort of an alternative view of the 250th anniversary of Declaration of Independence that will feature exhibitions in cities across the country in Houston, Texas, Chicago, Washington, D.C., L.A. and New York to bring to a new generation this story of how the Latinx freedom movement developed.

And they're going to be among the people that are going to be speaking there. Carlos Montes, one of the original leaders of the Brown Berets in California. Rosie Castro, one of the leaders of the L.A. blowouts of 1968. Martha Cotera, the famous feminist and leader of the Hasanita Party from Texas from that time. Omar Lopez and Tony Baez, both of them leaders of the, Chicago young lords back in the 1960s. Eliseo Medina will be there, one of the original organizers of the United Farm Workers and then a major U.S. labor leader, Digna Sanchez of the former Puerto Rican Socialist Party. My own two comrades from the New York Young Lords Day, Denise Oliver and David Perez will be there

in speaking as well. Linda Coronado, one of the leaders of Casa, the great Marxist Chicano organization in Chicago and L.A. and around the country. And there will also be some of the top historians of the Latino community. David Montejano, the great historian from Texas, Sonia Lee, Lauren Thomas, Lydia Fernandez. And I'll also be participating in a town hall meeting on Friday night with the great journalist of Mariano Ojas and others to talk about the shadow vice, what it means for the Latino community and America. And it's going to be a terrific two-day conference. And those people who are interested in attending, they need to register.

It's free, but you've got to register at the Latinxfreedom.com. And I hope to see a lot of people there at the event Thursday and Friday. I can't wait one. Again, Thursday and Friday at the CUNY grad school. center here in Manhattan, that town hall meeting that you're having on Friday called in the shadow of ice with Maria Gosa. I also hope you'll join us on Thursday night for the premiere of the theatrical opening of Steal the Story, please, about the 30 years of democracy now. And in it, as we did at the 30th anniversary, there's a wonderful section one on your background as

one of the founders of the young lords here in New York. And that's going to happen at the IFC Thursday evening, the IFC Center at West 4th and 6th Avenue. This is Democracy Now. When we come back, a $1.5 trillion budget. Stay with us. The Healers by the late great Randy Weston performing the song when he spoke to Democracy Now in 2012, I'll never forget sitting next to him at his piano. Monday, April 6th, marks what would have been Randy Weston's 100th birthday. To see his performance in our interview, go to DemocracyNow.org. This is Democracy Now. Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. The White House has unveiled a record-shattering Pentagon budget request of

$1.5 trillion for the next fiscal year. It's by far the largest year-over-year increase in a presidential military spending request since World War II. It includes funding for F-35 stealth fighter jets, new warships, including Virginia-class submarines and Trump's Golden Dome Missile Defense Shield, which the White House says will cost $185 billion to boost U.S. shipbuilding, raise salaries for troops and AI development in the military. This is President Trump at a White House event last week ahead of the budget proposal announcement. It's not possible for us to take care of daycare. Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing, military protection. We have to guard the country.

Critics have slammed Trump's budget proposal for continuing to funnel taxpayer money to increase U.S. military spending for Israel's wars on Gaza, Iran, and Lebanon. Last month, Senator Bernie Sanders filed three joint resolutions of disapproval in attempt to block the sale of U.S. bombs worth over $660 million to Israel. This is Senator Sanders speaking with MS now host Chris Hayes. The bottom line is that to give another 20,000 bombs to a country which committed genocide in Gaza happens to be, among many other things, forget the moral issue, happens to be in violation of American law. You don't sell arms, according to American law, the countries that violate

international law and human rights. Clearly, Israel has done that. Israel talked Netanyahu, who for 40 years, has wanted a war with Iran, finally got a president to go along with him. For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we're joined by two people. We start with Josh Paul, veteran, State Department official, who resigned in in 2020, under the Biden administration, to protest the push to increase arms sales to Israel for its war on Gaza. He's now a director at a new policy, the lobbying group he co-founded with fellow resignee, Tarakabash, to press for a change in U.S. policy on Palestine and Israel.

Josh, thanks for joining us again. The Trump administration first declared an emergency soon after the U.S. and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran to bypass Congress. on more than 20,000 bombs to Israel. You resigned over the push to increase arms sales during Israel's war on Gaza. Can you give your perspective on the significance of over 20,000 more bombs

potentially being delivered to Israel and overall on this shattering one and a half trillion dollar military budget? Yes, thank you, Amy. So let's start with that one point, $5 trillion budget, which doesn't include, let's be clear, funding for the current Iran war. That will come in a further supplemental. So it's a vast amount of money and ultimately leveraged against the U.S. debt. We are spending our children's money to take the lives of other people's

children. That's what it boils down to. It's just a vast amount of money in a way that is reckless by an administration that is corrupt. When we look at this. new weapons sales, these new weapons sales to Israel, 20,000, 1,000 pound bombs. Coming out of, let's be clear as well, US stocks, a lot of these weapons are not going to be built afresh. They're going to be transferred out of the US stocks. And then President Trump will, if he gets it, spend this money from the taxpayer and from our national debt to recuperate or to recoup ourselves for that. It is another burden, certainly on the American people, but also on the world. At the end of the day, it is not just these bombs. There are also other weapons we've provided to Israel,

including bulldozers that are being used to destroy Palestinian homes in act of collective punishment. Senator Sanders will be bringing a vote next week to the floor of the Senate against the bombs, against these bulldozers, and I think it is vital that we see as many Democratic senators as possible vote to block those weapons, and ideally Republicans as well, because this is no one's interest whatsoever. And Josh, you said that the foreign military financing or FMF serves almost as a gift card for Israel to spend on weapons. You talk about the disproportion in military aid specifically to Israel that the United States has had historically compared to other countries in the world? So Israel has always been by far the largest recipient of U.S. military grant assistance.

In President Trump's budget request, the provision to Israel of U.S. funding comprises 63% of the global available total. People keep asking, why do we keep getting pulled back into wars in the Middle East? What about this rebalance to Asia? Well, when you're spending the majority of your global funding in Israel and in the region, in the Middle East, of course you're going to keep getting pulled back. We are not getting pulled back to the Middle East. We are anchored to it as a function of our own funding. to Israel.

I want to bring, go ahead, one. Yeah, I just want to say last month, the State Department approved potential arms sales to three Middle East countries worth more than $23 billion. Talk about this aid to countries like the UAE, Kuwait and Jordan. So this isn't aid, this is sales,

but the Trump administration used an emergency authority. These cases were already sitting under congressional review and Congress had questions, both about the arms sales to Israel and about the arms sales to the UAE. The UAE, of course, being involved right now or supporting the genocide that is occurring in Sudan. The administration, I think, very cynically used the current war with Iran to essentially say, okay, we're declaring an emergency, we're not going to answer any more questions from Congress about these human rights abuses, about these risks, and we are just going to move these forward. So a very cynical, very disturbing use of the existing authorities.

And before we go to Rob Weissman, I wanted to ask you four astronauts, our part of the NASA Artemis II crew, became the furthest humans from Earth in all of history, officially, as they began their trajectory, which they just finished around the dark side of the moon. Trump's budget plans to cut 23% of NASA's budget, $3.6 billion. cut to the agency's science unit, which could cancel 40 programs. Can you talk about all of these budget cuts across federal agencies and how it's a path for further privatization of the federal government? Yeah, so first of all, I think we can all think of a few or four other people that we would rather be the furthest they could be from the earth. So what Trump is doing is essentially

creating an opportunity for SpaceX in particular and for other major companies that have close relationships with the White House to essentially privatize space, to continue to advance, you know, through the defense budget, President Trump's, as he sees it, national security role and to militarize space, but then to cut the civilian side of the funding in order to allow profit-seeking companies, the private sector, essentially to build up its role there as well. So it's a lose-lose, both for science and for humanity. So a moral obscenity, that's what public citizen and nearly 300 other groups nationwide are calling the budget. They're urging Congress to reject Trump's budget proposal, which could cut billions of dollars in social programs for education, health care, climate, and affordable housing.

The White House budget request also continues to agree. aggressively slash federal programs, Trump has decried as, quote, unquote, woke, aimed at diversity, equity, and inclusion, DEI. For more, we're also going to Robert Weissman, co-president of public citizen, his group just releasing a statement title, Trump's budget proposal is a moral obscenity. Rob, thanks again for joining us. Lay out what is not being funded. What is being cut? Yeah, well, I think we've got to look at these two things simultaneously, a $500 billion increase, a 50% increase in the Pentagon budget and a roughly $100 billion proposed cut for everything else. So the everything else that's going to be cut includes some of the items you were talking about, includes funding for education, includes funding for health care, huge investments in science, biomedical science, all kinds of sciences, including the NASA program you were talking about. course, cuts for programs to help the poor and vulnerable because that's what Trump and

Russ vote prioritize. Those cuts are not likely to go through the Congress is not going to agree to them. However, to some extent, they reflect what Trump is actually doing in refusing to spend money that Congress is appropriated. On the other side is a $500 billion proposed increase for the Pentagon, and Congress is going to take that seriously. So, 500, billion dollars. It's beyond the wildest dreams of the military industrial complex. All it means is buying more weapons for more war. But if you stop and think about what can we do with 500 billion, if we had the political will, which Trump says he has for war spending, if we had the political will for peace spending, what can we do? Well, we could restore all of the cuts to Medicaid and

food assistance in Trump's prior bill. We could expand Medicare to cover dental, health, and vision. We could have universal care for children zero to four. We could double the budget for the EPA. We could invest in affordable housing and end homelessness in the United States. We could restore and expand all of the foreign assistance that's been cut, which public health experts say will lead to the deaths of millions by 2030. We could invest all of that and more, not one of those things, all of those things and more with this 500. billion dollars. So it is a moral obscenity both for what it proposes to spend and for what it shows we could do but are refusing to do because we don't have the political will.

And Rob Weissman, in terms of what it proposes to spend, it's an astounding amount of money. What, in addition to the fact that Trump has been pushing the NATO countries to increase their military spending, which will, of course, rebound back to American arms manufacturers and the need of the Gulf states to increase their military spending because of the war that he embarked on here with Iran. What does President Trump propose to spend this increase on? Well, the details matter, but I have to say, I don't think they really know. This amount is so large. They're just throwing a giant number out there.

We saw in the last tax and budget reconciliation bill $150 billion extra going to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon made a desperate effort to try to spend as much as it could in September because they were running out of time according to their own timetable, and they were just throwing it everywhere they could. I think two things that are worth teasing out that they're looking to do. One is the president's Golden Dome Project, which is a kind of revitalization of what used to be known as Star Wars, an alleged AI-driven system to provide protection against ballistic missile attacks in the United States, which is impossible to achieve.

according to scientists, but which is projected out to spending over many years at trillions of dollars and then a massive new increase of investment in the nuclear program to invest in more nuclear weapons rather than just decommissioning the ones that we have on hand. And if you could talk about the White House calling on Congress to approve a significant portion of its proposed military spending increase, using the filibuster proof reconciliation process, which would allow Republicans to approve the budget without any Democratic support, Rob. Explain in the late terms what's going on here. Yeah, so it can sound tricky, but it's pretty straightforward.

They're proposing this preposterous increase of $500 billion. By the way, on top of a trillion-dollar budget, that should be cut, because it's already vastly more than we need to spend, and this is an agency of the Pentagon that can't pass an audit, that is the center of waste and fraud in the federal government. it should easily be cut by $200 billion, but they're proposing a $500 billion increase. That's a lot. Democrats aren't going to agree to that. So their proposal is the majority of that should be funded through this special process

that you're referencing, the reconciliation process that cannot be filibustered and could be driven through just by a majority of Republicans in the Senate, or by a totality of Republicans in the Senate. So it's a way to get around the normal appropriations process, which requires some bipartisan agreement, it would mean that if they do $350 billion without the filibuster, the rest of the budget is kind of a trick. So if you think you're passing just a $1.1 trillion Pentagon budget, you're actually passing a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget because they plan to do the rest of it

without Democratic agreement. And just to make it even worse, to add on to the point that Josh made, this does not include the additional $200 billion they're going to seek to fund and expand the Iran War. So this is separate from the Iran War funding. If you add that in, the Pentagon budget would be up at $1.7 trillion. We just have about 20 seconds left. What is public citizen calling for now?

Well, absolutely, no, not another dollar for the war, not an extra dollar for the Pentagon. We want cuts, but right now the priority is to stop this from going through. And we think that is achievable. As you juxtapose, these numbers, the tweets you were reading, from the cartoon villain president, threatening to destroy civilizations. He doesn't need a penny more to engage in the lunatic behavior he's trying to inflict on the rest of the world. Rob Weissman, want to thank you for being with us, co-president of public citizen, the recent statements headline,

Trump's budget proposal is a moral obscenity. And I want to thank Josh Paul Veterans, State Department official who resigned in 2023 under the Biden administration to protest the pushed increased arms sales to Israel amidst its assault on Gaza and now slamming the military budget that's being proposed. Happy birthday, Matthew Ely. That does it for our show. I'll be speaking tonight at the Green Music Center at Sonoma State University in California. That's at 7.30 tonight at Weil Hall. Juan will be speaking on Thursday.

Friday here in New York City at the CUNY Grad Center at the Latinx Freedom Conference. Democracy Now, currently accepting applications for our development associate position, go to our website at Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez for another edition of Democracy Now.