Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-04-20 Monday

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

Democracy Now! Monday, April 20, 2026

San Francisco, this is Democracy Now. Motor vessel Toska, motor vessel Toska, vacate your engineer, vacate your engine. We're prepared to subject you to the same line fire. The U.S. military has attacked and seized an Iranian flag cargo ship as hopes dimmed for a new round of peace talks. On Sunday, President Trump issued a new warning saying, if Iran does not sign this deal, the whole country is getting blown up. We'll get the latest and look at what's happening in the Strait of Formuz. On Friday, Iran announced it will reopen the Strait,

but then reverse courts after the U.S. refused to lift its embargo. We'll speak to two Iranian-American professors. Then to the acclaimed artist and activist Shepard Ferry, we met up with him at his Los Angeles Gallery. I think ARR can help turn things around by taking something that's, you know, feeling more in the ether and crystallizing it in a way that's, you know, very direct, clear, and resonates with someone's emotion. Plus, we look at the Trump administration's plans to restructure the U.S. Forest Service, which many fear will dismantle the 120-year-old agency. What will be the impact on the nearly two of the nearly two of the U. million acres of natural forests and grasslands. All that and more coming up.

Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, The Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman in San Francisco. Iran's once again shut down the strait of Hormuz. Just one day after reopening the vital shipping lane, it comes as the U.S. Navy intercepted and seized an Iranian flag cargo ship Sunday in the Sea of Oman. Iran said the seizure of vital. the ceasefire reached earlier this month. Despite the escalation, President Trump announced a U.S. delegations heading to Pakistan for a new round of peace talks, repeating his claim that a deal is very close. But Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson said Monday, Tehran has no plans to participate. Speaking to Fox News Sunday, President Trump warned, quote, if Iran does not sign this deal,

the whole country is getting blown up. This is Mohamed Reza Nakti, a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Victory will certainly be ours. We hold the upper hand. Even if you look at the battlefield through ordinary calculations, victory is ours, and we have the advantage. They have already struck whatever they could. They did whatever they were able to do.

They say they hit 33,000 targets. They keep inventing numbers for themselves. They say they sank all our forces. Well, if you sank all our naval forces, then why did you not dare come and reopen the strait? In southern Lebanon, a French peacekeeper was killed and three others wounded. After a UN patrol came under fire Saturday, French President Manuel Macron blamed the attack on Hezbollah, while the group denied responsibility. Israel has been known to target you.

humanitarian aid convoys. The incident comes just days after Israel and Lebanon announced a 10-day ceasefire brokered by the United States. On Sunday, the Israeli military published for the first time a map of its new deployment line inside southern Lebanon, which runs five to 10 kilometers deep into Lebanese territory, putting dozens of villages under Israeli occupations. Israel's calling it a buffer zone. Meanwhile, an image went viral on social media, showing an Israeli soldier using a jackhammer to smash a statue of Jesus on a cross and occupied southern Lebanon, drawing widespread condemnation. Israel's army says it's investigating the soldier. It comes as tens of thousands of displaced Lebanese rushed back to their villages. in South Lebanon to destroyed homes and seams of devastation. This is Jamila Bassem, who was displaced from Beirut's southern suburbs.

We will rebuild with our own hands. We're not afraid. Even if it takes us 10 years to repair, it doesn't matter to me. My house in the village is also gone, but we will repair it too, and it will come back even better than it was. What matters is that we live with pride and dignity, not to be ruled by anyone. British authorities are investigating whether a series of recent arson attacks on Jewish sites in London are leaked to what they described as Iranian proxies. A 17 and 19-year-old were arrested in connection

with an arson attack on a synagogue in northwest London over the weekend. A Persian language media company was also reportedly attacked in recent days. No one's been injured. This is Rabbi Yehuda Black of the Kenton United Synagogue. As far as I'm aware, at 1130 last night, and my synagogue, Kenton United Synagogue, was firebombed. They threw into the medical room a firebomb. There was smoke everywhere. I'm glad to say that the synagogue was not burned down. It's a beautiful synagogue. It's a gem of a synagogue. But at the end of the day, I don't think they've succeeded what wanted to do in that respect. Oil and gas prices surged over 6% after the U.S. Navy said it intercepted in the season of Iranian

flag cargo ship. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNN, gas prices may stay above $3 per gallon until next year. Meanwhile, Air Canada's temporarily suspended flights from Toronto and Montreal to New York's JFK airport for five months, citing rising fuel prices. Separately, Spirit Airlines is reportedly seeking emergency U.S. government funds to stay afloat amidst the fuel price surge. In Gaza, UNICEF reported Israeli fire killed two truck drivers. It had contracted to deliver clean water to Palestinian families Friday. Israeli attacks have killed more than 750

Palestinian since last October's so-called ceasefire. It comes as UN women published a report detailing how Israel's killed tens of thousands of Palestinian women and girls since 2024. This is the Chief of Humanitarian Action at UN Women. Between October 2023 and December 2025, more than 38,000 women and girls were killed in Gaza. the result of Israeli air bombardment and land military operations. This includes over 22,000 women and 16,000 girls, amounting to an average of at least 47 women and girls killed every day.

Women and girls accounted for a proportion of deaths far higher than those observed in previous conflicts in Gaza. In Louisiana, an army veteran murder, murdered eight children, including seven of his own, in a mass shooting rampage that span four locations across Shreveport Sunday. Two women were left critically injured, both of them, the mothers of the murdered children. The gunman was previously arrested in 2019 and sentenced to probation for firing five bullets at a vehicle near a school where children were playing. Meanwhile, in Iowa City, five people, including three college students, were wounded early Sunday when a gunfight erupted near the University of Iowa campus.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 114 mass shootings in the United States since the beginning of the year. In Ukraine, at least six people were killed and over a dozen wounded after a gunman opened fire on crowds in the streets of Kiev Saturday. The 58-year-old suspect, who's not been named, was killed by police after he took several people hostage inside a supermarket. Authorities are investigating the mass shooting as an act of terrorism. The Ukrainian president, Volodymers Zelensky, said the attacker was born in Russia and had lived in the Donetsk region and set fire to an apartment building before taking to the streets in a shooting rampage. The U.S. militaries confirmed another strike on a boat in the Caribbean, saying it killed at least three people on board. The Trump administration again claimed the vessel was carrying drugs without providing any evidence.

Since September, U.S. strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific have killed nearly 200 people. In related news, two U.S. embassy staffers died in a car crash in northern Mexico. Two Mexican law enforcement officials were also killed. The four officials were returning from a drug enforcement operation when the accident took place. Mexican officials confirmed a devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year was caused by a pipeline leak near a field operated by the state-run Pemex, contradicting earlier claims. environmentalists had accused the Mexican government of lying about the causes of the spill off the coast of Veracruz, which spread across more than 370 miles and into at least seven nature reserves. Over a dozen groups, including Greenpeace Mexico and March, shared satellite images that showed the real route of the spill was a Pemex pipeline leak, which the company had not disclosed. The U.S. Justice Departments tapped a Trump loyalist to lead a Miami-based federal investigation into former federal officials who investigated Donald Trump.

81-year-old Joe DeGenova previously served as a U.S. attorney under President Reagan. After the 2020 presidential election, he supported efforts to overturn Joe Biden's victory. DeGenova was named to the role after the Justice Department removed. moved career federal prosecutor Maria Meditas Long, who resisted pressure to bring charges against former CIA director John Brennan. That investigation centered around the 2017 intelligence assessment that found Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election in support of Donald Trump. A federal appeals court is allowing President Trump to continue building his $400 million dollar bowl room at the White House's former East Wing, reversing a lower court's order from the

previous day that temporarily blocked the construction. Last fall, Trump tore down the East Wing to build the ballroom, prompting a lawsuit by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Trump has said the ballroom would be a shed for a massive military complex being built underneath. Meanwhile, the Commission of Fine Arts, whose members were handpicked by President Trump has approved plans to build a 250-foot-tall, triumphal arch in Washington, D.C. The gold-adorned structure would tower over the nearby Lincoln Memorial and would dwarf other federal monuments. A federal judge in California's blocked the $6.2 billion mega merger of Next Star Media Group and its competitor, Tegna. The combined company would control 265 television stations in 44 states in Washington, D.C., making it the largest owner of local TV affiliates in the United States, controlling far more than the FCC's ownership cap of 39 percent. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley ruled in favor of U.S. attorneys who sued to block the merger, agreeing it would likely increase costs,

reduce competition and weaken local news coverage. Next Star says it will appeal the ruling. In Wisconsin police fire tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber-coated steel bullets at hundreds of animal rights activists on Saturday as they attempted to rescue about 2,000 dogs from a facility that breeds beagles for medical experimentation. The crackdown by Dane County Sheriff's deputies left scores of people injured, including one protester who had two teeth knocked out. Twenty-five people were arrested. Protesters were attempting to enter a property owned by Ridgland Farms, which agreed last fall to surrender its state breeding license

and stopped selling dogs to other laboratories by July 1st as part of a deal to avoid prosecution on animal mistreatment charges. A state judge found Ridgeland Farms likely broke Wisconsin animal cruelty laws by housing beagles in brutal conditions, performing surgeries without anesthesia and leaving wounds untreated along with other violations. Ridgeland Farm still holds federal research credentials and plans to continue breeding beagles for its own experimentation. Last month, activists successfully emptied the property and freed about two dozen beagles who were subsequently adopted. And Brazilian President Luis Anasya Lula de Silva has wrapped up a two-day visit to Spain, where he held bilateral meetings with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. On Saturday,

they joined a pair of gatherings that brought together leaders of more than a hundred progressive political parties across five continents to discuss ways to combat the rise of the far right in the U.S. Europe and South America. This is Brazilian President Lula. We must replace despair with hope and hatred with optimism. the global progressive movement has an important mission to restore the ability of progressive forces to envision a better future, one characterized by social justice, equality, and democracy. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now. DemocritoryNow.org, the War and Peace Report.

I'm Amy Goodman. Hopes for an end to the U.S. and Israeli war in Iran have dimmed after another dramatic weekend. On Sunday, the U.S. struck and then seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship. Iran has vowed to retaliate. This marks the first time the U.S. has seized an Iranian ship since President Trump announced a naval blockade of all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports. On Friday, Iran announced it would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but then reverse course. after the U.S. refused to lift its blockade. Meanwhile, the U.S. Iran ceasefire set to expire Wednesday, and the two sides have yet to agree to hold another round of talks. On Sunday, President Trump said a U.S. delegation is heading to Pakistan for possible talks.

The delegation will reportedly include Vice President J.D. Vance, envoy Steve Whitkoff, and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. But Iran says it has no plans, no plans to engage in a second round of talks. Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson spoke earlier this morning. As of now, as I am speaking to you, we have no plan for the next round of negotiations. No decision has been taken in this regard. On Saturday, President Trump told a reporter at Fox News, quote, if Iran does not sign this deal, the whole country is getting blown up, unquote.

In a post on social media, Trump also threatened again to, quote, knock out every single power plant and every single bridge in Iran, unquote, if Iran doesn't agree to a deal. Trump's threats come less than two weeks after he warned a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again, unquote. We begin today's show with Valinasser, Iranian-American professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He's the author of Iran's Grand Strategy, a Political History.

His piece for the Financial Times is headlined Iran is playing a long game. Professor Nasser, thanks for joining us again. If you can explain and respond to the latest news of the U.S. occupying the Iranian ship and the Strait of Hormuz, closed again. What we have been witnessing since the end of the last round of talks in Islamabad is actually a gradual escalation between U.S. and Iran. Initially, things look good. The United States pushed for a ceasefire in Lebanon. Iran announced that the Strait of Hormuz would be open to all commercial shipping. But then President Trump came out and said that, no, his blockade would stay put and he was

going to fully enforce it. And then he issued a series of tweets and posts in which he claimed that Iran had already agreed to give up all of its nuclear program, even before there was an agreement or a second round of talks, insinuating that Iran was essentially surrendering to his demands. That changed the mood into Iran. Iranians grew very angry that the president was insinuating that they had surrendered and there was an agreement where there wasn't one. And they were suspicious that President Trump was really using the talks in Pakistan as a cover for a renewing war on Iran and that he was not serious about diplomacy. And so they began to try to emphasize to their own population and to the world community

that there was no agreement and that President Trump was not correct in what he was saying. They refuted his claims and then they closed the straight-of-hormos even more fully. and that has led to a series of attacks on ships, Iran on tankers and on cargo ships and the United States on an Iranian ship. And that leaves us where we are. There are now a lot of people in Tehran who are saying there's no point in going to Islamabad. The president is preparing for war and Iran may as well do so. Who is in charge, Professor Nasser in Iran right now? Who is negotiating? Who do you think is the real force or forces behind the scenes? I think this is a this is not a right way of looking at this.

Iran has a leadership, has a supreme leader. Under supreme leader, there's a series of people he's appointed for his senior advisors and senior security people. He has assigned and delegated the Iran Speaker of the parliament to go and negotiate with President Trump. And ultimately, he's the final decision maker. And the leadership in Iran is co-rength. cohesive. It's, you know, well in charge, just as much as the American leadership is well in charge.

I think this speculation about who's in charge, who's not, that Iran is divided, actually is not correct. What we're seeing in Iran is that the Iranian leadership is reacting to what it's seeing as erratic American messaging, that on the one side he wants to talk, On the other side, it is sending contradictory messages in the Gulf with the blockade, as well as also claiming things about the diplomatic process itself, which actually is creating confusion into Iran. Can you talk, though, specifically about Hamani's son, his relationship with the Iranian Republican Guard, and how he is seen in Iran? Well, he was elected by the Council of Experts to succeed his father.

That's a controversial choice because supposedly the father did not want a kind of a primogeniture in Iran. In other words, father's son replacing the father. But he was the choice during a war. He has had tight relationship with the Revolutionary Guard going back decades. He fought with the Revolutionary Guard during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, and since he has ascended to the top, he has appointed his key advisors from the Revolutionary Guards, his key allies to keep the main positions, to lead the Revolutionary Guards, to serve in his Special Bureau, and he has had also a long-term relationship with the current Speaker of the Parliament,

who was Iran's chief negotiator. So what we're seeing at the top is Mostaba Khomeini's team in place, and he ultimately is the final decision-maker, although we've heard that he also was gravely injured during the bombing that killed his father. I want to go to Iran's Parliament Speaker and Chief Negotiator, Mohamed Kalibaf, emphasizing the need for a permanent peace on Saturday, describing Iran's policy towards the U.S. as a commitment-for-commitment process where the U.S. takes one step. and Iran takes one.

Our policy is also step-by-step action, commitment for commitment. They take one step, we take one step. It should not be the case that we fulfill our commitments while they do not. We have tried to proceed by taking into account past experiences, despite the prevailing atmosphere of distrust. The first essential point is that this peace must be durable and must include guarantees that this issue will not be repeated, neither by Israel nor the United States.

Iran's chief negotiator added there were several key points on which the United States and Iran disagree. There are currently several issues on which differences of opinion exist. They have certain views regarding the nuclear field and certain views regarding matters related to the Strait of Hermus and similar issues. We remain firm on our own positions. Professor Vali Nasr, your response. Well, I think Iran, what Iran really wants out of these negotiations is two fundamental things. One is that war would not be repeated. You know, every six months, they don't end up in a war with America and Israel.

And secondly, that there is real economic relief for Iran, that it hasn't achieved and it really needs. But I think what really separates Iran and the United States is not just that they disagree on certain things. It's actually a Gulf of trust. Iran thinks that it's signed a nuclear deal in 2015, the United States took whatever Iran gave during that deal, did not genuinely reciprocate, and then left the deal. And then President Trump has negotiated with Iran twice, and then bombed Iran in the middle of the negotiations. So when the Speaker of the Parliament says that we want a step-by-step process, he's saying that unlike the last time, we don't want to give everything and then the United States pocket those gains and then leaves the deal again. And secondly,

that Iran really does not trust that President Trump actually will implement the deal that he signs, that he would not leave the deal again. And exactly the kind of messaging the president has been sending the past week since the first round of the talks has escalated this distrust in Iran. So what he was doing was really explaining to the Iranian public and also messaging to Washington that the United States has to work on the trust issue with Iran, that it has to actually commit to implementing a deal that it signs. If and when Iran and the United States agree on those fundamental differences, Iran also wants to make sure that the deal will stick and will actually be implemented. On Saturday, President Trump told reporters, the U.S. is taking a tough stand against Iran,

but that conversations with Iran were going very well. We have very good conversations. on. It's working out very well. They got a little cute as they have been doing for 47 years. Nobody ever took them on. We took them on. They have no Navy. They have no Air Force. They have no leaders. They have no nothing. Actually, their leaders are, it is regime change. You call that enforced regime change. But we're talking to them. They wanted to close up the straight again, you know, as they've been doing for years. And they can't blackmail us. So, Professor Nasser, if you can respond to that. And also what Trump told reporters, he said, they've agreed to give us back the nuclear dust that's way underground because of the attack we made with the B-2 bombers.

I don't think this is a technical term nuclear dust, but he has to somehow explain how he said that the U.S. had obliterated nuclear material. And so instead of calling it material, he's calling it dust. Well, I mean, none of this is actually true because Iran says there is no agreement about the fate of Iran's highly enriched uranium. They have discussed it, but they didn't arrive at an agreement. And secondly, the talks with Iran are actually not going well as we see. Iranis haven't even agreed to come back to Islamabad and are not happy with the way U.S. did not reciprocity. for Iran saying that it will open the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. actually, its answer was that we will not lift the blockade and we will enforce the blockade.

So the president essentially is trying to put the best face on what is actually a deteriorating situation, that instead of the first round of talks creating momentum and greater trust between the two sides, very soon after things have been falling apart. And the president is resorting to, on the one hand, claiming that Iran has agreed to everything. And on the other hand, saying we're going to attack them and we're going to destroy their power plants and we're going to force them to get to basically surrender to our demands.

And so Iran is also responding to this double talk that's coming from Washington. I want to end by asking you also about this piece in the Wall Street Journal, headlined, Behind Trump's public bravado on the war, he grapples with his own fears. The peace reveals Trump shouted for hours at AIDS after a U.S. jet had been shot down in Iran earlier this month. The journal reported, quote, AIDS kept the president out of the room as they got minute by minute up. because they believed his impatience. They believe that his impatience, and it goes on from there. If you could respond to that. He said they believed his impatience wouldn't be helpful. Instead, updating him at meaningful moments, as senior administration official said.

Well, I'm not surprised because President Trump went into this war thinking is going to be only a war of one or two, days, and he wasn't expecting that the war would go on for 40 days, that it would prove so costly, is still indecisive, and that a U.S. jet would be shut down, the strait of hormones would be closed, and the United States would be finding itself struggling to find a way to end this war and get what it wanted. President Trump's playbook did not work out here. And in fact, in the end, the United States did get its pilot out. but after a very harrowing several days of trying to find him, a shootout that ultimately got him out.

But also the Iranians claim that actually is under the cover of the operation to get the pilot out. The United States did try to carry out an operation to recover the highly enriched uranium in the city of Isfahan, and that failed. And that's the only reason why the United States agreed to go to Islamabad. So it's very clear that the president is, is struggling to find a strategy that would actually bring this war to conclusion in a way that he could get the objectives for which he actually started the war. So looking past all the rhetoric, the sort of blizzard of tweets he puts out the threats, the talk of great conversations

with Iranians, threatening him, etc. The fact remains that he started a war that he cannot easily end on terms that he can claim victory over. Valianazer, I want to thank you for being with us, Iranian-American professor of international affairs and Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, SACE. He's the author of Iran's grand strategy of political history. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman. As we continue to look at the U.S. and Israeli war in Iran, we're joined now. by Mariam Jamshidi. She's an Iranian-American Associate Professor of Law at the University of Colorado

Law School and a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute. She's written a new piece for the Nation magazine, headlined only one side has clearly broken the law in the strait of Hormuz, and it isn't Iran. Professor Jamshidi explain. Hi, Amy. Thanks for having me. So, you know, what I was trying to get at in that piece is that, you know, there's been a lot of international outcry about what Iran has done in the strait, specifically its efforts to regulate passage of ships through the strait and to charge certain ships a fee for going through the strait. The international rhetoric has been that what Iran is doing is completely and clearly illegal. And from my perspective, that's not entirely true.

This is not a black and white issue. Iran does have a reasonable legal argument to regulating the Strait of Hormuz as well as to charging fees. By contrast, the criticism of what the United States and Israel has done to Iran, which is an aggressive and illegal war, has been more muted, in particular from Western states as well as from some of the regional Arab states. And I think this contrast between these two reactions is very telling. On the one hand, total condemnation of Iran on legal issues that are far from clear and very more muted criticism or limited criticism of the United States and Israel when it comes to actions they've taken that are very clearly unlawful under international law. I think this says a lot about the ways in which international law

is being deployed in this moment as a way of restraining and regulating Iranian behavior, while effectively allowing the United States and Israel a free hand to do what they want against the Iranian government. What do you think this unprovoked war that Israel and the U.S., this war of choice, as it's called, have engaged in with Iran, has done to international law and people's perspective view of it around the world and the consequences. when people want to apply international law? Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. I mean, over the last few years, we've seen the ways in which Israel in particular

with support from the United States as well as with support from much of the rest of the West, Western governments, has eroded and violated and, you know, scoffed at international law and its actions towards the Palestinians, its actions in Lebanon, its actions in Syria, its actions in Yemen, its other actions in Iran. And I think that, you know, these actions that Israel has taken has understandably led many to question the utility and importance of international law, whether or not it still exists

or not. And, you know, now with this war against Iran, that those concerns, those fears that international law is really meaningless have only increased. You know, in this moment, though, I think what's also important to understand is that states like Iran are also at the same time saying, no, international law matters very much. And we expect to be treated as equals under international law. Iran in this moment is framing a lot of what it's doing in international law terms because it understands that if international law is truly going to be thrown into the dustbin, then it's going to be far more vulnerable on the international stage. So we basically see a battle. We see a battle between on the one side states like Israel and the United States, states that are

by and large Western, you know, basically saying international law doesn't apply to us. We can do what we want. And then other states like Iran, states at the global south, saying, no, we want international law. We value international law. International law is necessary to ensuring that we are sovereign and equal to other states on the international scale. And so we are not going to let international law just be taken away from us. Can you talk more about the UN Security Council? You've noted multiple resolutions have been introduced to condemn Iran's regulatory actions in the strait. Who is behind these resolutions. Meanwhile, the Iranian parliaments reportedly considering legislation that would formalize its regulatory system, including the fee system, as part of its domestic law.

Right. So there were, there have been multiple resolutions brought before the Security Council since the war started. They have mostly been focused on Iran and Iran's actions in the Strait of Hormuz. The states that have been the real force behind these resolutions appear to be the Arab Gulf states, in particular Bahrain, and the UAE, who have also been the subject of the most attacks by Iran. What's, again, very interesting and I think important to understand about these resolutions, is that they very clearly and absolutely condemned Iran for its regulatory actions within the Strait of Hormuz, as I mentioned. even though those actions do have a legal basis, those resolutions presented them as being fully unlawful. And one of those resolutions, which thankfully was vetoed by China and Russia, would have effectively authorized all UN member states that's over 190 states to go to war with Iran in order to open the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, that is a very radical proposition

to basically validate and allow states to engage in armed conflict against another state simply for the purpose of opening a waterway. So, you know, and again, there were no resolutions that were brought to the Security Council to explicitly condemn the U.S. and Israel for their actions against Iran. In terms of the domestic legislation inside Iran, you know, that the Iranian parliament appears to be contemplating as you mentioned, this legislation would basically make the regulatory scheme within Hormuz, in the Strait of Hormuz a part of Iranian law. It's not entirely clear what the terms of that law are, you know, what the basis for it is,

what kind of regulation it will, in fact, implement. But it does seem to have a fee system as a part of it. So the Iranians are trying to take this ad hoc fee system that they have developed over the course of the last few weeks. and actually institutionalize it within domestic law. I wanted to end by asking you about Trump's comments. On Saturday, he told a reporter at Fox News, quote, if Iran doesn't sign this deal, the whole country is getting blown up.

That followed two weeks before when he warned a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again, Professor Jem Shidi. I mean, you know, these comments are absolutely unacceptable. I mean, they are borderline genocidal in their intent and in their implications. To say to the world that you're going to obliterate an entire civilization is, in fact, to make very clear that you desire to destroy an entire people. You know, I don't know if he thinks that this is an effective negotiating tool, but certainly from a legal perspective, from a moral perspective, it's beyond the pale. Mariam Jem Shidi, I want to thank you so much for being with us,

Iranian-American Associate Professor of Law at the University of Colorado Law School, non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute. We'll link to your piece in the nation. Only one side's clearly broken the law on the Strait of Hormuz, and it isn't Iran. Coming up, the acclaimed artist and activist, Shepard Ferry, We met up with him at his Los Angeles Gallery. Stay with us.

Souti by Emel Mathluthi, performing in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Last week, when I was in Los Angeles for the theatrical, opening of the documentary, Steal the Story Please, about Democracy Now. I visited the gallery of the artist Shepard Ferry. He created the artwork for Steal the Story Please poster. Shepard Ferry gained national prominence in 2008 as the artist who made the iconic poster

of then candidate Barack Obama accompanied by the word hope. He has roots as a street artist with well-known images wheat-pasted on walls around the world, including one of professional wrestler Andre the Giant and the word obey. I asked Shepard Ferry about his thoughts about art and politics and describe some of the pieces hanging in his latest exhibition. I think art can help turn things around by taking something that's a feeling more in the ether and crystallizing it in a way that's very direct, clear, and resonates with someone's emotion. You know, art can be used to persuade people in bad ways, too.

I've always looked at my art as not propaganda and that it's meant to be the end of the conversation, but that it's, if you want to call it propaganda, it's meant to initiate a conversation, a counter-narrative that isn't happening in robust enough way. Can you tell me about the Statue of Liberty in handcuffs? Of course, it can't happen here as a reference to Sinclair Lewis's novel of the same name that's examining the rise of fascism in the United States, and it's a cautionary thing based on some of what was happening in the 20s and 30s in the United States, but we are experiencing it in a more intense way here now.

So it can happen here. Shepard Ferry then walked me around his gallery, showing me some of his other work. We then walked over to a quartet of posters. Each showed an ICE officer in riot gear holding a baton. Above each is a label. Paid agitator, domestic terrorist, intent to massacre, and worst of the worst. They have differences, but it's the same dominant figure in each one.

But I mean, I did these because this is, it's called projection mirror. These are based on all the things that Christy Nome and Stephen Miller threw out there about the protesters and about the immigrants that were being targeted. That really is what they're up to. They're the paid agitators. They're the domestic terrorists. They're out there with intent to massacre, and they're the worst of the worst. So, yeah, the series was meant to be a mirror back at the people projecting.

We went to another image that showed an oil, Derek. Can you say what it says? Extracting blood at the world's end, igniting the globe. Yeah, it's basically about how this extracting oil that, fossil fuels are heating the planet up and killing the planet. And, you know, and a lot of people are still saying drill, baby, drill, keep the price of gas down. And we need to be investing in renewables. I'm intrigued by how much you use newspapers.

Like here we have Frida Callow. Oh, yeah. Well, newspapers, I think, are great in, you know, first of all, like making sure that you can read what the idea is succinctly or it creates a little bit of an amplification to what the primary narrative of the piece is. But it also demonstrates that we frequently have been warned about mistakes that we're making or we're making the same mistakes again. And again, I can pull newspaper things from 40 years ago about civil rights or global warming or any number of other issues. And we think we progress, but we always relapse to bad behavior. And I want to

remind people that, hey, we should know better. Tell me about this, Fritikaala. You have a lot, this one with the newspaper that says her name. So, you know, I'm a big admirer of Frida Callo's work and her, you know, her feminism relative to her era, especially. And the ways in the way is which she talked about art as a tool of resilience, that art helped her to overcome the pain of her bus accident she had when she was young that gave her chronic pain through her life. But also, I love that Frida Kahlo was initially seen as like this, this cute, romantic partner to the important Diego Rivera. Now she's more well-known and more celebrated than Diego Rivera.

They're both very important artists. I think that the progress we've made in terms of her being someone who's taken very seriously as a woman artist, it's important for progress, but we still have a long way to go. That's the acclaimed artist and activist Shepard Ferry, speaking at his Los Angeles Gallery. He made the poster art for the film about democracy now called Steal This Story, Please. I'm here in the Bay Area as the film opens in different theaters. Tonight I'll be in Sebastopol at the Rialto Cinema, Sebastopol, for the 4 and 6 o'clock screenings of the film.

And then tomorrow will be in Sacramento at the Tower Theater, Sacramento, at 7 o'clock. On Wednesday, we'll be at the Rialt, in Elmwood in Berkeley, as well as the Roxy. This is Democracy Now, Democrysynow.org. We'll look at the Trump administration's plan to restructure the U.S. Forest Service, which many fear will dismantle the 120-year-old agency. Back in a minute. Jadarman go koukere.

Jan Ojo. Jan OJat, Sunny Singh, performing in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Mimi Goodman. We turn now to major changes underway at the U.S. Forest Service, the federal agency responsible for managing 193 million acres of public lands, forests and grasslands, located across 43 states, the Virgin Islands in Puerto Rico.

In late March, the Trump administration announced an extensive reorganization of the agency that will shutter 57 of 77 research stations across the U.S. while relocating the agency's headquarters from Washington, D.C. to Salt Lake City, Utah. In a press release, the Forest Service chief, Tom Schultz, said, quote, this is about building a forest service that's nimble, efficient, effective, and closer to the forest and communities it serves, he said. Our next guest describes the changes very differently. In an article headlined, Trump administration orders dismantling of the U.S. Forest Service. Jim Pades writes, quote, with the subtlety of a wrecking ball and the morality of a foreclosure notice,

the Trump administration announced the most devastating attack. attack on the U.S. Forest Service in the agency's 121 year history, not a budget cut, not a policy shift, not a reorganization, an execution. The largest public land agency in the country just handed on a silver platter to the people who've spent their entire careers trying to destroy it. Jim Pat is a conservationist and filmmaker. He runs the organization and newsletter more than just parks, together with his brother, Will Pattas. They track threats to public lands across the country, joining us now from Atlanta, Georgia. Jim Pattis, thanks so much for being here. Explain what's at stake. Yeah, well, Amy, you know, you said it at the top here. The Forest Service manages over

193 million acres of our public land. That's larger than the state of Texas. It's more than twice the amount of land that the National Park Service manages. You know, this is a critically important agency, and, you know, it's kind of the backbone of our public lands. What the Trump administration has announced that they're doing, you know, when you move the headquarters from Washington, D.C. to Salt Lake City, Utah, we need to keep in mind. Salt Lake City, Utah, this is the state that is currently suing the federal government to take control of 18.5 million acres of your public land.

It's an unprecedented lawsuit. And when you move the headquarters there, you're sending a signal that you agree with what this state is doing. Utah has already signed unprecedented agreements with the Forest Service to give them management control of their lands, of the Forest Service lands within the state. And then, you know, shuttering 57 of 77 research facilities. The Forest Service Research Program is the foremost forest resource research program is the foremost forest research program in the world. It provides critical information for how we manage our forests as well as fight wildfires. And then the regional offices, that's another big one. They're shuddering all nine Forest Service regional offices. This is really where the institutional knowledge of the Forest

Service is housed. And when you get rid of those offices, you know, the goal here is to make the agency subservient to the resource extraction industry that the Trump administration has aligned with. Can you talk about who you think the Forest Service is being given over to? I mean, first of all, obviously sending from Washington, D.C., the Forest Service to Salt Lake City, you're going to lose a massive amount of experience for people who cannot move. But then talk about who it's in the hands of, who's in charge now. Yeah, I think something people need to understand is the Trump administration has done this before on a much smaller scale.

In Trump's first term, they moved the Bureau of Land Management, another very large public land management agency from Washington, the headquarters from DC to Grand Junction, Colorado, that resulted in 87% of the affected staff walking out the door. Only three people showed up to the new office at Grand Junction. And, you know, you can talk to people who work at the Bureau of Land Management now and did under the Biden administration. President Biden moved it back to D.C., but the agency has never recovered. I mean, you're talking about so much institutional knowledge and key people leaving out the door because they simply can't uproot their lives and their families to move to this

far-flung, you know, new headquarters. Same things playing out here with the Forest Service, but on a much larger scale. This decision will impact up to 5,000 employees. And this is an agency that is already lost over a fourth of its entire staff since Trump Trump took office last. January. And then you asked me about, you know, what, who this hands it to. I mean, I think, you know, look no further than the state of Utah and the anti-public lands movement. You can look throughout the Trump administration up and down in positions of leadership in land management agencies. These are people who are avowed proponents of transferring our federal public lands to states and private interests. The sitting chief,

of the United States Forest Service, his previous job was as the executive of a logging company. That's unprecedented in the history of the Forest Service to have the chief as a logging executive. And so, you know, the current nominee for the Bureau of Land Management is a former Congressman Steve Pierce from New Mexico. And this is a man who said, Theodore Roosevelt was wrong to create national parks and national forests. So the intent here is obvious. It's to hand, hollow out this agency and hand it to the resource extraction industry and prepare it for potentially the eventual transfer of our public lands to states. You've called it asset stripping and you say it's illegal. Explain you. Well, you know, asset stripping is a term that is used in private equity.

And it's basically where you have people come in. You know, this happened famously with Sears, right? Where you come in and you strip out all the parts that. are worth any value and you sell them off. And then you leave a hollowed out shell of the company. And that's what the Trump administration is doing with our public lands. The Secretary of the Interior famously calls them America's balance sheet. And what they've been doing is raiding them and giving them to their allies in the resource extraction industry.

So that's been the goal here with what the Trump administration is doing. And yeah, when when you do that, you know, you leave, you leave a broken agency. And I think, you know, what they want to do is break the Forest Service, you know, drain it of its ability to manage our lands properly. And then, you know, leave it point, they can point at this broken agency and say, you know, look, this thing doesn't work very well anyway. We already now have these new state directors, which they've created, which will be basically political. appointees and liaisons for the Forest Service to work with states in managing the forests. And they'll be able to say, look, we've already kind of got this set up for the states to take over. Why don't we just, you know, go ahead and do it?

Ten seconds. You say it's illegal. Yes, it's illegal because in the appropriations bills that Congress passed, they explicitly forbade the reprogramming of funds for the Forest Service and the re-organization. organization of its offices. It explicitly says you can't move Forest Service offices. You can't move the headquarters. And they're proceeding with that anyway. Jim, Pat, as I thank you so much for being with us, filmmaker and conservationist, along with his brother Will, runs an organization's substack newsletter more than just parks. That does it for our show again tonight. I'll be in Sebastopol at 340 and 7 for the screen.

Greenings of Steal the Story, please, the documentary about Democracy Now, tomorrow in Sacramento at the Tower Theater, and then in Berkeley at the Rialto. I'm Amy Goodman. Check our website at DemocracyNow.org from San Francisco.