Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-06-02 Tuesday

Episode Date: June 2, 2026

Headlines for June 02, 2026; Iran Suspends U.S. Talks as Israel Kills 8 More in Lebanon & Expands Occupation; “Murder as Policy”: Amnesty Int’l Decries U.S. Strikes on Latin American Boats as Death Toll Tops 200; “The Overseer Class”: Steven Thrasher on Black Cops, Pro-Palestine Protests, DEI & More

From New York, this is Democracy Now. Lebanese stood by the Iranians and Iran's darkest moments and supported us. You could say they brought themselves into this war, and they should be supported. In my view, every one of us has a responsibility toward them. Iran suspends talks with the United States to protest Israel's invasion and continued bombing of Lebanon. Iran's foreign minister said the attacks violate the ceasefire agreement, which he said unequivocally includes Lebanon. President Trump's claiming talks have resumed after phone calls

with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Hezbollah, writing on social media, quote, there will be no troops going to Beirut, unquote. For more on all the latest developments, we'll go to Beirut. Then the death toll from U.S. drone strikes on votes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific has surpassed 200. it. States' unprecedented military campaign Operation Southern Spear came without any plausible legal

justifications. The world has failed to challenge his assassinations in any meaningful way. Then the overseer class, a manifesto, will speak to author Stephen Thrasher about his new book and his upcoming film series in Brooklyn at BAM called Black Cops, Spies, and Overseers. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now. Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. Israel's military continued its attacks on Lebanon overnight, killing at least eight people

even after President Trump said both sides had, quote, agreed that all shooting will stop, unquote. Among the dead is James Karam, a dentist who was killed, along with his daughter and son, when an Israeli drone bombed their car in southern Lebanon. Another Israeli attack killed two people and damaged the Jabal University Hospital and tire. Lebanon's health ministry reports Israeli strikes have killed more than 3,400 people since March 2nd. Over 10,000 have been wounded. Axios is reporting during an expletive-laden call Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, quote, you're effing crazy.

You'd be in prison if it weren't for me. I'm saving your ass. everybody hates you now, everybody hates Israel because of this, unquote, the president reportedly said. After the call, Trump said in a social media post that he'd had a productive phone call with Netanyahu, and that, quote, there will be no troops going to Beirut, unquote. Trump's comment came after Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Kat said they had ordered massive air strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs. On Capitol Hill, Michigan Democratic Congress member, Rashida Taleb, is calling on Congress to pass a Lebanon war powers resolution this week.

She wrote, quote, our country should not be assisting or supporting in discriminant bombings and forced displacement anywhere, including Lebanon, unquote. Meanwhile, the United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting Monday to discuss Lebanon, UN Assistant Secretary General Martha Povey, said Israel's violating a U.N. security. Council resolution that was aimed at stopping Israel's invasion of Lebanon two decades ago. Israel's presence north of the blue line is a clear violation of Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as of Security Council Resolution 1701. Israeli forces must withdraw to south of the blue line. Iranian diplomats have suspended talks with the United States after warning. running Israel's attacks on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip could doom ongoing ceasefire negotiations with the Trump administration.

Iranian foreign minister of Asa Raji said Monday the U.S. has already violated its ceasefire with Iran when it imposed a naval siege on Iranian ports. He also said Israel's attacks on Lebanon constitute a ceasefire violation on a separate front after headlines will go to Beirut to speak with the Associated Press. Karim Shahib's latest piece is headline Trump says Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to dial back fighting. In Gaza, at least three Palestinians died in separate Israeli attacks earlier today, as Palestinian monitoring groups documented 11 new ceasefire violations over the past 24 hours. Among the attacks was an Israeli drone strike on a civilian vehicle east of Darabala that injured displaced families living nearby in makeshift shelters. Israel has carried out strikes on most of the 237 days since it agreed to a U.S. brokered Gaza ceasefire last October.

Here in New York, the far-right Israeli finance minister, Bezal-Smotrich, marched in the annual Israel Day parade Sunday alongside other Israeli far-right ministers and cabinet officials. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, Governor Kathy Hochel, and New York State Attorney General Letitia James were among several prominent Democrats who marched in the Senate. the same parade as Smotrich, who has been sanctioned by multiple countries for inciting settler violence against Palestinians. The lead organizer of the parade told the New York Times he did not know that Smotrick and other Israeli far-right officials were planning to march. New York City mayors are on Mamdani, who boycotted the event, said he was offended by the presence of Israeli officials at the parade. You can see in the participation of the far-right Israeli minister Smotherich, as well as a number of other ministers.

a vision of annihilation, a complicity in genocide, and frankly, a belief that does not have much value for even the sanctity of children in Gaza. And I am offended, as I know many New Yorkers are, by their participation. In Ukraine, a wave of Russian strikes has killed at least 18 people and injured dozens in Kiev, De Nipras, Upper Ritsch, Paltava, and Kharkiv. Overnight Russia launched 73 missiles and 656 drones at Ukraine. This is Alina. Her building was damaged by a Russian strike. I woke up from my bed and decided to move to the corridor.

I heard explosions coming closer and closer. I turned my back to the window to go to the apartment door. At that moment, there was an explosion, which threw me against the door. But I'm fine now. Russia's latest assault once again prompted Ukraine's president, Volodymy Zelensky, to ask President Trump to send Patriot Interceptors, which are capable of blocking ballistic missiles. Trump has so far ignored Zelensky's pleas, despite the fact that Ukraine is running out of interceptors. President Trump is reportedly reconsidering his $1.8 billion slush fund to compensate his supporters

who took part in the January 6th insurrection. This comes, as the Justice Department also said it would temporarily pause the program to comply with a court order. The fund was set up as a settlement following Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against his own IRS over the leak of his tax returns. Federal Judge Kathleen Williams reopened the case last week after a bipartisan group of 35 former federal judges urged her to look more closely, at the settlement. Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude filed confidentially for an initial public offering Monday, less than a week after raising $65 billion in funding that pushed its valuation to $965 billion. Anthropics IPO plans come as several major stock market index providers have recently changed rules excluding unprofitable companies. The changes could allow

Elon must private AI and rocket company SpaceX, which is about to go public, to be added to the indexes, much sooner than they typically would, which means millions of Americans invested in retirement funds could end up owning a piece of SpaceX, whether they choose to or not. This comes as Vermont's independent Senator Bernie Sanders announced a new bill that will create a sovereign wealth fund by imposing a one-time 50% tax on the stock of Open AI, Anthropic, and, other AI companies. In an op-ed for the New York Times, Senator Sanders writes, the fund would, quote, give the public a direct role in determining the future of this technology and guarantee that the trillions of dollars potentially generated by AI are used to improve the lives of us all, not simply to make the richest people in the world even richer, unquote. Meanwhile, Florida became the first state to sue OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, alleging they know ChatGBTGBT is not safe especially for children. This is Florida's Attorney General. We're here to announce that we recently filed a

monumental civil lawsuit against Sam Altman and Chat GPT for endangering our kids and deceiving parents into believing that this application is safe for use. It's clearly not. people are getting hurt, parents are getting deceived, and they need to pay for it. The mayor of Newark, New Jersey is announcing his city's legal strategy aimed at shutting down the Delaney Hall Ice Jail. The for-profit immigration detention center has been the focus of massive protests demanding justice for immigrants who've launched a hunger strike to protest inhumane conditions, medical neglect inside the jail, and demand. their freedom. On Monday, Newark Mayor Ross Baraka said his city's police department will exercise a greater span of control over the perimeter of Delaney Hall after federal agents and New Jersey state police repeatedly attacked demonstrators outside with horses, clubs, pepper spray,

and other so-called less lethal weapons. In a statement, Mayor Baraka said, quote, police tactics over this last weekend were overly aggressive, unnecessary, and in some instances unconstitutional, he said. But the mayor said a 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew would remain in effect until further notice. In Ghana, human rights groups warn a new law criminalizing LGBT coup-plus activity could devastate queer communities. The sweeping legislation approved Friday makes it a crime to identify as non-binary, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, trans, or intersex. It also imposes prison terms of up to 10 years on anyone who, quote, promotes, unquote, LGBT activities. It's expected to be signed into law by Ghana's president, John Mahama. This follows

similar legislation recently passed in other African nations, including Senegal and Burkina Faso. In 2023, Uganda passed a law making it a crime to identify as queer, declaring all same-sex conduct to be non-consensual and even allowing for the death penalty in certain cases. Critics have called it a kill-the-gays bill. This is Ugandan LGBTQ activist Hansen Fuma. At first, it was Uganda with the harshest kill gay bill in the whole world that contains a death penalty and a life imprisonment. Apparently, we are seeing Ghana jumping onto this same running track. and all African leaders are quiet in whatever is happening. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has designated the Pentagon Press Office a classified space,

physically barring journalists from an area that's been freely accessible to reporters across multiple administrations. In a statement, reporters without border said, quote, no matter how petulant Pete gets, journalists will continue. their tenacious reporting and hold the Pentagon accountable for the money, operations, and lives they impact every day, unquote. Separately, a federal court temporarily blocked the Pentagon from discharging transgender service members while still allowing the administration to continue banning transgender people from entering the military. It's come as Hegset also struck several female and Black Navy offers from a promotions list.

Rhode Island, Senator Jack Reed, said in a recent testimony, quote, nearly 60% of the senior officers, Hegseth has fired are female or black, unquote. Veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelly openly revolted against CBS News Leadership Monday at a staff meeting meant to introduce the show's newly appointed executive producer, Nick Bilton. Billton is a tech journalist installed by CBS's editor-in-chief Barry Weiss after she fired the show's two top correspondents, Sharon Alfancy and Cecilia Vega, alongside executive producer Tanya Simon. When Billton reportedly told the staff Weiss loves CBS News in 60 Minutes, Pelley shot back, quote, she's murdering 60 Minutes. She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it, and she's been doing exactly that, unquote.

Pelley also declared that Bilton would never be welcome here, unquote. The winners of the 2026 News and Documentary Emmy Awards have been announced. This year's outstanding investigative documentary prize goes to critical incident, a death at the border produced by HBO documentary films. The film examines the alleged cover-up of the murder of Anastasio Hernandez-Rohas, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who died while in U.S. custody at the border. His 2010 death occurred under the watch of Rosh. Rodney Scott, the man who now heads customs and border protection under President Trump.

The film's director, Rick Rowley, accepted the award. Cruelty and violence have festered at the heart of U.S. immigration enforcement for so long. And part of it is because of the impunity and the secrecy that have surrounded these organizations. And so I need to thank this incredible team for pulling back the veil and expose. that organization. To see our interview with Rick Rowley, Director of Critical Incident to Death at the Border,

go to Democracy Now.org. And voters head to the polls in several states today for primary elections. California faces a crowded field in the race to replace outgoing Governor Gavin Newsom under the state's jungle primary system. The two candidates who receive the most votes today will advance to the general election,

regardless of party. In Los Angeles, 13 candidates are looking to seat incumbent Mayor Karen Bass, polls show Bass is in close rates with City Council member Nithiaraman and reality TV personality Spencer Pratt. In Iowa, Republicans and Democrats are selecting

candidates to replace Republican Senator Joni Ernst, who's retiring. There are also primary elections in Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now. DemocracyNow.org, the War and Peace Report.

I'm Amy Goodman in New York, joined by Democracy Now as Juan Gonzalez in Chicago. Hi, Juan. Hi, Amy, and welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. We begin today's show in Lebanon, where Israeli drones have killed at least eight people despite President Trump's claim that Israel and Hezbollah have agreed that, quote, all shooting will stop. Trump made the claim, as Iran said, it's suspending indirect negotiations with the U.S. to protest Israel, expanding military offensive in Lebanon. Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Aradji wrote online, the ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. is unequivocally a ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon. Its violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts.

The U.S. and Israel are responsible for the consequences of any violation, he said. Since March 2nd, Israel's killed more than 3,400 people in Lebanon, while seizing large swaths of southern Lebanon, including the medieval Beaufort Castle. On Monday, President Trump spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone after Israel threatened new attacks on Beirut. Axios is reporting during the expletive-laden call. Trump told Netanyahu, quote, You're effing crazy.

You'd be in prison if it weren't for me. I'm saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. everybody hates Israel because of this, Axios reported Trump saying to Netanyahu. After the call, Trump wrote online, quote, I had a very productive call with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel and there will be no troops going to Beirut and any troops that are on their way have already been turned back, he said. In Beirut, displaced Lebanese residents to cried Israel's ongoing attacks.

We, this is a feeling. that can't be described. We have experienced this before, and we rebuilt our land. And God willing, we will rebuild it even better. We have lived through something like this before. I was born in 1975. From the first day I was born, we have been living through wars until now, about staying in the south of Lebanon.

As long as there is a strip, an occupied strip, an occupied land. It means Israel is harming us. At the United Nations, the Security Council held an emergency meeting to discuss Lebanon. This is Russia's U, Ambassador Vasilyna Bensia. The ceasefire reached on April 17th between West Jerusalem and Beirut, brokered by Washington, has unfortunately turned out to be a smokescreen for a creeping aggression against Lebanon. While the entire world was waiting for the next round of negotiations planned for June 2nd in the United States, Capital.

Israel continued to methodically expand its zone of occupation, raising entire settlements to the ground as part of its scorched earth tactics. it has become evident that Lebanon is seeing an almost identical replay of the scenario of clearing the Gaza Strip with the establishment of large-scale occupation control and the forced displacement of the local population. We go now to Beirut, where we're joined by Kareem Shahyad, Associated Press reporter based in Beirut. His most recent co-authored piece is headlined, Trump says Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to dial back fighting. Welcome back to Democracy Now, Karim.

Can you explain what you understand President Trump is saying, who he's spoken to, and what in fact is happening on the ground? Absolutely. What happened yesterday was in no means a ceasefire or a step towards a complete ceasefire. However, it was a containment effort to stop what could have, in fact, taken Lebanon back to where it was in the peak of the war. where Israel would be bombing the southern suburbs of Beirut, where there would be mass displacement from these sprawling urban neighborhoods, and Hezbollah would continue launching rockets and missiles into northern Israel. They weren't doing much of that in this period,

and most of their attacks were targeting Israeli troops in Lebanon, but we did witness and escalation of that. Now, what happened was that obviously Hezbollah, the United States, do not communicate with each other. the Lebanese speaker of parliament, Nabi Habirir, who is a key Hezbollah ally, and communicates with the United States and has done so with mediators in the past,

such as Amos Hoxene and so on. It appears he played a very crucial role in the communication on the line, as well as the Lebanese ambassador to Washington, who, of course, is taking part in the negotiations, including the ones taking place today and tomorrow. And so there has been a series of calls. In the meantime, the president of Lebanon

has repeatedly been on the, the line with the Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the State Department, as officials have told us. And there's been a flurry of diplomatic calls. And this is why we saw a lot of statements from France, from Germany, from Saudi Arabia, and other countries, basically trying to halt what looked like an imminent escalation that would have basically taken Lebanon back to where it was before this nominal ceasefire went to effect on April 17. This obviously is something that Beirut wants to use its momentum. in order to get something out of these talks. Beirut has, you know, basically you can see from the statements coming out,

the president, the prime minister's office that Lebanon wants to stick to these talks, but they're trying to get something out of it. Israel's military escalation last week has really frustrated the authorities. They're very concerned that they're losing support over these talks, and they're trying to show that indeed they have leverage to get something out of this, and they are sticking to one of a complete ceasefire. So yet they're trying to take advantage of yesterday's momentum, him. But of course, this is in no means of full ceasefire. The strikes in Lebanon

continued this morning across southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah has also claimed some attacks on Israeli troops in southern Lebanon. And Karim, why do you think Iran is insisting so strongly on the inclusion of Lebanon in an overall negotiated settlement with the United States? Hasbullah is Iran's closest ally in the region. Hasbullah relies heavily on Iran and has done so over the year since its inception in the early 80s. And Iran played a huge role in building up Hezbollah. And Hezbollah began as an insurgency group when Israel had invaded Lebanon and occupied southern Lebanon into 2000.

And now it was a full-fledged political party with strong institutions. And so Hezbollah in the last war, which ended in May 24, was severely battered in Israeli strikes, a large chunk of its senior leadership, both political and military. were killed in Israeli air strikes or drone strikes. And, you know, it wasn't completely disarmed militarily, obviously, but it did lose a large amount of its, a large sum of its military caliber.

And, you know, even Hezbole leadership today sees them as kind of adjusting to these new realities. And so there's momentum in Lebanon since the end of that war that, you know, maybe now is the time to disarm Hezbollah and for the Lebanese military to deploy in southern Lebanon. And obviously this put Hezbollah in a bit of a difficult political situation. Now, obviously, things have changed with this round of war and so on. But Hezbollah is very, very important to Iran in the region, especially at a period of time, for example, where in Iraq, a lot of Iran-backed militias. You know, the Iraqi government, for example, wants to weaken Iran's influence there. And there has been sort of a divergence of the different armed, you know, groups in Iraq that sort of banded together, and most of them were sort of pro-Iran.

So Lebanon is very, very important for Iran in that way. And also, this is an opportunity for Iran to maintain its leverage in Lebanon, right? If the war between Lebanon and Israel ends because of the leverage Iran had in its talks with the U.S. in Pakistan and Islamabad, then this shows that Iran can sort of be the savior. And this is why Hezbollah opposes direct talks, because they're saying the Lebanese government has no leverage, let's use Iran's. because when Iran started to strike back in the Gulf countries and so on, they put the global on notice, I put the global economy on notice. And I think that's kind of the game where Iran's trying to make sure that its leverage remains in Lebanon, and that the Lebanese authorities that have come to power in early 2025 cannot break away from Iran

as they've been slowly trying to do so and rekindle their ties with the United States and the Gulf countries as well. So there's a geopolitical angle as well where Iran is trying to maintain its position here. That's how things appear at the moment. And obviously it's a very complicated situation. Lebanon's always been stuck between the geopolitical battles, and we can speculate for a long time. But Hasbalah Iran have been really trying to maintain their influence and their support base in Lebanon at a time

where the Lebanese authorities have been trying to push back against Iranian influence in the country. And to what degree can the Lebanese government negotiate also what happens in terms of Hezbollah? Is it your sense that despite their internal conflict that Hezbollah and the Lebanese government continue to have discussions and communication? Well, the Lebanese government understands

that this is a very tricky situation. This is based on officials that we've been speaking to since these discussions began, that, you know, Hezbollah not being part of the conversation in Washington and sort of rejecting these talks, you know, thus complicate things in our world. away. Now, in terms of their leverage, they're banking a lot on a few things. They're banking on the fact that the ambassador in Washington has very good ties with the U.S., and this was a very strategic

pick, as well as the representative who's leading Lebanon's negotiating team, former ambassador Simon Karam, who has negotiated with the Israelis in the last mechanism after the 24 ceasefire, and the fact that there were apparently some very positive conversations, according to these officials between Beirut and Washington. But they certainly understand that the consequences or the results of the Iranian-American talks will also play a role as well. They truly are banking on that. And with Hezbollah, they're in a bit of a tricky situation because they received a lot of support and celebration of the United States for saying that they want to disarm all non-state actors and assert full state authority and sovereignty on Lebanese territory. but they have been criticized for not taking a more aggressive approach.

The Lebanese government says that, you know, there's a risk for a civil war. We don't want to basically seem like we're ostracizing a group of people. And so they've been playing it in a less aggressive approach where, and they say that these things take time. They want more time on this. And they've also been critical of Israel by saying that the ongoing Israeli air strikes, especially in this recent war, obviously is a major obstacle in them being able to do that. because, you know, Israeli troops are continuing to push deeper into Lebanon. So it's a very complicated situation.

That's why their approach at the moment is folks on getting a complete ceasefire. And then once they can get that, they can at least negotiate all these other things like Israeli withdrawal and disarming Hezbollah and this whole laundry list of issues. But for them, this idea of negotiating while the airstrikes continue, while the invasion pushes deeper into the country, further hinders their efforts into achieving what they want, which is complete state authority. in the country, which of course includes disarming Hezbo and other non-state groups. So it's a very complicated situation, and there's a lot of gaps in these talks,

but they are committed to these talks. The president yesterday, President Taun, said that talks are the least harmful option for Lebanon, so it's the safest option compared to going back into a full-scale war. But he did admit that Lebanon is left with very little choices at this point. Can you, Karim, talk about the significance of since March 2nd, Israel killing some 30, 400 people in Lebanon. And you wrote a piece on its seizing large swaths of southern Lebanon, including the medieval Beaufort Castle, the meaning of that. And what's happening in Nebatea and Tyre and the hospital that has almost been hit, bombed all around it, and what this means for the Lebanese people. And are they shifting their position giving this level of bombardment? certainly and there really over the past week alone there has been so much to unpack with that military escalation and literally in just seven days so the capturing of the beaufort castle you know it is a

1,000-year-old crusader castle it's strategically located because of its elevation it does not signal anything you know sort of beyond that immediate achievement in the sense that it is a 1,000-year-old Crusader Castle, it doesn't mean that Israel is going to roll into Beirut tomorrow, but it represents something greater than that, which is fears of a long-term occupation, similar of that from 1980 to 2000. You know, the Litan River in southern Lebanon was used as a de facto border in which, you know, Israeli troops are mostly present south of that river, and them crossing over into some of these towns close to the city of Nabati, including the towns where the castle is located, sort of symbolized sort of the balance of power at the moment.

it definitely ruined a lot of the morale that maybe some people had. There was very little hope in the first place. And there are concerns that it's unclear where, you know, Israel could go. And now Israeli troops are very close to the city of Nabatiyah, which is a major city in southern Lebanon. And on the flip side, of course, in the coastal city of the year, is the country's fourth largest city. It was struck heavily in the past.

But of course, there's a lot of concerns of at what extent Israel is going to push deeper in the southwestern part of Lebanon. lot of people who are perhaps close to Nabati, close to Teer as well, who were still living there, or maybe they went back home during this, you know, nominal ceasefire, are starting to flee again. And these, of course, are major cities in southern Lebanon. And for this kind of push to take place in a period of negotiations, you know, exceptional periods of direct talks to Lebanon, Israel brings a lot of concern that Lebanon really has no skin in the game. But at the same time, you know, there's sort of this, I mean, from people I speak to this,

they understand that Lebanon, you know, it is kind of in a, you know, it is a weak state, doesn't have a lot of leverage, and a lot of people are concerned. They sort of feel beholden to the regional and global powers on their fate. Regarding the hospital's strike, yes, there was a strike near the Jabal Amel Hospital near the city of Teer. We're still getting information from the authorities on the extent of the damages, but what you've seen, of course, is significant. There definitely have been several people have been killed, at least a dozen medical workers

who lived close at a hospital. wounded. Of course, this brings about great concerns. There's already dozens of medical workers and first responders who have been killed in Israeli strikes. Now, Israel says that, you know, some of these paramedics who are affiliated with Hezbollah's medical organization, the Islamic Health Committee, they are accusing them of being involved in military activity. But the Lebanese authorities are pushing back. This is not necessarily true. The World Health Organization is coming out with statements about the well-being of these hospitals. And of course, there's a lot of concern for people. who are in these hospitals or need this kind of special medical attention of what's going to happen to them. And, of course, a lot of Lebanese look into what's happening in the Gaza Strip and worry that it could happen to them as well, because, you know, it's something that they've been glued to in the past. So it definitely brought the morale down. I think a lot of people are definitely questioning Lebanon's ability to really make a change. It doesn't mean a lot of them are turning into the idea of supporting Iran or maybe supporting Hezbollah.

Lebanese are still very divided on that. but a lot of living is are questioning whether really any of the fate of the countries in their hands at all in the first place or not. The morale is low despite yesterday's breakthrough, which, of course, people are relieved about here, but, you know, people understand that this is not the end of the war, and an escalation can happen at any point. The situation is fragile and no one here thinks otherwise, regardless of whether they support Hezbollah or not. Do you think that Israel is bombing Lebanon to this extent? because Netanyahu doesn't dare do the same to Iran since Trump is putting pressure on him, but knows that if he bombs Lebanon, that will force Iran to stop negotiating?

You know, it's really hard to know, to know these things. And, you know, I'm not one to sort of speculate. But what we have seen here, at least, is that, you know, there's an understanding that there's really, authorities are trying to reassure northern people living in northern Israeli towns and villages by the border who have been very concerned by Hezbollah's increased frequency of rocket attacks there. It's been far less frequent than the last war and you can tell by Hezbollah's military capabilities but Hezbollah was able to reach just north of the city of Haifa and Naharia as well and

there have been a lot of measures in North Asia to close down schools and so on and you can see that there has been sort of an assurance that we're going to keep that they want to keep them safe, and that's the rhetoric we see from Israeli authorities as well. And it appears that the fact they have pushed deeper into Lebanon that these attacks are still happening, you know, perhaps has brought some friction, and you can kind of tell from the statements that they need to do more. Our understanding is that there has been a divergence in Israeli-U.S. policy on Lebanon, the sense that the United States has not been keen on letting Israel bomb the southern suburbs of Beirut and the heart of the capital. We hear the drones, we hear the jets here,

but there has been any airstrikes here in Beirut. In the southern suburbs, it seems, they've launched two strikes in the southern suburbs since the ceasefire, and these are drone strikes targeting apartment buildings where, you know, according to the Israelis, there are some senior Hezbollah officials who were there. And we kind of saw the U.S. sort of pushing back against another series of strikes against the southern suburbs from what happened yesterday.

And you can see that Israel's officials, Minister Ben-Givir, for example, saying, you know, we need to bomb the southern suburbs. You have to send a message to Hezbollah and to the Lebanese government and so on. And this is sort of the push and pull that we're seeing between the United States and Israel when it comes to Lebanon,

but we don't know to what extent that will, whether Washington will change its perspective and let Israel bomb Beirut, for example. I think the next couple of days of talks will tell us a lot more about where things are heading, whether or not we will see some sort of convergence between both sides or whether things will stay like this in this, you know, unstable situation.

The United States appears keen to have a ceasefire with Iran, and certainly with the Iranian statements coming out, like from former minister, Iraqi, for example, emphasizing on Lebanon's inclusion in their ceasefire, perhaps bombing the southern suburbs would have completely jeopardized, you know, the reported gaps being bridged between Washington and Tehran. So it's all interconnected, even if there's a separate diplomatic, track between Lebanon and the Israelis via Washington.

They are, it is part of the region in the end, and the Lebanese officials at the highest level are quite aware of that. Karim Shahyab, we want to thank you for being with us. AP journalists based in Beirut. We'll link to your most recent piece. Trump says Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to dial back fighting. Coming up, more than 200 people have now been killed in U.S. military strikes on votes in the Caribbean, Eastern Pacific.

We'll speak to Amnesty International. Stay with us. Inside with a new way you draw. He's burning inside. It's the soul that is born on the door. Massive will by a Melmuth Luthy performing in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez.

U.S. Southern Command says it's killed more than 200 people in over 60 strides on boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. The Pentagon's claimed without evidence. the boats are engaged in narco-trafficking operations, unquote. Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have called the attacks extrajudicial killings and a form of murder. Earlier this year in March, the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and other legal experts testified at a hearing on the legality of U.S. boat strikes at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

This is Angelo Gisado, a senior staff attorney at CCR. The United States' unprecedented military campaign Operation Southern Spear came without any plausible legal justifications. The world has failed to challenge these assassinations in any meaningful way. The invocation of narco-terrorism has empowered President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Higsef to publicize the boat strike videos on social media. They are seen boasting and celebrating the wantin infliction of suffering and death and lampooning the lies of those caught in their crosshairs. We ask that the commission look through this thinly veiled cover and recognize the inhumanity that these actions reflect and the pain they have caused. In April, Democratic Senator Tim Cain of Virginia grilled joint chiefs of staff chair General Dan Cain over the legality of the boat strikes during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. What legal justification could there possibly be that would allow the U.S. military to strike boats in international wars?

waters and kill the occupants of those boats without a showing of evidence that there's narcotics on those boats. I don't have a copy of the order issued to Southcom with me today. It's classified in its own right, which clearly articulates based on a variety of criteria what constitutes a valid military and legally valid target in that theater. And I know, I just want to say I know and trust that our commanders at Echelon are rigorously following that legal opinion and those legal boundaries upon which we've been issued those orders. And General Kane, I would encourage, again, my colleagues, I am at a disadvantage. I've seen the legal opinion, but I can't talk about it because it's classified.

I've seen the targeting criteria, but I can't talk about them because they're classified. I've seen the secret list of DTOs against whom we have declared war that even they haven't been informed of, but I can't talk about it because it's classified. But I would urge all of my colleagues to go to the SCIF and read the targeting criteria and get briefed about it, and then also look at all of the files of all the strikes that have taken place. I've done that with the first 46 strikes or so. And I think there's a profound mismatch between what is occurring and the underlying assumptions in the legal opinion. That was Democratic Senator Tim Cain of Virginia questioning Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Dan Cain in April.

We're joined now by Amanda Kassing, National Director of Government Relations and Advocacy at Amnesty International USA. Amanda, you say these actions committed against people who pose no imminent threat to life are extrajudicial killings, a form of murder, and amount to to crimes under international law. Explain what's happening as the number passes 200 of deaths caused by U.S. bombing of boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Yeah, thank you so much for, Amy, for having me on. So let me start by kind of clearing away the different types of justifications that are coming from the administration and look at the facts. So the first thing that we need to understand is that the U.S. is not an active conflict with any of these groups. The Eastern Pacific and the Caribbean, they aren't war zones.

And drug smuggling is a crime. It is not a military attack. And so the laws of war do not apply in this situation. So if the laws of war don't apply, what does? So these are law enforcement operations. So under human rights law, we apply standards like policing. So the individuals on these votes have a right to life. and a right to do process. And a government cannot use lethal force unless there's an imminent threat

or, and there's no less extreme measure to stop that imminent threat. What we know is that these boats can be interdicted. We know that because boats have in the past been interdicted. They continue to be by the Coast Guard in some situations. And Secretary Rubio himself, in fact, said that the boats could be interdicted, but instead they've decided to bomb them. So under all of these circumstances, there's no lawful reason for these killings. And therefore, we have a state, a government, intentionally killing people outside of any lawful circumstance. And that is an extrajudicial killing,

which, as you say, is a form of murder. And so these extrajudicial killings are both strategy and murder is policy. And if that is the case, people of good conscience and U.S. taxpayers should be outraged, absolutely outraged, that their money is going to murder as a policy. And Amanda, only a few of the people who've been killed by the U.S. military in these attacks have even been identified.

They've been essentially accused, sentence, and executed in one fell swoop. From a human rights perspective, how big of an obstacle is the virtual anonymity of the victims in terms of their families eventually seeking justice? This is a massive problem. We don't know who these people are. The U.S. government has not told us who they have killed, why they have killed them, and on what evidence they've made that targeting decision. And so for family members, many of them are experiencing something similar to a disappearance. Their family member has gone out on a boat, and then they've not returned. The reasons why we have some identification is there have been some survivors that have been returned. And I want to also flag that they have not been prosecuted by the United States.

States. They've been returned to their countries. Or there have been bodies that have actually washed up on shore. And some of those bodies can't be identified. We still don't know who they are. And so for families seeking justice, it is extraordinarily difficult to just not know what happened. And for people seeking justice and accountability, the fact that the U.S. has just failed to give any information, not only to the U.S. public, but they've still. zone-walled Congress as well. We don't know who they're killing. And that is the policy that they are pursuing. And can you talk about the difference, let's say, between these series of attacks and previous incidents of extrajudicial killings by the U.S. government, for example, in Yemen and Pakistan,

Somalia under President Obama? Yeah, absolutely. So we, of course, had significant concerns about the illegality of the drone strikes, the Obama-era drone strikes that were extrajudicial killings under a rubric of war of terror. What we see here is using the same War of Terror language, but expanding the government overreach to utilizing lethal means. And a significant difference is that while many human rights organizations and legal scholars were concerned about the drone killings. There were some discussions about whether or not this was under an international humanitarian law perspective. In this instance, there is near universal agreement that these are killings that are occurring in law enforcement operations, that drug smuggling

under no rubric could be understood as a military attack. So this is an escalation building on the abuses and the expansion of executive power under the War of Terror Model to the use of lethal means against people described as criminals with no evidence? And if you can comment, you know, over and over we see these. They look like video games, the bombing of these boats. We don't even see people. There was one where we saw people. The Pentagon and President Trump releasing the video game bombings.

But the unedited video of a double-tack strike on. the September 2nd attack on the boat where apparently survivors were waving their hands or surrendering. We have never seen them, even though it was demanded by Congress. Yeah, I mean, that instance is particularly troubling. So I should note that was September 2nd is when these strikes started. So we've got been nine months in. And when it came to light that there was, in fact, a double tap in that instance. It wasn't just that there were survivors.

The survivors were there for what we understand to be 45 minutes. And so the double tap was over a very long period of time. And absolutely, we should all be demanding that the full video be released. We all need to understand exactly what happened. And whoever is accountable needs to be held to the highest standard of the law. Now, the gamification of these killings is also extraordinarily worrying. It really takes away the humanity of the people that are being targeted and killed. It makes it look like this is just a game when, in fact, it is a terrifying expansion of executive power.

Finally, Amanda, a bill is being marked up this week in Congress that directly applies. What is Amnesty International calling for? So Amnesty has drafted a letter that we're submitting today to the House Armed Services Committee that outlines the many international law violations that have occurred over the last year and a half, everything from UN Charter violations to these extrajudicial killings, to the gutting of civilian harm protection mechanisms within the Department of Defense. And we are asking that members of Congress do not find. extrajudicial killings or other international law violations.

And, you know, American taxpayers should be demanding the same thing. Their hardworking dollars should not be going to a policy of murder. I want to thank you, Amanda Kassing, National Director of Government Relations Advocacy at Amnesty International USA. Coming up, Stephen Thrasher, on his new book, The Overseer Class, A Manifesto. Back in 20 seconds. We shall overcome. We shall overcome. We shall over one day.

That's Roger Waters performing We Shall Overcome, accompanied by a young Alexander Rowettin on cello in the Democracy Now studio years ago. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. We end today's show with journalist, author, scholar Stephen Thrasher. formerly the inaugural trail of social justice in reporting at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Chicago. But in 2024, after students set up a Palestine solidarity encampment to protest the Gaza genocide, Thrasher linked arms with other faculty to stop police from violently evicting the students.

He ended up brutalized himself. The university then filed criminal charges against Thrasher, which were later dismissed, The next two years of Thrasher's classes were canceled and he was denied tenure. He told Democracy now at the time, what they don't like is that I'm now applying the same social justice journalism principles that I've applied to race and that I've applied to LGBTQ people to COVID and HIV that I was now applying those to Palestine, he said. Stephen Thrasher is the author of the award-winning book, The Viral Underclass, The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide.

He's now out with a new book titled The Overseer Class, A Manifesto, in which he explores, quote, a phenomenon in which people from marginalized populations amass power not by uplifting people from the communities they come from, but by collectively cracking the skulls of their own. Stephen Thrasher is here in New York to present a film series he programmed, inspired by his book called Black Cops, Spies, and Overseers. The series will play at the Bamrose Cinemas. in Brooklyn starting June 5th. Stephen Thrash, welcome to Democracy Now.

How does your own experience link to your new book? I have been reporting on police violence for many years. The first time I was on Democracy Now, I was talking about the NYPD. And I saw when I was reporting in Ferguson, a dynamic that I have seen many times of a white police officer either beating or killing a black person. And I noticed that as America grew more structurally critical of, policing, that I was seeing a figure of black cops over and over again, that black cops were appearing in movies, that I was seeing them as talking heads on CNN and MSNBC, and of course,

running for many political offices, Joe Biden choosing two black women prosecutors on his final list before choosing Kamala Harris. And so I started thinking about the ways that black cops are kind of rehabilitating police departments as are women cops and LGBTQ cops. As Americans were more critical of what policing did and how violent it inherently is, the more often these people were dispatched. And those are the people who I call overseers, the ones who rule between the ruling class and the working class. But Steve, isn't this essentially a historical problem that has existed, not just in the U.S., but in other countries, I think of apartheid South Africa when many of the troops of the South African minority white regime were themselves black

and were put to repress their own people or even in many parts of Nazi-occupied Germany where the actual people delivering the repression in these various countries were from those countries, even though the Nazis were the occupiers? Well, that's really an important point, one. And I got to travel through Africa, through South Africa and Uganda. in the fall. And it was interesting hearing people say, why do you in America even think that there would be an alliance between black cops and black people? Because everybody here is black. And so they don't, you know, they don't think of a racial container of solidarity that we often think about here.

In South Africa, when I was visiting Prison Four, which is where Mandela was briefly kept before going to Robin Island. Gandhi was also kept there. The tour guy did explain to me that the white guards would walk along the top of the, you know, the perimeter, but it would be black guards who would be sent onto the yard to do the more intimate policing. And you're right to bring up the case of capos in the concentration camps who were people who collaborated with the Nazis. And I'm thinking historically too on this. I'm thinking back to when overseers were literally the people who worked on plantations and made sure that enslaved workers worked as hard as they possibly could on behalf of the master. That person was usually white, but they were sometimes black. And the white overseers often had black drivers

who worked with whom. And those were the people that the master exploited, the close kinship, the relationship to try to get a more intimate level of surveillance and to try to get more work and more value out of what they were doing. And you posted during the Gaza campus protest at Columbia University, you said, going to see Columbia University's first Arab president work with New York City's black cop mayor, Eric Adams, and with the NYPDs, first Latino chief Edward Caban to arrest as many diverse students as possible. You talk about this first narrative and this individualistic view of how achievement occurs in America. Could you elaborate on that? Yeah. So what I found in college campuses was that we diversified the disciplinarian

apparatus and nothing else. So I looked, I saw that at Columbia. When I was beaten up at Northwestern, it was the black chief of police who manhandled me personally. And then I started thinking about how I'd seen black cops, chief cops at the University of Chicago, at Northwestern at NYU, at Columbia. I looked at 22 schools I'd reported on. 19 had a black chief of police. And just looking at those 19 schools to create sort of a control for the variable, they had 100% black cops at those 19 schools.

They only had about 5% black students, 6% black faculty. team. So what I saw was that often chiefs of police, deans, middle managers, people with positions of some power, they're often diversified in this way, and those are the people dispatched as overseers, but they're not there to help people like them. They're really there to crack their skulls. And I certainly saw that that's an exploitation of identity. We, you know, it's gay pride month right now. I could have an affinity with someone like Corrine Jean-Pierre, who hailed herself as the first LGBTQ press secretary. But she was also the face of the genocide of Gaza.

And she's been going out in kind of a press rehabilitation tour right now, you know, trying to get back in people's good graces. Instead of, and the overseer dynamic makes it so that we are supposed to feel an affinity with someone like her, because she's the first to do this. But we could have a sense of affinity with LGBTQ people in Gaza, with LGBTQ people in Iran, with LGBTQ people in any of the countries that have been bombed. by the United States, and people in those positions try to ally and obscure the horizontal connection we have to people we could feel solidarity with, and instead want us to feel it for

this first person who's often suppressing the group that we're from. We just have a minute, then we're going to do a post show, Stephen Thrasher. But you, in fact, applied to be a New York police officer back in 2003. Can you talk about what led you to consider? that and your motivations to write this book? I'm prepared to get canceled for that. But I also want to show people that you can change over time. The reason I applied was because I needed a job.

You know, I'd gone to film school. I had a lot of student debt. I wasn't getting media work. I'd previously applied to be a teaching fellow. I didn't get that. And so I applied for this job. And I think when we are critical of the fact that a majority of ICE agents are Latino, we also have to wrestle with the fact that ICE is the major hiring program of the federal

government right now. And so we need to give people options for things they can do for a living and not just rely on individual moral decisions for how to deal with these systemic problems. And in the last 10 seconds, DEI, the Trump administration's attack on it and your thoughts on it? I make a critique of DEI that's different from the Trump administration's. I think DEI doesn't go far enough. What the Trump administration is doing is racist. We're going to talk more about this in our post-show conversation, which folks can get at DemocracyNow.org. Stephen Thrasher, author of the new book, The Overseer Class, A Manifesto.

He's in New York to present a film series inspired by his book called Black Cops, Spies, and Overseers. It's at the Bam Rose Cinemas in Brooklyn, starting June 5th. We'll talk about that in the post show as well. That does it for our show. I'll be speaking after the showing of Steal the Story Please at IFC on Thursday, June 4th, along with the film's director at 6.30. On Friday, I'll be in Tampa. We'll be celebrating WM&F and the screening at Sunray Cinema. And on Saturday and Sunday at the O-Cinema in Miami. You can get details at DemocracyNow.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez for another edition of Democracy Now.