Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-06-23 Tuesday

Episode Date: June 23, 2026

Headlines for June 23, 2026; Remembering Ahmed Wishah, the Latest Palestinian Journalist Killed by Israel in Gaza; Remembering Mona Khalil, Beloved Lebanese Sea Turtle Conservationist Killed in Israeli Airstrike; DSA vs. Establishment: New York Primary Tests Growing Antiwar Split in Democratic Party; ”MAGA Inc.”: CorpWatch on Trump’s World of Tech Titans, Crypto Czars & Prison Profiteers

This is democracy now. This weekend, an Israeli airstrike killed Al Jazeera cameraman Ahmed Wieshah. Officially, there's a ceasefire in Gaza, but the picture on the ground tells a different story. We'll talk about the targeting of journalists from Gaza to Lebanon with drop site news editor Shariafa Belkadoos. Israel has killed yet another journalist in Gaza, and bragged about it. And it is exporting its practices to Lebanon, which has become the deadliest place in the world in 2026 for journalists. And all of this is happening as the world continues to look away and is not paying attention to this unprecedented slaughter. In Lebanon, acclaimed

sea turtle conservationist Mona Khalil died Friday after she was hit by an Israeli airstrike two weeks ago. This is not a project that belongs to me. It belongs to Lebanon. It belongs to the whole world. The turtles are not mine.

Then a new Corp Watch report, Mag Inc. will speak to the author ProFat Chatterjee. We are all being taken for a ride by the corporations that have bankrupt Donald Trump, the crypto czas, the tech titans, and the prison profiteers. Finally,

it's primary day here in New York, also in Maryland and Utah. We'll talk to Jacobin columnist Liza Featherstone. Her recent peace headlined, NYC socialists are trying to expand their electoral wins. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, DemocracyNow.org, the war and peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. Iranian diplomats say technical talks with the Trump administration aimed at ending the U.S.

war in Iran have concluded in Switzerland with agreement. on sanctions relief and the release of frozen Iranian assets. The U.S. Treasury Department announced it would waive sanctions for 60 days, allowing Iran to produce and sell crude oil and petrochemical products. President Trump said Monday, Iran would use the funds exclusively to buy food from U.S. farmers, including corn and soybeans. The governor of Iran's central bank quickly countered Trump's claim, saying Iran was under no obligation to purchase from the U.S.

Separately, Iran's foreign ministry refuted Vice President J.D. Vance's claims that Iran had agreed to allow United Nations inspectors at its nuclear sites, saying there were no plans for IAEA inspections, unquote. Meanwhile, Iran's parliament speaker-in-chief negotiator, Mohamed Bahra Ghalibaf, said Monday that Iran would permanently control the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz. I may have been among the first to say this right at the beginning of the war before there was even a ceasefire. I posted on X and I made it clear. Everyone should know that the administration of the strait will never return to the way that it was before the war.

The Pentagon seeking an additional $80 billion to cover the cost of the U.S. and Israeli war in Iran. That's according to the Wall Street Journal, which reports Pentagon leaders have said they could start running out of money for operations this summer unless Congress passes a new wartime spending bill. This comes after the Trump administration proposed a record-shattering $1.5 trillion defense budget. Israeli soldiers occupying southern Lebanon have opened fire on the town of Nabatia al-Faqa. It's killing two people and wounding another. It's the latest of Israel's many ceasefire violations and comes after Iran previously warned it would respond to further attacks by Israeli troops on Lebanon.

On Monday, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said his forces would remain in southern Lebanon for as long as necessary, while Israel's far-right national security minister, Etima Van Gavir, threatened Beir, could soon face the same fate as Beitchanun in Gaza, where Israeli attacks destroyed about 90% of buildings. The measure has to be a bit sure very. must be simple and very clear. The state of Israel must be secure. If Israel is not secure, Beirut will look like Bait, Hanun. A United Nations Commission of Inquiry has found Israeli security forces are committing the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity,

and war crimes in the Gaza Strip by deliberately targeting Palestinian children with deadly violence. The report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on, on the occupied Palestinian territory. Found Israeli attacks since October 23 have resulted in unprecedented death, injury, and trauma with more than 20,000 children killed, another 44,000 wounded. The violence continued even after Israel agreed

to a ceasefire last October. The report also found Israeli forces are carrying out war crimes in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, with a sharp rise in violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers against Palestinians. children. And the report found Israeli security forces have used sexual violence against children who've been arrested and subjected to torture and other severe forms of mistreatment

in Israeli prisons. In Michigan, members of the United Auto Workers have voted to prohibit investments in Israeli bonds, becoming the first major U.S. labor union to divest from the state of Israel. UAW member Oga Kournos, who organized the vote, said, quote, this is going to send a message to not just the billionaire class, but to politicians and any single person who's not afraid to stand up to genocide, to Netanyahu, to the United States government, and will put the UAW again on the map for standing up for international solidarity. Unquote. The U.S. military struck another boat in the Caribbean, killing two people. Six people survived, but it remains unclear if they were rescued.

U.S. Southern Command claimed without offering evidence that the strike targeted alleged, drug traffickers. Since September, the U.S. military has carried out deadly strikes on more than 60 boats. Former Human Rights Watch executive director Ken Roth commented on social media, quote, the summary execution of two more in an alleged drug boat brings the number of murders ordered by Trump to more than 210. There will come a day when he faces prosecution for these crimes, Ken Roth said. The United Nations has warned civilians and suggestions. North Cardiffon region faced the imminent risk of mass atrocities. After paramilitaries with Sudan's rapid support forces encircled the city of El Obeyed,

the RSF fighters who've been locked in a civil war against Sudan's military rulers since 23 of escalated drone attacks around the city, blowing up a power substation and a fuel station. Meanwhile, the Sudan Doctors Network reports drone attacks forced several medical centers to close and knocked out water pumping and filtration stations. This is UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk. The imminent offensive against Al-Obeyed in Sudan risks commission of serious international crimes and deepens the catastrophic impact

on an already beleaguered civilian population. We have seen this playbook before, and we cannot allow the repeat of the preventable atrocities we documented in Al-Fashar and Samsam, P-Camp in Northde-Four last year. In health news, the number of confirmed cases of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has topped 1,000. Officials say the Ebola outbreak has killed at least 254 people, but that it's believed to be

an undercount. Here in New York City, Mayor Zoran Mamdani signed an executive order Monday protecting workers from extreme heat. The order requires every city agency to create heat, illness prevention, plans and to provide multilingual heat safety guidance for outdoor workers. City officials say the order will protect 1.4 million people or about a third of New Yorkers who spend significant time working outdoors. Mayor Mom Dani said heat kills more than 500 people in New York City each year. This is New York Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice, Julie Sue.

Extreme heat kills more Americans every year than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined. And we know, because of climate change, it is only getting worse. The number of days above 90 degrees is projected to increase significantly in the years ahead. And despite all of this, extreme heat is still not recognized under federal law as a workplace hazard. The Trump administration's proposed a rollback of regulations on companies seeking to extract oil, gas, and coal from U.S. public lands. Rules proposed by the Interior Department Monday would slash oil and gas fees paid by energy companies weaken environmental reporting obligations and eliminate a requirement that companies detail plans to limit methane emissions when applying for drilling permits. A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration's efforts to create a national citizenship database to verify voter eligibility. The League of Women Voters and other groups had sued, warning the database could lead to mass purges of qualified voters.

U.S. District Judge, Sparkle Sukhnanan, wrote, quote, all in all, the federal governments knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote. This court cannot stand idly by while that happens, she said. In other legal news, a federal judge has blocked the Trump administration's subpoenas of several Democratic officials in Minnesota, including Governor Tim Walz. District Judge Patrick Schultz ruled the subpoenas were unconstitutional, calling them an effort to harass and retaliate. The Justice Department issued the subpoenas in January after walls and other officials condemn the Trump administration's deadly immigration crackdown in Minnesota.

The U.S. Supreme Court's once again postponed consideration of President Trump's appeal in the E. Jean Carroll case after Trump was found liable for damages caused by sexual abuse and defamation of the writer who says Trump sexually assaulted her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s. the Supreme Court has rescheduled the case 15 times since February, a delay that has benefited Trump, in part because it's deferred a $5 million verdict a jury in New York awarded to Carol more than three years ago. And Alan Greenspan has died at the age of 100. He served as the chair of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. He was a disciple of libertarian philosopher, Einrand, a little. leading advocate for deregulating banks and a proponent of so-called trickle-down economics. Greenspan was widely blamed for fueling economic inequality in the United States.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote on Monday, quote, If any single person was responsible for the financial crisis of 2008, it was Greenspan. That crisis, the worst collapse since 1929, which led to the worst recession in decades in which millions of Americans lost their jobs. job savings and even their homes resulted from the deregulation of Wall Street that Greenspan advocated, Reich said. Greenspan later admitted there was a fundamental flaw in his free market ideology. Greenspan also pushed for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He later wrote in his memoir, quote, I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows the Iraq war is largely

about oil, he said. Visit DemocracyNow.org to see a debate we hosted in 2007 between Alan Greenspan and Naomi Klein. That's DemocracyNow.org. And those are some of the headlines. This is DemocracyNow, democracy now. Democracy Now.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. Israel's continuing to attack Gaza, despite the so-called ceasefire.

On Saturday, Israeli strikes killed at least six people, including two children, and Ahmed Weshah, cameraman with Al Jazeera. His brother, Muhammad, also worked for Al Jazeera and was killed in an Israeli strike in April. Since October 2023, Israel's killed over 260 journalists and got. including at least 12 working for Al Jazeera. On Sunday, mourners gathered in Dera Balah to remember Ahmed Weishah. This is Al Jazeera correspondent Talal Al-Aruki. The Israeli occupation deliberately assassinations largely and directly during its war of extermination

in a clear attempt to suppress images, prevent the dissemination of the message, and to conceal the massacres and atrocities committed against the Palestinian people here in the Gaza Strip. For more, we're joined here in studio in New York by Sharif Abduk, Kuduze, the award-winged journalist and Middle East North Africa editor at Dropsite News, also a frequent correspondent for the investigative documentary series, fault lines on Al Jazeera English. Sharif, welcome back to Democracy Now, the horror. Talk about the journalist killed and particularly about Ahmed, the latest.

Al Jazeera cameraman to be killed. Right. Ahmed Bouchach was killed in an Israeli air strike on a home in the Borej refugee camp in central Gaza. He was just 25 years old. He was the youngest of three brothers, and he was a cameraman for Al Jazeera Mubesh. And he worked most closely with his older brother, Mohamed Weishah, who was a correspondent for Al Jazeera Mubesir. Ahmed would film the footage.

He would set up the live shots for Muhammad. and the two were as close as brothers can be. And Ahmed was killed on Saturday as he was still mourning the death of his brother, of Muhammad, who was assassinated by Israel in an airstrike on his car, west of Gaza City in April. The Israeli military openly bragged about killing Muhammad at the time, claiming as they always do without evidence,

that he was a Hamas militant. They did the same, actually, with Ahmed. The Israeli military confirmed to AFP that they killed him, and they said that he was caught a Hamas terrorist. After Muhammad's death, it was Ahmed who was taking care of his late brother's children. He was taking on additional responsibilities with their family, and now he's been killed as well. And this latest loss among the journalistic community in Gaza is very difficult to bear. You know, as soon as he was killed, I contacted Abdul Qadr Sabah,

who's the main journalist I work with at DropSat News in Gaza. I expressed my condolences and I asked him, you know, do you have any footage of the aftermath of theirstrike? Do you have any interviews with the family so we can report on it? And he lives in Gaza City. He contacted colleagues in Central Gaza to see if any of them could report. And for one of the first times ever, he came back to me, he said, I'm sorry, I don't have anything for you. Because all of them knew him so well, they are so bereft. They are so overwhelmed with grief that they couldn't report at that moment.

And so how do we fathom the depth of this? this kind of slaughter and how is Israel allowed to continue to do this? It operates with such impunity because it pays absolutely no consequences from its Western backers in the U.S. and Europe who continue to arm and fund it continuously, but also because of the coverage of most Western media institutions, which do cover these killings, but at an editorial institutional level, we don't see the type of outrage that we would see if a Western journalist was killed by a country that is not a U.S. ally. And so it's a really shameful state of affairs.

I want to say that we're showing for our video and TV audience images that Ahmed took credited in the news feed by him. And what it means to show those images, the risks that he took. Do you know if either he or his brother, who he was mourning until he himself was killed in an Israeli air strike, had gotten warnings from the Israeli military. We'll talk about Lebanon in a minute, Mona Khalil, and the reporters there, like Amal Khalil,

the journalist who was recently killed, who have gotten those warnings saying their heads will roll. I'm not aware of any direct warnings that either that Ahmed received. Madhu Shech, who is more well known, he was a correspondent, did receive warnings. He was called on his phone. He was texted by Israeli officials, by the Israeli military officials. And once they assassinated him, they bragged about it in a very, very brazen way. But this level of impunity and Israel's genocidal tactics in Gaza have been exported outside of Palestine in places like Lebanon. And so what we see in Lebanon, for example, with the, you know, invasional. Lebanese territory, the displacement of 1.2 million people, the systematic demolition of over 60 villages made to look, as Israel's defense minister said, like Bait Hanun and Rafah, which have been completely erased, and also the attacking of medics and rescue workers, but also the assassination of journalists. And the echoes between Lebanon and Gaza,

between the way the journalists are killed, are deafening. You know, when Israel killed the the prominent Lebanese journalist Ali Shweeb in March, along with journalist Fatma Ftuni and her brother of photojournalist, Mohamed Ftuni, it openly bragged about killing Ali Shweb and said, without evidence, that he was a Hezbollah militant. The same way it does with so many journalists in Gaza, like the both Washah brothers.

When we consider the case of Amal Khalil, who you mentioned, she was murdered by Israel on April 22nd in southern Lebanon. She was trapped for hours in a bill. where she was seeking shelter after where she and another journalist Zainab Farage were sheltering because they were both wounded in an air strike. Emergency workers were able to rescue Zainab, but they had to withdraw because they came under fire from Israeli forces.

At this time, even the Lebanese president is calling on Israel to allow emergency workers to go into rescue Amal. Again, the whole world watched while she bled to death and by the time they got to her, she was dead. This reminds us of the killing of Al Jazeera Jada in December of 2020. He was wounded in an airstrike on a school in Chen Yunus as he was with Al Jazeera's then Gaza Bureau Chief Wheladdahtoog. Weel was badly wounded. He managed to make it out.

The whole world watched, as everyone asked Israel, allow emergency workers to get in and Samir bled to death. So the parallels are glaring and horrifying, and Israel is allowed to continue this water. I wanted to ask you, Sharif. It's not obviously just the journalists or the medical workers. Israel has continued to turn Gaza into a killing field. Could you talk about the berns, the massive berms that they've been constructing to divide Gaza and how they continue to encroach on Palestinian territory in Gaza? Yes, as part of, you know, we're supposed to be under a ceasefire.

You know, Israel signed a ceasefire in October of 2025, and it is a ceasefire name only. As part of that agreement, Israel was to, troops were supposed to withdraw to a point that they called the Yellow Line, which was supposed to encompass about 53% of Gaza. And that would then set the stage for a phased withdrawal eventually back to the border. But what they have been doing since then is that they have been steadily encroaching further and further west, taking over more Palestinian land. And let's remember, the Gaza Strip was one of the most densely populated places on Earth before the genocide began. Now, nearly 2 million Palestinians are corralled into less than 40% of the Gaza Strip. There's literally nowhere to go. The streets are completely filled with tents.

Any open space, stadiums, schools are filled with tents. And people are being driven further and further west. Right now, estimates are that Israel controls about 60% of Gaza. And what they have done in the eastern side that they control is they have built a series of bases, at least 38 military bases. And along the so-called yellow line that divides the part that Israel controls and the part that Palestinians live in, they've built 25 kilometers of earth berms. Think of a massive wall of earth that physically divides Gaza. And on top of these earthworms is where many of these bases have been built.

These bases have been fortified and flattened on top. And Israeli soldiers, then, you know, if you look at satellite photos and you look at photos from the ground, they appear as these elevated forts overlooking a colonial landscape. And Israeli soldiers fire from these elevated forts, from these positions down onto Palestinians who are living close to the Yellow Line. We're getting increasing testimony that they're using remote operated machine guns from cranes, which Israel has used before along the border with Gaza, but using them from these forts to fire down onto Palestinians there. Just last week, residents of the Tofaheigh neighborhood in Gaza City. They woke to the sound of gunfire

and the rumble of tanks. And when they were finally able to go outside, they found that the Israeli military had moved yellow concrete blocks, which are used to demarcate the yellow line along some parts of it. They had moved them just next to their homes, about 100 meters further west. And so this sparked obviously panic. Dozens of families were forced to pack up their things and leave, because if the yellow line is right there, they're going to be attacked. But many of them stayed because they said there's literally nowhere to go. And Sharif, Shereef, could you talk about the similar military tactics being used in Lebanon, of seizing land, fortifying land, and then refusing to give it up?

Right. This is what we're seeing right now. Israel has destroyed about 60 villages, the estimates are, along the border. It's also used the same term to demarcate its line of control, calling it a yellow line in Lebanon. Right now there is a ceasefire that seems to be holding as part of the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. Iran has insisted that Lebanon be a part of that ceasefire. We haven't seen any Israeli attacks since Sunday, which is the longest time since March.

We'll see if that holds or not. But what's happening right now is that Lebanese residents are trying to move back south, but Israel is occupying vast swaths of the country and is refusing to leave. And many of these villages have been systematically demolished. So there's nothing left. And many Lebanese residents, because they have been unable to go back home, they have been purchasing, pooling money together.

For example, in one village, dozens of people will pool money together to buy satellite images, which are available that you can purchase, so they can zoom in and see if their house is still standing. So that's the level of destruction that Israel has wrought in Lebanon and also in Gaza. Sharih, you want to thank you for being with us, Sharif O'Dokadous, the award-winning journalist, Middle East North Africa editor at DropSight News, who is a correspondent on the fault-lens documentary, The Night Won't End on Al Jazeera English.

The film won the RTS Television Journalism Award and an overseas Press Club award. Sharif was also a producer here at Democracy Now. And tonight will be one of the last nights that steal the story, please, the documentary about Democracy Now, will be screening at the IFC theater here in New York about the 30 years of Democracy Now and independent media. It features Sharif Hebdo Kudous and Juan Gonzalez. And Noreen Sheikh will also be there, also in the film. I'll be there doing the Q&A with the director, Carl Deal and Tielesson,

and the moderator will be Elliott Page. You can check our website at DemocracyNow.org under events to click through for tickets. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. As we turn out to Lebanon, where the acclaimed conservationist Mona Khalil has died after being wounded in an Israeli strike on her beachside home, the village of Mansuri two weeks ago. The 76-year-old environmentalists spent more than 25 years trying to protect endangered sea turtles. Her work helped turn a stretch of southern Lebanon's

coastline into one most important nesting sites for endangered sea turtles in the eastern Mediterranean. Mona Khalil lived in what came to be known as the Orange House, her grandmother's home, which she helped transform into a refuge for endangered loiterranean. and green sea turtles and a small ecotourism site. She trained a generation of volunteers in ecological conservation and undocumented sea turtle nesting activity along the coast. An Israeli strike hit her home June 4th, and Khalil in her housekeeper, who reportedly sustained less severe injuries, were rushed to the hospital. After two weeks in hospital, Mona Khalil died Friday. The Israeli military said in a statement, Khalil, quote, was not a target of the IDF and that there is no known IDF strike in which she was injured, unquote.

This is a clip of Mona Khalil talking about why people should support the sea turtles from the 2012 documentary film directed by Ramin Francis Asadi called The Orange House. And the truth is, you don't need much money for this project. Not really. You need few things to buy, okay, and to maintain and keep the work going on. But the rest, people should help. This is not a project that belongs to me. It belongs to Lebanon. It belongs to the whole world. The turtles are not mine.

Well, for more on the life and legacy of Mona Khalil. We're joined now from Beirut by Rami Khashab. He's a herpetologist. That's an expert on reptiles and amphibians. He grew up in Amansuri village where he met Mona Khalil as a young person and started volunteering with her. He calls her his second family. Rami, our deepest condolences on the death of Mona. If you can talk about who Mona Khalil was, it's hard to refer to her in the past tense. yeah when I was thank you for hosting me and for shedding the light on Mona's story

and her murder case uh muna was a very like she was reincarnated like embodiment of passion of she's the first person who wrote the idea of conservation

to a country that we're not aware that they have sea turtles whatsoever she she's a change maker and she's a mother at the same time. She's a mother to everyone she loved. And to the turtles, she was taking care of. She was that passionate about all this. When I was, like when she came, she didn't know anything about the turtles. She just loved the moment she wanted to come back to Lebanon and to spend her days

at the Orange House, at the beach house. She spent her childhood at. And by pure coincidence, she actually stumbled upon her first sea turtle on Almansuri Beach. And that turtle started the whole project, the whole initiative. She discovered her passion in 1999, and in the year 2000, she started protecting, conserving, training to be the first and probably the most important conservation person in Lebanon on the Middle East. And since then, she probably took care of more than hundreds,

thousands of sea turtles. She made sure the next generation see her, her legacy that the beach remained, virgin remained protected for all the kids to see. She found something called the OCTC or Orange House Project Children Turtle Club, which was focused actually on children for children to learn to get excited about sea turtles because they don't get such opportunity elsewhere in Lebanon, especially back then or a decade ago. the orange house became more than just her house. It became a meeting point for all the people passionate about this kind of project.

Some people spent one day with her. Some people like myself spent more than a decade with Mona. And she inspired all of us. Many of people, the kids who have been through Mona. Later, they went into conservation work. They went into environmental work. and until today Mona is

as you could see as everyone could see Mona was like a symbol of hope of life and of resistance in South Lebanon and probably that's one of the reasons

she was killed because they are trying to make the area uninhabitable they are trying to kill the hope of the Lebanese people and make them think they don't want to return Mona insisted on staying

in the South Lebanon she was sure because she is not associated she's just a person who loves the beach who loves her garden who wants to stay peace she was sure she's not a target but that was not the case unfortunately and rami

could you talk about how you first met her and your relationship and also the last time you spoke to her so i met mona when i was still in school i was in the early uh 2010 2011 i met her first by mistake, I was a kid from the Almansuri town. I was on the beach, swimming like everyone else. And I already loved animals and snakes and stuff like that. By pure coincidence, we were at the same place at the same time. I saw Mona opening a nest and baby sea turtles started pouring out of the sand. I went crazy. I was so excited about it. I asked Mona if I can come and help. She was happy to hear that as well, because no one offered her help from around. she told me to come to her the next season

to volunteer with them the next season so I did that I thought she was just trying to get rid of me at that moment but I did that anyway and ever since then we were inseparable we were doing 5 a.m. beach to a beach monitoring for sea turtles every single day since then

Mona taught me a lot about not only about sea turtle conservation but that the beach is a full ecosystem them, we have to protect the whole thing. We had the daily cleanups. We had the people who spread awareness to people as well about what we do and all the sea turtles. It started as a volunteer work. It became my first paid job.

Actually, as a kid, I was still at the high school. At the high school, I didn't know any of that until Mona showed me the way. She was the person who told me to pursue my passion, my dream, no matter what. Like she did, she also, she also, she also, put me in the right direction when it comes to all the aspects of conservation work actually. And she was never fully scientific. She was never fully, like, she was never too scientific, but she was always so passionate that it was infectious to everyone around her, even if the people are not really environmental type.

She was resisted a lot by the locals, by the people around because he didn't understand what she did, because she was a black sheep to them. After a while, they ended up respecting her because fans to her, the beach remained, virgin, remained clean, remained protected for their children and for their grandchildren, especially for the people in the area. I'm from Alman Suuery Village. I want to go to a clip from 2017 of Mona Chaleo conducted by the School of Global Development at the University of East Anglia. I loved children and when I first started, when families started coming with their kids, I realized that the kids are the ones that are listening to me, not the parents.

The parents, they come here to have fun, drink and celebrate. But when I sit with them on the table bar and talk to them, it is the kids. So I shifted from talking to adults to kids. So for the last 16 years, I've been talking to kids. Now my kids are university people, young people, some of them graduated and they're working. But anyway, I build a small little army. If I need anything, I'll call them. They run here.

2017 interview with Mona Khalil, conducted by the School of Global Development at the University of East Anglia, known for its work on climate change. Rami, in this last 30 seconds, your final thoughts as she talks about mentoring young people and your attendance at her funeral. So her funeral didn't happen yet. She made sure that she got buried near the beach in the south that was not possible yet.

So we just attended the condolences with her family, but the funeral should happen and hopefully it can happen in the coming week of the ceasefire person. and nothing, we get no other surprises. We will make sure Mona is buried near the beach that she protected to overlook and to be the guardian angel there. Keshab, we want to thank you so much for being with us.

Herpetologist who studies amphibians and turtles and environmental consultant from Almansoorri village in southern Lebanon, where he met and worked with Mona Khalil as a young person. Coming up, it's primary day today in Maryland, in Utah. and here in New York. We'll talk about the DSA here in the city. Stay with us. Today is primary day here in New York, as well as in Maryland and Utah, with a runoff in South Carolina. In several of the races, it's a battle between different wings of the Democratic Party amidst the rise of one group in particular, DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America. In New York City, the DSA has a pack slate of 10 candidates across congressional, state assembly, and Senate races.

In the 13th Congressional District, the DSA is backing Oregon. organizer Daria Liza Villa Chivalier against incumbent Adriano Espayat. And in the 7th District race for outgoing Congressmember Nydia Velazquez's seat, the DSA is backing union organizer Claire Valdez against Brooklyn borough president Antonio Rinozo, who is backed by Congressmember Velasquez, as well as the Working Families Party. Earlier this month, Democracy Now covered a rally hosted by the New York City DSA in Brooklyn, and spoke to some of the DSA-back candidates in today's primaries. Democracy now spoke to Ann Huntley and Conrad Blackburn,

running for the state assembly from Brooklyn and Harlem, the B.R. Kowas, running for the state senate from Queens, and to New York State Assembly person, Claire Valdez, running for Congress in New York's 7th Congressional District. People are really mobilized. I think they're outraged by the genocide. They're outraged by what ICE is doing. They're outraged by the Trump administration.

and they want to see a Democratic majority that's going to fight for universal health care, for a truly deeply affordable housing, to stand up against, you know, the tech oligarchs, and so many of the people who make our lives hard. I know what it's like to have to make a choice between paying for rent and paying for daycare. I know what it's like to be concerned that when our lease is up, it will be the next family that's displaced from this community. I know what it's also like to really be very scared about how am I going to pay for my kids college because I'm still paying off my own student loans.

The housing instability that people are facing in Harlem is due to the fact that the people in power are taking money from landlords, taking money from developers, and then turning around and telling people that they're fighting for housing. It's just not true. And so in this moment, we really have to fight back. For me, as a Palestinian, to be at a rally for Democratic nominees and have free Palestine signs, after years and years and years of having elected officials, not even ever take Palestine seriously, go through a genocide where people didn't even speak out about Palestine. This is such a momentous moment because it's really a change

in political will and political history in the United States. That was Abercoas DSA candidate for the New York State Senate as well as Conrad Blackburn and Ian Huntley, DSA candidates for New York State Assembly and Claire Valdez, the DSA candidate for Congress. New York City Mayor Zohr and Mamdani has also played a key role in the races, backing the DSA's congressional candidates as well as former city controller Brad Lander running as a progressive challenger to Congressmember Dan Goldman here in New York

City. For more on the rise of the DSA in New York and beyond, we're joined by Liza Featherstone columnist for Jacobin, freelance journalist, author of Selling Women's Short, The Landmark Battle for Workers' Rights at Walmart. Her latest column is headlined, NYC Socialists are trying to expand their electoral wins. So talk Talk about the divided Democratic Party and the power of the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America in New York and beyond. Sure. Well, in the larger scheme of things, the Democratic Party is really divided between its corporate and pro-war wing, which is represented by the Democratic leadership, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem. Jeffreys, both of whom are New Yorkers.

And it's more, and it's more left-wing, more grassroots base. And DSA in New York City is one of the very grassroots forces representing that base. and some of our contests, particularly the congressional contests, are really playing that out. And, Liza, as you well known, there have been other periods in American history where socialists have gained a local office, especially in mayoralties and city councils, hundreds during the early 1900s. New York City had a famous socialist congressman, Vito Mark Antonio, from East Harrow. in the 1940s. What is different in your estimation of this, because of this wave, because capitalism

always figures out a way to come back and to take back those seats? Yeah. I mean, in some ways, one, it's similar, you know, in the sense that, you know, where socialists at that time, as now, were very strong at the neighborhood level and also made these bigger wins, you know, on the mayor level and congressional. And yet, as you point out, we still live in a capitalist society. That's true. But I think that something, you know, something that's a little bit different now is the real crisis on the national front in terms of the Trump administration, you know, a real, really signaling. that the elite just doesn't care about democracy at all.

And, you know, we're facing a climate crisis and an affordability crisis. And nationwide, as well as in New York, people are really looking for something else other than these corporate Democrats. So the socialists become sort of less, you know, possibly less of a temporary local experiment and more of a genuine alternative that a lot of people are looking to. And to what degree do you think some of these local elections in New York? I'm thinking specifically of the one in Brooklyn and Queens to replace the city of Alaska as you're dealing with a relative newcomer to New York City in the candidate

Democratic Socialists originally from Texas, running against a fairly liberal Democrat, certainly not a socialist, but a fairly liberal Democrat. To what degree do you see greater divisions being sewn in the progressive camp in a race like that? Yeah, absolutely right. So that's a really interesting race, because as you point out, Nidia Velasquez is the power broker

and Congresswoman who represented that seat for so long, was certainly not a centrist or corporate Democrat. In fact, she was an early backer of Julius Salazar, who was the first socialist in this current wave of socialist electeds. And she was an early supporter of a ceasefire in Gaza. She's certainly not one of the kind of Democrats that we usually go after. And she's very supportive of. Antonio Renoso, the borough president who is running for that seat right now. On the other hand, Claire Valdez is supported by Zoran Mamdani, the socialist mayor. And by D.

President of Alaska has supported Mamdani. Yes, yes. So, you know, the plot thickens. And also by DSA and also by the UAW, which the United Auto Workers, of which I am actually a member also. And if I mean, if I could a little bit explain that race, the Working Families Party is a very worthy but kind of disappointing formation.

They have never had much of a ground game in terms of their organizing. they are they're very beholden to incumbents incumbent Democrats and and a lot of the decisions are made by non-profit like you know non-profits who don't have a particularly democratic structure in their organizations and so it is a little bit of it does represent a little bit of a different form of left-wing power broken in which the DSA and the unions feel that they represent a more grassroots, more democratic. And I will also say, I think at stake in that election is, you know, obviously it's going to be

a decent congressperson compared to the horrors that are mostly, you know, representing us in that body. You know, either Antonio Renoso or Claire Valdez is going to be a decent congressman. congressperson. But the, but, but, but Clairvaldez kind of represents a vision for what many of us think, um, think, um, electoral engagement should be. She was a member organizer in our union. You know, she, um, she was, she was active in DSA. Well, we're, like a lot of us on the left feel that, um, our elected, leaders should come out of our movements. They shouldn't just be, you know, lifelong politicians

who, you know, we have, who our relationship is that we sit down every four years and have an endorsement meeting with them. You have both the focus on local issues with the DSA, but also the issue of Palestine. In this last 30 seconds, if you can talk about that being an engine of change in these elections in 2026. Absolutely. So in another race in Harlem, Daria Lisa Villalice-Chevalier is challenging Adriano Espiat, long-time Democrat in that seat, in that congressional seat. Darya Lisa was a student organizer, students for Palestine organizer, and she was also a, field lead for Zoran Mubdani's campaign. And that race, we just, nobody really expected that she was going to topple Adriano Espionte or get as close as she has. But it's really, it's really

going to be much closer than expected, and she might even win. And the reason is Palestine. People are absolutely disgusted with the U.S. relationship with Israel, absolutely appalled by the killing that we've seen and the feeling that our tax dollars are going towards that. As democracy now, viewers have been seeing all day the violence in that region. And it's just, you know, finally we have some politicians, some leaders, who are willing to stand up and say that that's what it is and that they're not going to be taking money from APAC, the Israel Interest Group. And I think that that's the same, you know,

we have the same dynamic in the Clairvaldez race, even though Antonio Rinozo is probably not getting much money from APAC or any money at all. He's not really an Israel asset. But Claire is a real fighter on the Palestine issue and has the most anti-imperialist platform of any congressional candidate ever. Liza Featherstone, we want to thank you for being with us, calmness for Jacobin. We'll link to your piece, NYC. Socialists are trying to expand their electoral wins. Special thanks to our Democracy Now fellows, Amber Gargarian and Diego Ramos coming up.

Maga Inc. a guide to Trump's world of Crypto Zars, Tech Titans, and Pris. and profiteers back in 20 seconds. To say, we're all going to be all right. It's always been this way. We've always have been all right. We've always have been all right. Uh-uh. Sing came performing in our Democracy Now studio.

This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. We end today's show looking at Maga Inc, the name of a new report by Corpwatch, looking at what it calls Trump's world of Cryptozoors, tech titans and prison profiteers. The report examines how many of President Trump's allies are profiting from his second presidency. We go now to London, where we're joined by Prothop Chatterjee, executive director of Corpwatch. Prothop, thanks so much for being with us. Tell us what you found. Describe MAGA Inc. Thank you, Amy. What we've discovered taking a deep dive into the business that profited from Trump, you can group many of them into these categories, the Crypto Zahs, and the Tech Titans and the Prison Profiteers, the Crypto Zars, are companies like World Liberty

Financial, which is actually a Trump family venture between his sons and the sons of Steve Whitkoff, and what they're doing is they're cashing in and the cryptocurrency boom. together with companies like Tether. And what they do is they sell stable coins and decentralized finance. So these are schemes by which you can move money anonymously around the world, something that drug dealers, gun manufacturers, or gun dealers and criminals love. This is the sort of business that is now benefiting the Trump family.

So this is the first aspect. He himself and his family have basically taken a cut of those. proceeds and literally doubled his fortune from probably $3 billion to about $6 billion purely by taking a cut out of these proceeds. The second group of people were looking at are the tech titans. So these are the open AI companies like Open AI and companies like Oracle that are running vast databases. And their data has been used by companies like Palantir.

And so Trump, the day after he was elected, brought Larry Ellison and Sam Altman of Open AI to the White House, and he said that he would be helping them get energy for these data centers. And one of the key things that you need for data center is an uninterrupted supplier power. So this means that he is giving contracts to people like Kelsey Warren, who runs energy transfer pipelines, and they are supplying gas. gas to data centers in Texas, in places like Abilene in central Texas, in Amarillo, in San Antonio. And this is extremely profitable, but it also has a huge impact on local groundwater supplies. We're talking a quarter trillion worth of gallons of water being used by data centers across the country, and it's going to double. So this is a huge, huge problem. But not only that the data that they're using in vacuum up

is going to companies like Palantir, another big Trump supporter. And Palantir is using this data to help ICE roundup people throughout the country and to provide to the Pentagon to use for things like Project Maven to target people in wars

in countries like Iran. In fact, the Menab Strike, the girls' school that was hit early on in Operation Epic Fury was a result of, Palantiers data gathering, data analysis. So this is a huge problem because these companies, these profiteers, are supporting Trump and now they're reaping the benefits.

But perhaps the biggest amount of money has come from the, sorry, has come from, gone to the prison profiteers. So companies like Geo Group and CoreC Civic in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in New York, a geo-group which runs the Delaney detention center in New Jersey, Coe Civic, which runs huge detention centers in places like Leavenworth, Kansas, and in California, California City in California. So they, particularly a company called CSI Aviation that has, it's an air broker company. They essentially operate airlines to deport people.

from the United States, a country like Brazil and the Honduras, they shackle prisoners and they deport them. And they literally are the biggest beneficiary of new federal contracts. So these are some of the people, the CEO of CSI, is a man by the name of Alan Way, another big fundraiser for Trump. So these are the people that we think are profiting the most out of MAGA, the business of deportation, the business. of gathering data and analyzing for, and also the crypto scams by which people's money

is being transferred anonymously and profit is being made by the Trump family themselves. And Prado, I wanted to ask you, some folks are missing from this analysis. First of all, in the tech titans, would you also include, companies like Amazon and Musk's Empire of Tesla and SpaceX as well. And also all of these different divisions, as you describe it, of Trump's of MAGA Incorporated, depend on finance capital. Don't they also depend or underwritten largely by private equity firms like Blackstone and Apollo KKR, Carlisle Group. And Prothop you have 30 seconds.

Yes. Well, the biggest profiteer out of this, the banking companies are really Cantor Fitzgerald, run by the sons of Howard Lutnik, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. And they have made literally a killing in providing money for the data centers and also for crypto companies like Tether and World Liberty Financial. These are the people that have made the most money out of it. Of course, companies like Amazon also provide the data, the cloud support for immigration OS. We're going to have to end it there, but we're going to continue in a post show and post online at DemocracyNow.org.

Prothop Chatterjee, executive director of Corpwatch, will link to your new report. Magi, a guide to Trump's world of cryptosar's tech titans and prison profiteers. I'll be tonight at the IFC for the vinyl screening of democracy, of the, film about Democracy Now steal the story, please go to DemocracyNow.org.