Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-07-24 Friday

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

Democracy Now! Friday, July 24, 2026

From New York, this is Democracy Now. Yes, this deal with Saudi Arabia, the energy deal is contingent on this condition as far as the president is concerned. So we'll continue to talk with our Saudi counterparts to get the deal finalized and hopefully see them joining the Abraham Accords very soon. A newly signed U.S.-S.-Saudi nuclear deal is in question. After President Trump said the deal is off unless Saudi Arabia normalizes relations with a newlysmobile. Israel. We'll speak to former Israeli negotiator, Daniel Levy, about this and President Trump's new threat to launch a massive attack on Iran. Then cockroach democracy, unarmed and dangerous. We'll talk to the prize-winning Indian writer and activist Arundati Roy about the massive

youth-led protests spreading across India. Today, what the Delhi police have done, the way they beat students, the way they hit them in their heads, it was very shameful. Due to this, the country's reputation is being damaged worldwide. And we all know why Delhi police did all of this, because they received orders from Darendra Modi and Amit Shah. Then to Puerto Rico. A Republican congressman wants to limit birthright citizenship in Puerto Rico

and other U.S. territories. We'll get the latest and look at a new documentary about the fishermen from the Puerto Rican island of Jekkes. It's called Farmers of the Sea. I am almost certain that the issue of global warming and pollution has caused fishing to be farther away from the coast. And this is accelerating a lot. We need to find a way to at least decelerate this as much as we can.

We'll speak to the filmmaker, Juan Carlos Davila. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now, Democracy Now, The Warrant Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. U.S. Central Command says it's concluded a 13th consecutive night of air strikes against Iran. Blasts were reported in several cities, including Karamabad, Jask, and Bandar Abbas, and Avas, a U.S. missile strike reportedly killed four people, leaving five others injured. Iran responded with attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait, and a U.S. air base in Jordan. On Wednesday, President Trump attended a dignified.

transfer ceremony at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for four soldiers killed in action while deployed to U.S. bases in Jordan and Iraq. The soldiers are 19-year-old Isabella Gonzalez of Texas, 25-year-old Tyler James Feehan of Hawaii, 28-year-old Angel Rampersad of New York, and 30-year-old Michael Emmanuel Swinton of North Carolina. Trump saluted as their bodies were returned to the U.S. just hours later, the Pentagon lowered its official death toll for the Iran war to 14 from 18. Military officials told the New York Times the names were moved in part because their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a ceasefire in April. Meanwhile, President Trump has threatened a massive attack on Iran, saying it would be, quote, bigger than ever

before, unquote, and that he's close to making a decision. The U.S. House of Representatives voted 214 to 208 Thursday to approve a resolution calling on President Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran. Four Republicans sided with Democrats in support of the measure, including Kentucky Congressmember Thomas Massey, who wrote ahead of the vote, quote, American service men and women are dying and gas and fertilizer prices are soaring. It's time to end this war, Massey said. It's the second time the House has voted for a resolution seeking to reign in Trump's power to wage war in Iran. Later on Thursday, the Senate voted 47 to 49 against advancing a similar war powers resolution. Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Federman joined all but one Republican voting against the resolution.

A new report finds President Trump's war against Iran has forced U.S. farmers to spend an additional $1.4 billion on diesel fuel compared to a year ago. increase of more than 60%. On Thursday, the price of oil passed $100 a barrel for the first time since May as the U.S. and Iran exchange fire and as Yemen's Houthis claimed attacks on Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea following their announcement of a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia. The Food and Agriculture Organization reports global hunger declined for a third consecutive year last year, but progress remains fragile and far too slow to meet the U.N. Sustainable Development and goals by a 2030 deadline. The annual state of food security and nutrition in the world report

found 7.8% of the global population are roughly 645 million people face hunger last year. That's down from 8.1% in 2024. The FAO's chief economist, Maximo Torreiro, warned the crisis around the Strait of Hormuz will delay progress towards ending global hunger. It will have an effect on production. It will have an effect on yields. And it will have a future effect on hunger. So depending on the legs of the impact of the crisis on food inflation, which is driven by higher energy and fertilizer prices, we simulate that between 510 and 520 million people may still be facing hunger in 2030.

In the occupied West Bank, four Palestinians are dead following an attack by dozens of Israeli settlers who stormed the town of Tal west of Nablus earlier today. Israeli settlers and soldiers reportedly opened fire as Palestinians attempted to protect their homes. Al Jazeera reports at least 86 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since the beginning of this year, including more than 20 fatally shot by Israeli settlers. The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned the attacks in Tal as a massacre, calling for urgent international intervention to halt settler violence and hold perpetrators accountable. The Trump administration's weighing military action in Mali to target an al-Qaeda-affiliated group. that's according to the Washington Post, which reports that if approved, the plan would add an

eighth nation to the list of countries where President Trump has ordered strikes since the start of his second term. The Trump administrations impose new tariffs on dozens of U.S. trading partners just as a temporary 10% global tariff expired. On Thursday, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced levies of 10% on imports from the European Union, Canada, Mexico and India, and 12.5% on goods from China, Japan, South Korea, and other nations. The levies took effect just after midnight this morning. They'll keep Trump's massive regime of tariffs in place despite a Supreme Court ruling striking

down earlier emergency powers tariffs. This comes this time. The Trump administration cited a section of the Trade Act of 1974 that allows for tariffs against countries that don't outlaw forced labor or who allegedly failed to enforce anti-slavery laws. In Texas, dozens of organizations and small businesses in Houston's East End District will participate in an economic boycott today, demanding justice for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, the 52-year-old Mexican father shot and killed by an ice agent July 7th. Organizers are intensifying calls for the release of the three key eyewitnesses who may remain in an ICE jail in Conroe, Texas and for the Department of Homeland Security to identify the

ICE agents involved in the fatal shooting. One of the eyewitnesses is Salgado's younger brother, Victor. This comes as Harris County District Attorney, Sean Tier, says an independent investigation into the fatal shooting is moving forward. The medical examiner rumor Mr. Salgado's death a homicide. There's one agency. in Harris County, Texas is authorized to investigate and prosecute that in its miles. In Minnesota, the man who fatally shot Democratic lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband marked to death in their home has received a sentence of two consecutive life terms, plus 40 years in prison. A federal judge handed down the sentence on Thursday to 57-year-old

Vance Belter, a self-professed conservative evangelical Christian whose guilty plea helped him avoid a possible death sentence. He also pleaded guilty to shooting and wounding state Senator John Hoffman and his wife at their home during a violent rampage in June 2025, during which Belter dressed as a police officer and modified his SUV to look like a police car. Investigators say he left behind three assault rifles, a handgun, and a hit list containing the names of dozens of people, including prominent Democrats and abortion providers and advocates. The Trump administration's withdrawn subpoenas seeking the phone and text message records of New York Times journalists and their family members. The move came after a federal judge grilled federal prosecutors and threatened them with sanctions unless they withdrew the subpoenas.

The Justice Department had been attempting to uncover confidential sources who spoke to the Times about security concerns over President Trump's new. Air Force One Jet donated to him by the royal family of Qatar. This comes as the Republican-led House Ways and Means Committee has issued subpoenas to the Independent News site Breakthrough News, along with the People's Forum and Tri-Continental Institute for Social Research. Here in New York City, a group of landlords are suing to overturn Mayor Zoran Mamdani's new rent freeze on apartments. The lawsuit accuses Mamdani of influencing the outcome of a vote by the Independent New York City Rent Guidelines Board for Zero Rent Increases on One and Two-year leases. This comes as Mayor Mamdani has tapped Lena Khan, the former chair of the Federal Trade

Commission, to serve as chair of the city's Economic Development Corporation. And dozens of protesters blocked an entrance to the Brooklyn Navy Yard Thursday demanding the eviction of cry precision, a private contractor that supplies tactical gear to the Israeli military and ICE. Thursday's act. comes as part of an ongoing widespread campaign against other military equipment manufacturers. Democracy now spoke to Eitan Mubarak of the National Iranian American Council. They're profiting off of war and ice and genocide and war crimes, all being subsidized by New York City tax dollars. They pay a lower rent. They had their construction costs covered.

And we, United as you New Yorkers, are here to demand that our tax dollars, go to us, go to our needs in the city, and not to cry precision and other companies that profit off of constant war that is slaughtering children in Iran, in Palestine, in Lebanon, and kidnapping, arresting, and deporting our neighbors here. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now. Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman in New York, joined by Democracy Now's Juan Gonzalez in Chicago. Hi, Juan.

Hi, Amy, and welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. A newly signed U.S.-S.-Saudi nuclear deal is in question after President Trump said Thursday, the deal is off unless Saudi Arabia normalizes relations with Israel. Saudi Arabia is maintained it would not officially recognize Israel and join the Abraham Accords until there's a pathway toward the creation of a Palestinian state. Trump made the declaration Thursday a day after Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and Saudi Arabia's energy minister signed the agreement. The official text of the agreement has not been released yet.

Congress must review the deal and has 90 days to consider it. The deal would allow for the U.S. to help Saudi Arabia build a civilian nuclear energy program using U.S. technology. Critics warn the deal could lead to Saudi Arabia developing a nuclear weapon and spark a new arms race in the Middle East. The U.S.-S.-Saudy deal is likely worth tens of build. of dollars to U.S. nuclear energy companies like Westinghouse, whose reactors produce plutonium as a byproduct. Non-proliferation experts warn the waste could be reprocessed for use in nuclear warheads. This all comes as the U.S. has carried out a 13th consecutive day of strikes on Iran. President Trump told Axios, he's weighing whether to launch a massive attack on Iran that would be, quote,

bigger than ever before, unquote. We're joined now by Danielle Levy, president of the U.S. Middle East Project, former Israeli peace negotiator under Israeli prime ministers, Ahud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin. Daniel, welcome back to democracy now. Let us start with the nuclear deal. So a nuclear deal is announced between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Anti-nuclear activists condemn it, but also Israel condemns it,

saying that Trump did not extract enough concessions from Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel, the Abraham Accords. If you can respond to what's going on here, President Trump then saying, okay, they'll recognize the Abraham Accords, where you think this is going. Right. So let's start with this appears absolutely on brand for a deal to be done. Apparently there's nothing in there about the conditions. that for this to take effect, Saudi has to join this Abraham Accords, normalize without

anything on the Palestinian front with Israel. Trump then apparently just makes something up, puts out a social media post, which undermines what was agreed just the day before. Very on brand. What you have today, Amy, in Israel is a kind of victory lap by Netanyahu. His office has put out his own post, saying only thanks to our fantastic war against Iran and being strong, have we been able to impose this condition? They are saying, here we are again. Israel is calling the shots again with the United States. Just earlier this week, you had a senior Israeli minister saying, it's very good what's going on between the US and Iran at the moment. Let the Americans do the work. Let them fight the war. So that's the response there. But if you

step back a moment, then maybe this is in the long run, maybe not such a long run, Another moment of clarity that is not going to work well for Israel, because let's just look at this. If this deal was good for America, served American national security interests, served American economic interests, not just the profiteering of a few companies who may or may not be close in future or current contributors to Trump and others' election campaigns. But if this was good for America, then why would you condition it on getting something for Israel? Is this America first or Israel first? Who is the driving force here? So if it's good for America, do it.

Don't make this conditional on getting something for Israel. It's the same game, by the way, that the Biden administration paid for. So I think this will just further embellish this debate around America first, Israel first, the unpopularity of America being subservient to Israel, first of all. Second of all, in Saudi Arabia, how does this play out? They think they've done a deal. Then the Americans throw this wrench into the works. And the Saudis yet again are going to be scratching their heads and saying, well, these guys just aren't serious. They constantly undermine their own interests for Israel.

Israel's a destabilizing, radicalizing factor in the region. Yes, we're not going to cut links. We're going to continue to be close to the US. But we have to hedge. We have to further look elsewhere for how we address our interests because the Americans can't be trusted. And finally, I would simply say, I do not think. Saudi is about to normalize on these terms for a nuclear deal with America. That's not what's actually going to be the outcome of this, is my assessment.

And Daniel, I wanted to follow up on that. This whole issue that the Saudi government has long claimed that it would not normalize relations with Israel unless there was a clear path to Palestinian statehood, wondering your thoughts about that, but also about the impact on any negotiations with Iran. since according to what we know so far about this agreement, the claims are that there will not be the kind of stringent inspection requirements on Saudi Arabia's enrichment program that the U.S. typically holds with any type of transfers of technology and also the kind of stringent requirements that the U.S. was seeking to impose on Iran in any kind of negotiated deal about its nuclear energy program. Right. So first of all, Saudi has officially, repeatedly made the case that, especially in the current circumstances, especially with everything that we've seen going on in Gaza, but also elsewhere, Saudi was one of the eight states, Arab and Muslim majority states that put out a issue statement just yesterday following the latest Israeli disturbances,

is the latest kind of Israeli takeover on the Alaksa compound in the old city of Jerusalem to condemn that, to say that has to be reversed. Saudi has taken this position that there is going to have to be irreversible movement towards a Palestinian state. We may get to a moment, Juan, where the definition of what that clear irreversible movement is will be tested. It may fall well short of what many Palestinians would like to see. It may not.

but the moment we are in right now does not lend itself to an Abraham Accord-style, total abandonment of the Palestinians, warm embrace of Israel under these circumstances. So I don't think that is going to happen. As to the nuclear component of that, sorry, actually before I go to that, to say one other thing, for Israel, what they want is precisely this kind of arrangement, to say we can do anything to the Palestinians and we will get north. So for Israel to have the U.S. again, front-loading Israeli demands, while simultaneously the U.S. is fighting this war, which Israel was instrumental in getting it into in Iran, while simultaneously Israel is given absolutely free reign in Gaza, so-called ceasefire, more than 1,200 Palestinians killed. West Bank, as we speak now, there are a settler rampages with the army either supportive or standing by taking place.

massive destruction of infrastructure inside the West Bank, what I just mentioned in terms of changing the status quo at Al-Axa. So from the Israeli perspective, what's not to like unless you're being strategic and foresighted, in which case you say we are losing public support in America. But anyway, parking that.

The actual nuclear enrichment, civil program provisions from what we understand, we don't, I think, have the details. From what we understand has been agreed between the US and Saudi. it's hard to make the case that you would make this deal at the same time that you're tying to impose more onerous conditions on Iran and think this works well for you.

So something has gone astray here. But it does follow decades of an American policy which is impossible to see as consistent or credible and that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Not only in terms of these safe, guards, what you have in one context versus what you're demanding in another. But if we just zoom out for a moment, the biggest elephant in the room, which is that Israel is a nuclear-armed state in the region. If you actually want a denuclearized, a WMD-free, Middle East, West Asia,

then you don't continue to indulge your ally, who not only is free of any kind of inspection regime, but who has a nuclear weapon. So you can't be serious on this front. That's one of the things that's hobbled and undermined this whole Iran obsession all along. By the way, I think if Saudi were intent, were hell bent on a nuclear weapons program, there are simpler ways of getting there. There is the relationship with Pakistan. People have often pointed to that.

But this is likely to lead to more of a potential proliferation. Other states in the region are going to look at it. say, well, maybe we need to be in the business of an enrichment program that could, as and when needed, be used. And briefly, be used elsewhere. In about 30 seconds or something, talk about the optics of the United States reaching this deal with Saudi Arabia, nearing the 25th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks on the United States where not only Osama bin Laden, but the majority of the high.

hijackers were Saudi? Look, I think that's something that may play out less, actually. You just mentioned that, Juan. Others are going to be looking at that. But I doubt that's going to drive the conversation. I think the conversation will be much more driven by this moment in American relations in the West Asia, Middle East region. The fact that this is happening at a time where the U.S. is back in an escalatory cycle

with Iran, but where it is. it does not look like the US has any better options now than it did during the earlier months of this war. And we're back testing, not so much the history of U.S. Saudi relations, but we're back testing U.S. resilience, U.S. pain thresholds as compared to those of Iran. There is no doubt that the U.S. is doing great harm to Iran. Iran is taking major hits. But will the U.S. be able to continue with this to what end? What is it trying to achieve? We don't have any good answers to any of those questions. And we could well see a further escalation without any of that being resolved. And we're back actually arguing over how do you reverse something that didn't exist when you

started this illegal war, which is the whole question of opening the Hormuz Straits. So I think Americans are going to see that this isn't working for them very quickly. It's an unpopular war. And I don't think the president is going to benefit from it. Daniel Levy, president of the U.S. Middle East Project, former Israeli peace negotiator under two Israeli prime ministers, Akhubarak and Yitzhak Rabin. Coming up, cockroach democracy unarmed and dangerous, we'll speak to the prize-winning Indian author, Arindati Roy, about the massive youth-led protests spreading across India. Stay with us.

Dangerer Hazer Chasur Hismian And her Danger by the Palestinian Oud musician

Huda Asford performing in our Democracy Now studio to see her performances and her interview,

go to Democracy Now. This is Democracy Now. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez.

We turn now to India where massive youth-led protests are spreading across India. On Thursday, thousands of young people staged another sit-in-in-in-new Delhi in defiance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, which is violently cracked down on protesters.

The protest movement is being led by the newly formed Cockroach Janta Party. The party was formed after India's chief justice compared India's unemployed youth to cockroaches and parasites. Protesters have been demanding the resignation of Modi's education minister. They're blaming him for the leak of national exam. questions that were circulated on social media forcing millions of students to retake the exam. Some students ended up dying by suicide after studying for the exam for years. One prominent Indian activist, Solnam Wangchuk, ended a 26-day hunger strike today that he began in solidarity with the cockroach movement.

This is Abidjit Dipka, who founded the cockroach Jantah party, speaking early. Earlier this week after authorities violently attacked protesters in Delhi. Today, what the Delhi police have done, the way they beat students, the way they hit them in their heads, it was very shameful. Due to this, the country's reputation is being damaged worldwide. And we all know why Delhi police did all of this, because they received orders from Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. We go now to New Delhi, where we're joined by the prize-winning Indian writer and activist Arindati Roy. She has a new piece for Wire, headlined Cockroach Democracy, unarmed and dangerous. Arundati begins her piece by writing, quote, for the first time in years, it feels

wonderful to be Indian. Just when hope seemed lost, they came, young roaches riding in on the rain. Arundati, Roy, take it from there. Talk about what's happening in the streets of India and the movement adopting the name of the justice who called them cockroaches? Well, what's happening in India, what's happening just kilometers from my home, where I will be shortly, is not thousands, Amy, but tens and tens of thousands of young people who have just flooded into the city. And now this has spread to cities all over North India, basically. and it started off as students, of course, as you said, you know, Abhijid Dipkeh just as a joke wrote on Instagram,

what if all the cockroaches came together and they did, first online and now in physical form, they're out everywhere in India, young people, protesting and officially demanding the resignation of the education minister under whose, I mean, in the last since 2014, the opposition says there have been 152 paper leaks, not a single conviction for anybody doing that. But more than that, the undermining of the entire system of education in India, which was, and used to be a good system. But now the whole thing has, I mean, if you listen to the slogans and if you see the chanting,

everything has shifted to directly attacking Modi. And this has just never happened since 2014 when he became Prime Minister, or 2002, when he became the chief minister of Gujarat. So it's really a generation whose parents and grandparents wore those Modi masks and chanted Modi, Modi, Modi, Modi and got him into power. It is their children now who are saying the emperor has no clue. loads and the mockery and the humor. It's just unbelievable.

It's unbelievable what's going on. The dancing, the singing, that old, you know, really boring Gandhian protest style has gone. It's just so exuberant and joyful. But as I said in the piece that I wrote, there are two things. One is that this is the protesters, there are Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists. It's a sort of demonstration of what we would like India to be. But the fact is that the majority of them, the great majority of them, are the children of Modi's, you know, Hindu right-wing constituency. And therefore, there is a certain protection.

You know, they are not Muslims, they're not Sikhs, they're not Christians, they're not Kashmiris. So is the police going to just shoot them down? I mean, things are coming to a stage where you almost think that they're going to call out the army, but will the army agree to kill their own children? I don't know. So it's a very tricky situation right now. And Arundari, how would you compare the cockroach uprising in India to recent other youth-led movements in nearby countries in Nepal and Bangladesh and Sri Lanka?

And also, this is coming at a time when the more traditional Marxist or left-wing parties in India, in some of the states of India where they long had major power, have suffered electoral defeats so that the left has been left sort of reeling from these defeats. I'm wondering if you could respond to that as well. Well, how would I compare it to Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka? You know, I don't think those comparisons would be correct because India is too vast and diverse a country for, you know, a simple sort of student-led coup to take over.

It's just like, for example, the whole of South India, although they are supporting this movement, they have largely been unaffected by Modi, you know, and so the rage against him isn't there because he doesn't exist there. India is too large a country for something like that. But you'd have to ask, you know, of course, the left, the left has been pushed back. The traditional, what we call the parliamentary left has been pushed back.

You know, it only really exists in Kerala as a proper party. But the left is certainly inside this protest, you know. The young left student unions are in there. and initially they were the ones who stabilized the protest because they know how to do it. A lot of young people were coming in. And there are people from everywhere, you know, like Sonomank Chuk, who was on Hunger Strike,

was initially very much a supporter of the BJP. You know, now he's called office fast. But the thing is that the protest is way beyond its individual components right now. But the real thing that I said is that, you know, why is the prime minister? refusing to make the small step of making the education minister resign. One of the reasons is that they rule like a cabal. They know too much about each other to be able to be sacked and so on.

They know terrible things about each other. And the second reason is that the BJP has gamed the election system. It has reconstituted the composition of the election commission. It has reconstituted. voter rolls in which, you know, millions of people are missing and millions of phantom names exist. The machines, the electoral voting machines are tampered with. The courts look away. The police are not neutral.

The bureaucracy is completely complicit. So it feels that it can do anything. It'll win an election because it's the richest political party in the world. And it is backed by the richest industrialists. the world. It can buy anything, it can break anyone. And ultimately, you know, even these young people, they are just very young people, you know, they don't know the forces that can come in and subvert them and beat them down and discredit them. All that is still to come. Paramedary forces are being flown in. But the situation is very tricky, very fluid. We don't know what's going to happen.

And could you talk about the extent of the youth unemployment crisis in India today? The youth unemployment crisis is beyond belief, you know, and I don't want to quote figures to you because those figures are rubbish. You know, for example, people who are, you know, selling peanuts on the road or somehow trying to survive are counted as employed people. basically there is a crisis of unemployment from the bottom to the top because of AI now and so on. So really the future of this country is so rocky. It feels like a sort of decomposing corpse wrapped in tissue paper and suddenly everything is beginning to leak out.

And as always happens with governments like this, I mean, five days of ten days ago, if somebody made a mildly off-color joke about Modi, they would be in jail. Today, you have millions of people mocking him in ways which I just, I just can't even explain. I mean, you cannot repeat those words on TV, but I don't even know how the man can come out and make a speech again. Because everyone just falls about laughing. You know, earlier it used to be just a handful of us. Now it's this whole young generation who I just want to hug because they're so hilarious. Arndati, if you can talk more about them reshaping the narrative of the government-controlled media, challenging Modi's carefully constructed image to the world because they're using Instagram,

they're using YouTube, as they reshape. the narrative of these protests to a global audience? So I'll start by saying that the most wicked element in India, in the last, you know, since Modi came to bar power, has been the corporate-owned mainstream media. It's not just that they're frightened. They are part of the project, enteusistically a part of the project. We have this saying over here, I'll first say it in Hindi. It says, Deshko four people chalapes, two,

becheting, two, kharit te charo Gujarati, which means that four people run this country, two sell it, two buy it, and all four are from the state of Gujarat. And these four are the Prime Minister, the Home Minister, and the two industrialists, Ambani and Adani. Now, Ambani and Adan, Ambani's own something like 27 news channels.

Adani just bought one of the most neutral news channels called IndyTV, and now that's fallen to. So the news media are like the captains. I call them the screaming television, live screaming TV, because they're just like the captains of lynch mobs. They get people arrested. They dehumanized people. They discredit people.

They lie. And on the other hand, we have some incredibly brave YouTubers both in English and in Hindi and in other languages. You have this, and this young generation, I mean, Modi tried to jam the internet in Jantan Tarmantar where the protest is happening. Now it's happening all over. And these kids, you can't mess around with them on the internet. So if you look at Instagram, all of us are just falling about laughing.

None of us can sleep in night because it's so funny what they're doing. And in a second, you know, this man who goes around making these ridiculous speeches abroad and hugging world leaders, like recently he was in Indonesia, and he was like, January 26th is Indian Republic Day, 2 plus 6 is 8, and the Indonesian prime ministers, birthdays, 17th, so 1 plus 7th, something like this. You know, now everyone just, there's nothing he can say and nothing he has said in the past years, which is not just being taken apart and people are just keeling over laughing. So how do you correct that image?

He can't get that back. He may beat these people down. He may discredit them. Some of their leaders may sell them out, you know. The kids are like, you have to see those videos. They're going to the police saying, so it's really hot. Can you put those water calendums? on and then they're dancing in the water cannons and please give me some tear gas and you know it's just

like oh my god your your baiton is taller than me you know little kids little girls are saying and the girls are the most foul most of all it's it's just i don't know how to explain it but it's just exuberance that's making up a whole heaven for someone like me well we don't want to keep you from the protests. So Arundati Roy, thank you so much for being with us, award-winning writer and activist. Her critically acclaimed memoir, headlined, titled Mother Mary comes to me. Also, she's received numerous awards, including the Booker Prize for her first novel, The God of Small Things. We'll link to her new article, Cockroach Democracy, Unarmed and Dangerous at Democracy Now.org. Coming up, we go to Puerto Rico. A Republican congressman wants to limit Burroup.

right citizenship there and in other U.S. territories will also look at a new documentary called Farmers of the Sea. Stay with us. Cando touching by Elado Negro and Reina Tropical for their new collaboration, Elado Tropical. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. Last week, Virginia Republican Congressmember Morgan Griffith introduced the end birthright citizenship for the Territories Act, which would limit automatic citizenship in Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories to only children born to U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents starting in 2027. Congressman Griffith said in a press release, his focus is on cracking down on quote unquote birth tourism. And that while the Supreme Court affirmed last month that birthright citizenship is a constitutional right,

it also, quote, leaves the door open, unquote, for congressional action on citizenship in the U.S. territories. His legal reasoning relies on the controversial early 20th century cases known as the insular cases in which the Supreme Court ruled the Constitution doesn't fully apply to the territories, saying the quote unquote, uncivilized races who, quote, unquote, infest the territory. are, quote, unquote, unfit. In a press release, Griffith said, quote, just like Congress possesses the power to grant the territories constitutional rights in statute, we have the power to take them away in statute. The legislation would impact Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands,

and the U.S. Virgin Islands. People born in American Samoa are already not classified as citizens. Vice President J.D. Vance has said on Fox News, he's in favor of the idea. This latest attempt to restrict rights in the U.S. territories coincides with the 10th anniversary of Pormessa, the law that established a fiscal control board in Puerto Rico to oversee finances on the island and restructure its debt, but its power and impact extends far beyond that.

The law was passed in June 2016. For more, we turn now to two guests. Afrin Rivera-Ramos joins us from San Juan. He's a law professor, former dean at the University of Puerto Rico Law School, and author of the legal construction of identity, the judicial and social legacy of American colonialism in Puerto Rico. And we're joined by Juan Carlos Davila. He's here with us in our New York studio, filmmaker, activist, and journalist from Puerto Rico. His latest film for PBS is titled Farmers of the Sea, the third in a trilogy of films on the Puerto Rican working class. We're going to talk about, that documentary in a minute. But first, Professor Ephraim Rivera-Ramos, if you can talk about this effort to strip citizenship or birthright citizenship for some in Puerto Rico. Explain what's going on here. Well, thank you very much. What I would like to say is that this is obviously an attempt. to start tampering with the citizenship situation of the people of the territories.

The title of the bill that has been presented is to end birthright citizenship in the territories. Now, that's a very broad concept. And it could lead to other developments in the future that could affect the citizenship status of everybody in Puerto Rico or everybody born in Puerto Rico or in the other territories. So I would like to raise a flag about that possibility. the bill itself, if read generously, says that if the bill is passed, as of January 1st, 2027, children born of non-U.S. citizens and non-U.S. residents

living in Puerto Rico would not be considered U.S. citizens anymore as it is now. Now anybody born in Puerto Rico, regardless of the citizenship status of her parents, is considered a U.S. citizen. And that has been so since a combination of statutes passed by Congress starting 1970. and ending in 1941. The Congressperson, Riffiths, said in a statement that this would impact only the children of those who are living in Puerto Rico

without being permanent residence or U.S. citizens. Now, if you read the... the bill, that is not what it says in the first part of the bill. That, if you read just the first part of the bill, it says that people born in Puerto Rico from 1941 to 2027 would be considered U.S. citizens, but not after that. It is not until the very last provision of the bill that it tries to clarify that this applies only to children born of non-U.S. citizens and non-U.S. residents. So there is a degree of ambiguity in the way that the bill is constructed that may cause problems in the future. But even if it is interpreted the way that the congressman has said,

it does create problems for a substantial sector of people living in Puerto Rico. We do have a substantial immigrant population. Most of it comes from the Dominican Republic, although we also have immigrants from Haiti and from other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean. If the bill is passed, the effect would be to create a very special underclass of people living in Puerto Rico who will lose many of its rights, many of the rights that they may enjoy right now. This would be like creating a minority within a minority in the sense that after the U.S. Supreme Court case, Barbara versus Trump, children born of non-residents and non-U.S. citizens born in the United States, people born in the United States under those circumstances, are still considered citizens. If the bill is fast, an exception will be made. for those born under the same conditions in Puerto Rico and the territories.

So this is an attempt at creating a subclass of people who can be discriminated against even more and who could be simply disregarded as human beings who, who could be, um, simply disregarded as human beings with rights living within the jurisdiction of the United States, because the territories, after all, are placed under the jurisdiction of the United States. So that would be my concern. Professor Hiva Ramas, I wanted to ask you also about the Promesa situation. It's 10 years since Congress and President Obama set up, Promesa. It was supposed to be a temporary fiscal control board.

And yet here we are 10 years later, and it is still effectively running the affairs of the island of Puerto Rico, a U.S. appointed board, effectively ending the claims of the United States that Puerto Rico was an autonomous territory. I'm wondering your sense of where Promesa goes from here. Have the people of Puerto Rico become accustomed to having their decisions made by an appointed group of largely outsiders? Well, I think that many people have become accustomed to that, although we can also witness, have witnessed, a growing criticism of the board. It is viewed by many people in Puerto Rico with reason as a colonial entity that was imposed by the U.S. Congress upon Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans. As you have said, it is an unelected board that exercises a great deal of power over Puerto Rico. It has taken over many of the governmental operations of the Puerto Rican government, I mean, and it has made decisions that have had a very deleterious effect on Puerto Rico and on many sectors of Puerto Rico,

especially the most vulnerable. the board has focused its operations on the fiscal end of the economy of Puerto Rico and I think it is the consensus of most economies in Puerto Rico that that has been a huge mistake Puerto Rico is in need of an economic development plan of strengthening the provision of essential services to the population, of having a sound economic policy in place of getting rid of many distortions of the economies, such as corruption, waste, incompetence, etc. And the board has done almost nothing regarding those very crucial aspects of the Puerto Rican economy. So I think that some people might say that the board has had some positive effect

in terms of the restructuring of the debt. but even that hasn't been as important as it was needed to be done, and it has entirely disregarded the economic development aspects of the Puerto Rican economy. So I think that in the end, it has been a failure. We are also joined by Juan Carlos Davila, who has covered the resistance promessa for years, but now has a new documentary about the local fishing industry in the Puerto Rican island of Vykes, where for more than 60 years, the U.S. Navy used much of the island as a bombing range, exploding by one estimate as much as three million pounds of ordinances containing napalm,

depleted uranium lead and other toxic chemicals. Public protests led to the closure of the base in 2003. When Carlos Davila has been reporting on Vykes for years, his latest film just came out on PBS, Farmers of the Sea, focusing on how access to fishing is changing to climate change and also the impacts of contamination. This is a clip. I cannot tell you that,

lobster fishing is bad but compared to previous years the decline has been significant. There are many reasons why this is happening, right? The reality of the matter is that this changes every year. The reefs aren't like they used to be. There are reefs where you find no marine life, no sponges. There are many fishes that you used to catch before that you rarely find them. Like, what happened with the conk? You almost don't find trunkfish. Look, those were you are turtles.

I am almost certain that the issue of global warming and pollution has caused fishing to be farther away from the coast. And this is accelerating a lot. We need to find a way to at least de-sexual. accelerate this as much as we can. Part of Farmers of the Sea, Juan Carlos Davila, congratulations on this beautiful portrait. Both the Fisher people and climate change. Talk about why you made this film.

Well, the reason I really made this film is because when we address the topic of food insecurity in climate change or how climate change is going to produce food insecurity, We tend to look a lot at what is happening in the land. But there's so many people in the world, especially coastal communities, island, that depend on the food that comes from the sea for their livelihood, to develop their economies, to bring food to the table to their children. And for example, if you look at Puerto Rico, the reefs in Puerto Rico, they are facing an alarming amount of bleaching,

and it's really destroying the ocean wildlife, which eventually is having an effect, a direct effect, on the food that we can get from the sea. And like the fishermen in Vieques, C, and other fishermen in Puerto Rico, So the ocean is that industry that always has jobs available, because you can go and fish and come back and sell that fish. But also, even if you are not able to sell that fish, you can provide food for your family so it doesn't go hungry. So this just shows one of those, the food insecurity in the ocean is also another layer of complication in climate change. and it just shows how the Caribbean has another complication

when we are thinking about how we are situated geographically in one of the front lines of climate change. So it's not just about, we're not only facing hurricanes, you know, strongest hurricanes now, but we're also facing food, we could face food shortages, especially the islands that depends so much and the food that comes from the sea. And Juan Carlos, we only have about less than a minute left, but we'll do a post show.

But could you also talk about what has the United States military and the government done about cleaning up Vykes, which was essentially a fishing community before they occupied it and destroyed it for so many years? So the federal agency is really what they do is that they inform the community of what they're doing. and just in general what they do is that they have been gathering the bombs that they are able to see on the surface and piling them up and really much exploding them in Vieques. But then they have, but there's also many other bombs, which also releases another type of contamination, but there's also a lot of bombs buried and thousands and thousands of bombs in the water that they haven't picked up. We have to leave it there.

Carlos Davila, filmmaker, journalist, actors from Puerto Rico will link to your piece. Farmers of the Sea for PBS. Ceynard and the Rebel Boats documentary will premiere at the Black Star Film Festival in Philadelphia.