Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-10-20 Tuesday

Episode Date: October 20, 2026

Headlines for October 20, 2026; Nobel Peace Laureate Navi Pillay on ICC, Gaza, Rape as War Crime, Her South African Roots & Mandela; A Wealth Tax on Billionaires? California Voters to Decide Prop 40

From Los Angeles and Chicago, this is Democracy Now. Today they gave out the Nobel Peace Prize to a person. I never heard of the person. Nobody did. It's a mystery person. I think it's very appropriate that I'm with friends and colleagues, all of whom will support human rights. The last thing I did is the delivery of the report on Gaza, naming what's happening there's genocide. This year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, Navi Pillay,

will join us from the Hague to talk about genocide from Gaza to Rwanda, President Trump's attacks on international law and her remarkable career from apartheid South Africa to serving on the International Criminal Court. Then to a California ballot initiative to impose the world's first billionaire wealth tax. Proposition 40, the California Billionaire Tax Act, is the most important ballot initiative in the country because it deals with the most important issue facing this country. All that and more. Coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman today, broadcasting from Los Angeles. In Ukraine, at least four civilians are dead and 27 wounded after another

night of Russian drone and missile attacks. They follow a Russian drone strike on a park in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region earlier on Monday that local officials said killed six people, including three children. There were many children and civilians here. This strike was aimed at civilians because, according to witnesses, the Suhid drone circled above the settlement twice before carrying out the attack. With tensions growing between Russia and its neighbors over the war in Ukraine, Finland's government said Monday it would purchase one million anti-personnel landmines at a cost of more

than a hundred million dollars. Finland withdrew from the mine-band treaty in January, joined by Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. The international campaign to ban landmines has called on the nations to reverse their decision, writing, quote, anti-personal minds cannot distinguish between a soldier and a civilian, and they continue to kill and maim long after conflicts end, unquote. Meanwhile, Russia is accusing accused of opening a new front in its hybrid war against Ukraine after a Russian satellite made on-orbit maneuvers and approached a Finnish-American radar satellite that's being used by Ukraine's military. The Russian satellite later retreated. It's the first known case of one active spacecraft in low-earth orbit, making an uninvited rendezvous with another. President Trump's continued to lash out against Ukrainian President Volodemir Zelensky, telling reporters at the White House Monday, quote,

it's time for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine. Zelensky is a man that should have this war settled a long time ago. If he would have listened to me, he would have made a much better deal a long time ago, and they'd have a million people living from his side. President Trump's comments came ahead of today. meeting between President Zelensky and U.S. Special Envoy Steve Whitkoff in Norway. President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is joining the meeting remotely. Zelensky said Monday Ukraine has nearly run out of U.S.-made Patriot missile interceptors. He offered to halt Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries for 30 days in exchange for

more interceptors. In Sudan, a drone strike near a market in West Kordofan state on Sunday, evening killed 80 people. The attacks one of the deadliest single strike since war broke out in April 2023 when a power struggle between the Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitary rapid support forces erupted. The RSF accused the Sydney's armed forces for carrying out Sunday strike. All of West Cortefront state is under RSF control. The conflict in Sudan is the world's largest internal displacement and hunger crisis. Over 13 million people have been forcibly displaced due to the fighting more than two-thirds of the Sudanese population,

an estimated 33.7 million people are in need of aid. President Trump continued his campaign tour of Red States on Monday with a campaign stop in Park City, Kansas, where he rallied support for incumbent Republican Senator Roger Marshall. Marshall faces a strong challenge from Democrat Adam Hamilton, the pastor of the largest United Methodist congregation in the U.S. No Democrat has won a U.S. Senate race in almost a century. That's since 1932. Senator Marshall is a former longtime obstetrician gynecologist. According to a review of court records by the New York Times, he sued more than seven. 700 of his own patients over unpaid medical bills, leading to 81 arrests over miscourt appearances.

The Times report sparked outrage in Kansas with one respondent to a recent poll saying, quote, Bro is literally robbing poor women, unquote. On Monday, President Trump defended Marshall for suing his own patients while using an anti-Semitic slur. And he was given a bum wrap because he was mandated by law to request strongly money owed from patients. You're not allowed not to do it. You have to, by law, go after those people. And they made it like, oh, he was some kind of a Shylock type guy. The term Shylock originates from the main antagonist in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, a Jewish money lender.

Trump faced widespread criticism for using the word. last year and later claimed ignorance about its origins. CBS News chief legal correspondent has apologized over her social media post praising a man who heckled Democratic Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed at a recent town hall meeting in Michigan. Jan Crawford shared video of the incident in which a man, who identified himself only as Tommy, asked Dr. El-Said whether he would disavow the Muslim brotherhood, a talking point of Republicans who've repeatedly attacked El Siyadh over his Muslim faith. Crawford called El Siyadh's three-minute response to the question, a, quote, spectacular self-own, unquote. But later deleted her post following public outcry and internal backlash at CBS.

El Siyadh's supporters have identified the heckler as Thomas Tepel, a former staffer to Missouri Republican Senator, Josh Hawley. This is a portion of the exchange. I have one simple question. Will you disavow the Muslim? Sure. Yeah, absolutely. But I want to ask to the question that you're asking. Why are you asking the question? Well, because they're a terrorist group. Okay. No, no, but what are you implying? Do you assume that I wouldn't? Yes. Why not? Because I have not heard you disavowed them yet. Have you disavowed them? I haven't heard you disavowed them yet. Do you great. But here's the thing about it. You're asking the question because implicitly you assume that I'll have dual loyalties, right?

In more news from Michigan's Senate race, drop site news is reporting Republican candidate Mike Rogers saw his personal wealth sore after 2011 when he was named chair of the House Intelligence Committee largely due to his marriage to Christy Clemens Rogers, a top executive at the British-founded private security contractor, Aegis. Her firm landed contracts worth billions of dollars during Rogers' tenure. In response to the report, Mike Rogers' campaign sent DropSight a cease and assist letter demanding a correction and retraction. Dropsite says it stands by its reporting.

Last week, Christy Rogers drew headlines when she was spotted handing out $10 gift cards to potential voters at a Detroit gas station while wearing a Mike Rogers campaign sticker drawing accusations of vote buying. Meanwhile, the Intercept reported Mike Rogers spent more than $100,000 last quarter directing campaign funds toward chartered flights, a Miami car service, and BMW repairs. In Texas, Emiliano Andrade Covarubius, a 56-year-old Mexican man. who was a lawful, permanent resident, was found unresponsive in his cell

at the Rio Grande Processing Center in Laredo on Saturday. He's the seventh person to die in ICE custody in Texas, the second in Laredo alone. His daughter, a U.S. citizen, says the family learned of his death from the county medical examiner rather than federal officials. She said her father who had heart disease,

diabetes, and high blood pressure was denied his medications and ignored by medical staff when he complained of chest tightness and trouble breathing. The private prison company Geo Group runs the center. Meanwhile, in California, ICE agents broke the arm of a U.S. citizen during a protest in Long Beach. Video shows Ricardo Gonzalez, identified as a former city employee, handcuffed and faced down in a gutter, with ICE officers kneeling on his back. Mr. Gonzalez is currently hospitalized. His family has set up a go-fund-me page

to cover his medical expenses. His daughter, Leslie, wrote, quote, My dad is one of the hardest working men out there. Because of him, I have a roof over my head, and I have all the opportunities around me. Our family is everything because of him. What ICE did was not right, she said. In Mississippi, the Attorney General ruled,

Monday that a Senatobia police officer was justified in fatally shooting one-year-old Cohen-Wiley. Cohen, who was black, was killed in June while sitting in his mother's lap in a car in a Walmart parking lot after police responded to a report that his mother and aunt had stolen diapers. The white police officer fired into the vehicle critically wounding the two women. They have not been charged, and authorities have not released body camera footage or evidence that a theft took place. Ben Crump, who represents the Wiley family, said, quote, this is a department whose chief was fired after reports of racial slurs in his text messages and whose officer faced a complaint alleging a racially offensive remark two days before he shot Cohen.

If the footage supports the state's decision, release it. We will not stop fighting until this family gets the truth, unquote. Palestinian activist, Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that enabled the Trump administration to re-arrest and deport him. Khalil is a legal U.S. permanent resident who was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. He was arrested by ICE agents back in March of last year. He was then jailed for 104 days at an ICE prison in Louisiana before a court ordered his release in June of last year. But in January, a federal appeals court ruled that the judge who freed Khalil from detention had no. no power to do so, saying his case must go through immigration court first. Mahmoud Halil has not been charged with any crimes.

He says he was deliberately targeted as part of a crackdown and pro-Palestinian protest. In his appeal, Khalil said the Supreme Court's ruling would determine, quote, whether I and all immigrants in this country can actually challenge this administration's unlawful attempts to detain and deport people solely in retaliation for their First Amendment, protected speech, unquote. To see our interview with Mahmoud Khalil, go to Democracy Now.org. And in Sao Paulo, Brazil, protesters rallied outside the corporate offices of MetaMunday, accusing the social media giant of electoral interference ahead of Sunday's runoff election

between the incumbent president, Luisinacio Lula de Silva, and far-right candidate Flavio Bolsonaro. The protests came as Brazil's electoral court gave META 24 hours to prove that it guarantees equal treatment for the campaigns of the two candidates as required by law. This follows widespread allegations that META's Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp platforms are reducing the reach of Lula's posts and boosting those of Bolsonaro and his supporters. Among those protesting Monday was Daniela Silva, a former META worker, who once led efforts to shape Brazilian laws in META's favor. I left META in early 2025, a very important event to place at the company at that time, because Mark Zuckerberg announced that he would roll back several of the company's integrity policies. He also declared that he would align himself with the Donald Trump administration.

which was about to take office, to ensure that countries like Brazil and other Latin American countries would stop regulating its technologies, moving in a direction that went against the company's economic interests. And for me, this kind of intervention crossed a very important ethical line. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now. Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. Coming up, we'll be joined by this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Navi Pile. She'll join us from the Hague. Stay with us.

Absurdity makes a world come together somehow. And to sacrifice your suffering just to turn around me, Pierce and Sidde you wear you. All things by Cassie Velazza performing at the Brooklyn Folk Festival. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman, today broadcasting from Los Angeles with 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.

Well, later in the broadcast, we're going to talk about a ballot initiative here in California, which would be, if passed, the first billionaire's wealth tax. But first, we begin today's show with this year's Nobel Prize. Peace Prize winner, the South African human rights lawyer international jurist Navi Pillay. Speaking in Oslo earlier this month, the chair of the Nobel Committee announced the award. This year's laureate has been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2026 to Navathenem Navi Pillai for her efforts to promote peace and international law.

The Nobel Prize Committee said it chose Navi Pillay as this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner to quote, issue a reminder at a time when judges and institutions of international law are under political, attack, unquote. Navi Pillay has served as a United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and a judge at both the International Criminal Court and at an international tribunal investigating the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Most recently, she led the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry that concluded Israel committed genocide in Gaza. Navi Pillay was in Nuremberg, Germany at an annual conference of human rights lawyers and judges when she heard the news. Very much. If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with the trouble. The last thing I did is the delivery of the reporter in Gaza naming what's happening there is genocide.

Yeah. After Navi Palaya was announced as winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, the U.S. imposed sweeping new sanctions against the international criminal court that target the institution as a whole. Earlier U.S. sanctions targeted individual ICC judges and court personnel. This is U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. President Trump will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans. And that's why today the United States is sanctioning the International Criminal Court. We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling their ability to operate against us. Because our message is clear.

The United States and the American people are not subject to the jurisdiction of this fake ICC. Soon after winning the Nobel Prize, Navi Pillay visited her former colleagues at the ICC and the Hague in a show of solidarity. Navi Pillay is now 85 years old. She was born into an Indian Tamil family in apartheid South Africa, the first woman to start a law practice in Natal, South Africa in 1967. She began her legal career defending anti-apartheid activists, including. including Nelson Mandela, another Nobel Peace Prize winner, exposing torture and helping establish key rights for prisoners on Robin Island. To talk more about her remarkable career from apartheid South Africa to serving on the international criminal court, findings of genocide from Rwanda to Gaza,

and President Trump's attacks on international law, we are joined now by the 26 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Navi Pile, joining us today from the Hague in the Netherlands. Navi Pile, welcome to democracy now. It's great to have you with us. Congratulations on winning this global peace prize. If you could respond to its significance and also talk about the significance of you hearing the news when you were in Nuremberg, Germany. So seminal when it came to the establishment. of international law so many decades ago after World War II. Congratulations again. Thank you so much, Amy.

I'm really pleased to be on your program. You know, the discovery now is, I mean, democracy now is well known. I hope you would include out my country sometimes. It's an extremely valuable program. I'm really happy to be on the program. and to your questions, yes, I'm now at the International Court of Justice. I serve as an ad hoc judge in one of the cases. I came to do some work here.

And this was a big surprise to me. I was attending, as you've just told the audience, that I was attending a conference in Nuremberg, in courtroom 600, when someone shouted it was Stephen Rapp, an American actually, the previous U.S. war crimes investigator. And he announced from his cell phone that that's a news. And of course, I had not heard from the committee, so I was astonished, and I disbelieved them until I heard the announcement myself later online. And it turned out that they had been trying to get home. of me, but there was no

connection inside the courtroom. A wonderful surprise. Part of the reasons why I was skeptical is firstly because we don't often hear of them giving the award to women.

They have given mine apparently is the 21st woman out of 100 some odd, 90 were men recipients. So that was one factor. other is, yes, judges and lawyers don't often get awards, especially not judges. We work quietly.

In our courtrooms, we speak through the judgments and we don't act it out or make speeches thereafter. For me, the significance of the fact that I was in courtroom 600, where the Nazis were tried, is very important because as an 18-year-old, when I was. studying in apartheid South Africa. I was studying law and non-white students attended the university separately in separate facilities, which in our case happened to be a potato warehouse. And I found these copies of the Nuremberg judgments. Nobody else had seen them. They were high up. I'd climb a ladder, find some of them. And that started my interest.

in international justice, because in my country, the laws were bad, they were immoral. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had used the veto to stop UN sanctions against apartheid South Africa. Of course, later they were pressured by civil society to change and not use the vote, so sanctions were applied and all of which contributed to ending apartheid. So I was very interested in us having some access to international justice or a system of laws that had values and principles behind them. And the significance of Nuremberg is, of course, it was mainly a U.S. idea. The person who is always quoted when it comes to the Nuremberg trials is Justice Jackson, who, the United States person. And all of us have learned about Nuremberg through his writings.

So here's a country so highly committed to international justice, opting to use the rule of law rather than force in dealing with the high-level Nazi criminals. It was such a wonderful idea. All of us, lawyers and judges subscribe to that. And therefore, it's extremely. shocking to me, totally unacceptable, that the United States administration can today impose sanctions against the International Criminal Court. Straight from Nuremberg, I came to the Hague and went to that court to show solidarity with the staff. These sanctions affect all the staff

who are doing such a courageous job in their investigations. Now, I don't want to judge. too much, but if I may just add that if the objection is that the judges authorize the prosecution to investigate not only the Taliban's activities, but also the activities of U.S. soldiers who were based in Afghanistan at that time. So if the objection is to the ICC even thinking or considering of investigating those U.S. soldiers, the same. solution for U.S. is simple. You begin investigating because the ICC statute

doesn't allow that court to intervene as long as the state is investigating, prosecuting these crimes. And Navi, you chair the UN International Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territories

from 2021 to 2025. And as soon as you got new, of the Nobel Peace Prize Award, you mentioned the decision of the commission on terms of the genocide committed by Israel and Gaza. Why did you feel it was so necessary to immediately refer to that especially? You know, as I said, I work very well with the U.S. I chaired commissions of inquiry that the U.S. supported,

such as two in respect of North Korea. So I know that Americans support the principle of ending impunity for these serious crimes and that they support justice and accountability. I mentioned the Gaza report because it has been widely covered and I've been accused of being biased and taking sides and speaking lies. That report was Manning, mandated by the United Nations Human Rights Council. So it's a UN body.

We followed all the UN rules and we worked in cooperation with all the UN agencies. We had access to UN satellite footage. We did not include a single fact in our report that was not personally verified. So based on the facts and the statements of the leaders, we named them, the former, the president, the current Prime Minister and the former Defence Minister. We said that those three individuals should be investigated and prosecuted for having committed genocide and for the continuing commission of genocide. The report was mentioned.

My activities as chair of that commission was mentioned as one of the categories of my life work by the Nobel Committee. And nearly 20 years ago, back in 2008, you were appointed the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. And the United States initially opposed your appointment then? Why was that? I believe they opposed my appointment because the Secretary of State felt I would influence my office, the High Commissioner's office, towards supporting reproducing. rights for women. Speaking of reproductive rights and speaking of overall women's rights, one of the issues that you

have focused on that has been so important, I believe coming out of the Rwanda Tribunal, was talking about rape as a weapon of war. And I'm wondering if you could elaborate on that and that whole body of law coming out of your emphasis. Now, I'll deal with the background just now, but the important point is, as all judges know, you need the evidence before you. So all judges look at the evidence first. So in this case, we heard from many women and men from Rwanda who gave evidence of rape, sexual violence on women, girls, and even some men. So we had this massive body of evidence. It's true that when we first heard the evidence, we realized that it had not been charged.

so we would have had to completely ignore all that evidence in the normal course. But this is an international court. We were there to render justice. And so we judges allowed the prosecutor to investigate and apply for an amendment of the charge sheet to add four counts of rape and sexual violence. And that is the case which is now very well known of John Paul. Akayesu, the mayor of Tauber province. Most of the rapes took place on those premises under his control, and there was also evidence that he encouraged them. You know, taste the Tutsi women today,

because you're not going to be able to do that in future. They were raped and killed largely. I first then credit the courageous women and men who testified on these matters, which enabled the court to consider them and see whether they fulfill the requirements of the genocide convention, which is proof of the specific intent by the perpetrators to destroy in whole or in part a group, in this case the ethnic group of Tutsis. So that's the evidence we established. We looked at statements of incitement made by the leaders. The Rwanda Tribunal tried mainly the leaders, the political leaders, military leaders, religious leaders. One in fact was a religious leader of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. And we heard evidence from the head of that church from the United States who came to plead on behalf of that particular priest whom we convicted because of the evidence before us of his own involvement in these crimes.

Let me say then that we had no precedent. There was no universally accepted definition of what constitutes rape, what constitutes sexual violence under international law. And we looked at very many jurisdictions. and most of us from the common law system, United States, South Africa, we followed the requirement that there has to be proof of no consent, that there has to be proof of penetration

by the male organ, the female in the vagina. So how do you use that definition when this is happening to hundreds of women? The prosecutor asked these witnesses, was their penetration. And the witness answered, well, that's not the only thing they did to us. These are children and they didn't respect us as mothers

and they said vile things to us. They did terrible things to us. So we were influenced once again by the experience of sexual violence as viewed by the victims themselves in order to create a definition. that is gender neutral, rape and sexual violence constitute crimes of invasion of a person, that's gender neutral, under coercive circumstances of a sexual nature. So we completely did away with the requirement where the victim or the prosecutor has to deal with the element,

with the element of consent. These are coercive circumstances. And we had help, of course, from very many academics, from the U.S., in particular, Professor Catherine McKinnon, was very helpful to us because we had to very importantly say, why does sexual violence committed under those circumstances constitute a destruction of the group, which is the key element, what we call the Dolos specialists, the special intent required under the genocide convention.

Here must interrupt myself to point out to you very many judges then and now believe that they should only look at killings as destruction of the group, that sexual violence does not constitute destruction. Well, we used what we've been advised by Professor McKinnon to describe rape and sexual violence as a destruction of life itself for the victims. I'm wondering if you could share with our audience not familiar with the trajectory of your life's work. Your own family origins story. You said your grandparents were shipped from India as indentures. laborers to South Africa, they worked on sugarcane plantations. How did this inform your own experiences? And if you could talk about the conditions under which you were raised in Durbin, that led you to become a lawyer and get involved in social justice work. Well, thank you for that question. I still remember my grandfather, who was brought as an

indentured laborer, and he lost both his arms in an accident. at the sugar mill. Both his arms were cut off, but he still survived till age 87 or so. My parents were born in South Africa. Now, Mahatma Gandhi described the indentured system as akin to slavery. So they apparently really suffered. They focused on education as a way out.

My parents were not educated. my mother was told by her father that if he let her learn to read and write, she would be writing letters to boyfriends. So she made sure that her children were. And so did my father, that we were seven children in all that we were educated. And of course then we didn't have money. I wanted to do law. I wanted to know what are our rights because even as children, we experience discrimination. We couldn't go to the beach.

Our parents said, no, we can't take you to that park. You're not allowed on the swings. And we would ask why, why not? And so they made it out as if it's written in stone. Things will never change. You are a lesser being because you have a dark skin. That's what children experienced, which got to me as well. I wanted to know my rights.

I wanted to study law. and the teacher in my high school asked the question of all the students, what would you like to do when you grow up? And I said, I wanted to be a lawyer. And he said, well, your father must have a lot of money. You need a lot of money to go to university. I was the lucky one, one of the lucky ones. The school approached the community.

They went door to door, tapping on doors. this is a poor community of Clarewood, a suburb outside Durban. So they contributed their pennies and sent me to university because they were told, we have a student with potential. And that is how I was able to get a university degree. I'm so interesting. It may be you're the first Nobel Peace Prize winner to represent another Nobel Peace Prize winner. and that was Nelson Mandela.

I believe you were the first woman lawyer to set foot on Robin Island where he was in prison for decades. If you can talk about that relationship, and I also believe you were the first non-white lawyer to be, non-white woman lawyer, to be appointed by Nelson Mandela, the first. the first non-white woman judge on the high court. If you can talk about your relationship with Nelson Mandela and one first after another. Thank you. Well, that's true. He did appoint me as the first woman of color

to be a judge on the high court. Until then, they were all white and they were all male. was a pretty drastic step on his part. I was also an attorney. We have a split bar and judges were usually drawn from the bar council and they were always white men. The bar council held a meeting. Agenda item one was the competence of Pile.

The public took that up because remember this is our newly emerging democracy. The public then questioned why. these advocates in the Bar Council did not question the competence of the apartheid error judges, why me? So I was very heartened by that level of interest from the public. Let me begin, though, in answer to your question, to make very clear, I was not his defense counsel. There were other lawyers, various lawyers who represented him. I engaged about him with my clients who were on Robben Island prison. I went to see them on an appeal that had been lodged on their behalf.

That's why I got access into Robben Island prison, where Mandela was serving and eventually served. served close to 27 years. My clients told me that they didn't know their rights. They didn't have the prison regulations. They were being punished for apparent violations of the prison regulations. And one of them, who happened to be a lawyer, was sentenced to six months' imprisonment in isolation and spare diet.

and because all he had done is drawn a petition of their requests, one of which was they needed to see the prison regulations, and the other was that they started a small class where they were teaching English to their companions who needed to learn English, for which he was punished in this way. They discussed the matter, and as soon as I turned up there, we secretly, by code, engaged in their problems and challenges, which I was not allowed to discuss.

I was there specifically to talk about their appeal. So it was a visit within site and supposedly out of hearing, but we were all aware that the whole discussions were, the lawyer's visits were taped anyway. And I was informed that they had consulted Mandela inside the prison who discouraged them and me from bringing any application because there was little chance of succeeding in an apartheid era court. I then went out and consulted other lawyers and some of them were very senior white male lawyers who very readily gave me their time. that's what lawyers do. You get interested in a challenge. They then encouraged me to bring this application, which we did, and we warn with costs.

The court ordered that the prisoners have a right to a lawyer. They have a right not to be further penalized apart from the court sentence. And if they are alleged to have broken, any regulation, there must be magistrates brought out of Cape Town, the mainland, onto Robin Island and trials must be held. So since their rights were now spelled out, they were able to have visits from their lawyers and they were able to study,

which was a survival necessity for them. And this is how he came to know of me. Navi Pili, we have to end it there, but I want to thank you so much for taking this time. South African human rights lawyer, international jurist. She was just awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She will actually receive that prize on December 10th. Navi Pillay has been speaking to us from the Hague. Coming up, we look at Proposition 40, a California ballot initiative to impose the world's

first billionaire wealth tax. Stay with us. Harvestman by the Corner Lafers. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warrant Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. As we broadcast from Los Angeles, California, we end today's show looking at what Senator Bernie Sanders is called the most important ballot initiative in the country. He's talking about Proposition 40, California's proposed billionaire tax. If passed, the proposition would impose a time 5% tax on the wealth of the state's roughly 230 billionaires. Supporters say the wealth tax could raise up to $100 billion, with about 90% going toward health care, helping some 3 million Californians from losing coverage as a result of sweeping federal health care

cuts. Prop 40 is drawn fierce opposition from billionaires. Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, has poured over $100 million into opposing Prop 40. Others who've also spent millions include former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, venture capitalist John Doer, and Tony Shoe of DoorDash. The billionaires have also backed alternative ballot measures. Prop 40 has also divided some Democrats in California. The California Democratic Party endorsed the ballot measure while Democratic California governor Gavin Newsom opposes it. Other opponents of Prop 40 include the California Teachers Association and Planned Parenthood. Although some Planned Parenthood staff have broken with leadership to announce their support of the billionaire tax.

For more, we're joined in New York by Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, which backs Prop 40. And in Boston, we're joined by Congressmember Roe Kana, Democratic Congress member from California. We welcome you both to Democracy Now. Lorena Gonzalez, let's begin with you. Why do you support this? This would be, as Bernie Sanders says, historic, the billionaire wealth tax. Well, look, when Trump passed HR1, we know that they cut our health care working.

people are going to pay for that to give billionaires a tax break. So when health care workers started gathering signatures and said one time, five percent tax on billionaires could actually backfill that till we get a new president. It makes sense. It's simple. And it's past time that billionaires pay their fair share. So, you know, our federation, the AFLCIO in California, all 2.3 million working people, two-thirds of our unions and a vast majority of our union members support ensuring that we do this one-time tax to backfill health care. So people don't lose their health care. So we don't lose hospitals.

And health care workers don't lose their jobs. I'd ask Representative Rokana, why you are backing this proposition. And also your reaction to your fellow Democratic. credit colleague governor, Newsom opposing it. First, let me say what an honor it is to follow Navi Pillay, who won the Nobel Prize for finding that Israel committed a genocide in Gaza, something still too many Democratic politicians in America refused to do. And I appreciate Lorena Gonzalez's extraordinary leadership to help get this billionaire tax on the ballot. It is the first time in the history of the nation,

or the history of the world that we would be able to tax billionaires. You would tax 250 billionaires who have half the California economy. There were $2.1 trillion. And you would tax them 5%, even though their wealth has gone up 144% over the last three years. And to do that, you would be able to make sure the 3.5 million Californians didn't lose their health care, and poor kids didn't go without health care. It is the most obvious decision for someone to make who cares about the working class and children. So why is Governor Newsom opposed to this tax?

He's opposed to this tax because of the billionaires bankrolling his campaigns. I mean, we need to speak plainly. We can either be a Democratic Party that stands for the working class in the tradition of the New Deal, or we can continue to cater to the donor class. Here, Gavin Newsom is literally siding with Sergey Brin, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk, Trump supporters, because they don't want to be taxed. This is why Gavin Newsom opposes the bill. He was speaking on HBO's real-time. This is why he opposes Prop 40, referencing concerns that teachers and firefighters won't benefit from the money raised by the tax.

I think billionaires do need to be tax more, but just not at the state level. Capital moves. And the challenge with this particular tax is it doesn't include firefighters and teachers. They're left out of the tax. It's one time. And we've already seen dozens and dozens of people leave the state. So Congress member, Rokana, if you can respond to what he's saying and also explain what Prop 41 and Prop 42 are. Well, he's just making up facts or he's a... ill-informed because California actually has increased billionaires since Proposition 42 has been on the ballot. We've gone from 240 billionaires to 261 billionaires. 85% of the venture capital has come in to California, 85% of the entire nation's venture capital into California. So this

argument that somehow billionaires are leaving are just belied by the statistics. And of course, firefighters and teachers would benefit if 150,000 California health care workers don't lose their jobs. If medical services and rural hospitals and mental health services aren't shut down, they use those rural hospitals and health care services too. The reality is that this Proposition 42 that Gavin Newsom has become the cheerleader for, it would say do not ever tax billionaires based on their wealth in California. It's not just that he's opposed to Proposition 40. He's also supporting Proposition 42 that would ban billionaires from ever being taxed in California on their wealth. And Lorena Gonzalez, could you talk about especially given Trump's so-called big, beautiful

bill, what the impact on California, especially in terms of health care, would be if you're not able to get new revenues from something like this billionaire's tax? Well, we're already seeing it. Obviously, after the midterms, we know the Medi-Cal, what we call it in California, Medicaid, but cuts will become more fulfilled. But already 89 hospitals are at risk of losing services or closing down. Hospitals in rural areas are already shutting down maternity wards and emergency rooms. We know that there are workers across California in urban areas and rural areas that will lose access to health care. In a state where, you know, over 50 percent, of our children are born under Medicaid and 67% of children of color are born under the Medicaid system, Medi-Cal, you know, we have got to make sure that young people have a start in this world. And if all it takes is asking for billionaires to pay their fair share, something that they won't even notice, I think it's something we have to do. But when it comes to whether or not they want to hoard their wealth, their concentration of money and power, or simply pay a one-time 5% that they'll never even

feel so that Californians won't go without access to health care. They've made their choice. They're spending close to, by the end of this election, they will have spent $500 million on this initiative to try to destroy it and to try to say that we can never tax billionaires. I want to ask Congressmember Rokane about the longtime Democratic Party strategist James Carval, who said on Sunday, he would prefer to see. Republicans keep control of the House of Representatives. Rather than have Democrats win a narrow majority, Carville cited the growing popularity of Democratic candidates aligned with the DSA,

with the Democratic Socialists of America. He spoke on the bulwark podcast. This is what he said. I would rather the Republicans keep the House by five than the Democrats win by five. Because if that happens, they're hostage to the DSA. In June, James Carville attacked the DSA as left-wing idiots, adding, quote, these people are so effing stupid. If you can talk to what Carville is saying and what many feel, many of the more corporate Democrats feel in the House and the Senate, perhaps the leadership,

and how you're taking this on. Well, Carville is irrelevant. I mean, these are the last gasps of the ancient regime. They're out of touch with young people today. Young people can't get a job. They don't have health care. They don't have child care to start a family. They see all the wealth accumulating in my district.

I don't know. What's the last time Carville ran a campaign? What's the last time he's talked to an actual voter, not just been on air as a pundit? You know, you run one campaign for Bill Clinton who would have won because if you gave him a microphone, doesn't make you an expert on politics for the rest of your life.

So I can respond, but it's kind of my responses is irrelevant. And the energy is with young people and with the people like Abdul Saeed and Zoran Mamdani and Claire Valdez and Malat Keros and a whole new movement in this country. I want to thank you both for being with us. So we're going to continue to follow this story. Congress member Rokana, Democratic Congress member from here in California, in California, and Loreno Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions. I'm here in Los Angeles, where the film, Steal the Story, Please, about democracy now, is screening on Thursday at Temple Israel and Hollywood. You can go to our website and check it out Friday at the CEMEX Auditorium at Stanford University.

And then we're on to Colorado. On Monday, University of Colorado Boulder at 3.30 at the football stadium. And then on Tuesday in Fort Collins, steal the story, please. I'll be speaking along with the film's director to your lesson. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. Thanks for joining us.