From New York, this is Democracy Now. With the announcements of the ceasefire between Iran and the United States, the ongoing military activity in Lebanon poses a grave risk to the ceasefire and efforts towards a lasting and comprehensive peace in the region. As the U.S. and Iran prepare to hold ceasefire talks in Pakistan, Israel's continuing to bomb Lebanon. The death toll from its massive attack on Wednesday has top 300. We'll go to Beirut for the latest. Then, to Trump's threats to pull the U.S. out of NATO. Their European allies refuse to use military force against Iran to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. But I just want to tell you NATO treated us very badly and you have to remember it, because they'll be treating us badly again if we ever need them and hopefully we'll never get a need them and I think we will need them and I think they can do very much. Then voters in Hungary head to the polls Sunday. Could it mark the end of Viktor Orban's rule? On Tuesday, Vice President J.D. Vance went to Hungary to campaign with Orban, a far-right nationalist who has led Hungary for 16 years. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now! DemocracyNow.org, the war and peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. Israel's military is continuing attacks on Lebanon, threatening to derail a fragile two-week ceasefire agreement ahead of high stakes talks between the U.S. and Iran and Islamabad this weekend. The death toll from Israel's massive strikes across Lebanon Wednesday has top 300. More than 1,150 people have been injured. The Financial Times described Israel's attack as, quote, one of the deadliest single bombing campaigns in the history of a country wrapped by decades of war and destruction, unquote. Israel and the U.S. have claimed the Iran ceasefire deal does not include Lebanon, but numerous other nations disagree. The U.S. is expected to host talks between Israel and Lebanon next week in Washington. After headlines, we'll go to Beirut to speak with the award-winning journalist Rania Abouzed. Iranian officials have warned the United States not to allow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to derail the two-week regional ceasefire by continuing attacks on Lebanon. On Thursday, Iran's foreign minister Abbas Al-Rakchi wrote on social media, quote, if the U.S. wishes to crater its economy by letting Netanyahu kill diplomacy, that would ultimately be its choice. We think that would be dumb, but are prepared for it, unquote. Al-Rakchi's language mirrors language used by Vice President J.D. Vance, warning Iran not to let the ceasefire fall apart over Lebanon. Vance is heading to Pakistan today for high-level talks with Iran and Islamabad. He'll join U.S. envoy Steve Whitcoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who previously held negotiations with Iran that were derailed twice when the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran. House Republicans have rejected an effort by Democrats to force a vote on resolution to limit President Trump's ability to wage war in Iran. On Thursday, with most of Congress still on recess, Maryland Democratic Congressmember Glenn Ivey rose to speak during a pro-forma session where he asked to pass an Iran-war-powers resolution by unanimous consent. But Republican Speaker Pro Tempor Chris Smith quickly gaveled the session to a close without allowing Ivey to speak. I'm pursuing to close 13 of Rule 1, the House to end the jurid until 2.30 p.m. on Monday, April 13, 2026. Congressmember Ivey and other House Democrats gathered on the Capitol steps after their attempt to force a vote on a war-powers resolution was pushed off until at least next week. This is Pennsylvania Congresswoman Madeline Dean. Over the weekend, we read and heard the President's Easter morning tweet of profanity, blasphemy, danger, and the following day has dreaded to eliminate an entire civilization. Pause there. These are not normal times, America. When will my Republican colleagues stand up in the House, in the Senate, the Vice President, the Cabinet Secretaries who surround this madman? When will they grow a spine? When will they say, stop? Israel's Cabinet has secretly approved the establishment of 34 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, Israel's largest ever recognition of unauthorized outposts in a single step. The Cabinet made the decision on April 1, but it was classified until Thursday when an Israeli military censor approved it for publication. This comes amidst a sharp rise in Israeli settler violence against Palestinians on Wednesday, 28-year-old Al-Halad Sabi, who was shot and killed as armed Israeli settlers, attacked the village of Tayyaseer east of Tuba. Separately, 65-year-old Palestinian farmer Hussam Adela Tif Wadan says he narrowly escaped a mob that descended on his farm. Yesterday, they attacked us. I was on my way to open the water irrigation system, and they attacked me, around 12 settlers. I escaped, thank God. They were very close to me, only around 10 meters away. The UN reports over 1,070 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank in East Jerusalem by Israeli forces or settlers since October 2023. In the Gaza Strip, health officials say Israeli soldiers shot and killed a nine-year-old girl in front of her third grade class Thursday, traumatizing students and teachers who were left in psychological shock. Ritaz Rahan was reportedly struck by a bullet without warning as she was sitting at her desk in a tent serving as a classroom in Beit Lahiya. Video and photos show her bloodied body being rushed through the streets toward a hospital on foot since there was no medical transport available in the area. She was one of four Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks across Gaza on Thursday. Others also gathered for the funeral of the Al Jazeera journalist, Mohammed Washa, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his car Wednesday. Al Jazeera reports Israel's attack Gaza on 36 out of the past 40 days, despite a U.S. brokerage ceasefire that was supposed to have taken effect six months ago. A federal judge has rebuked the Department of Defense for defying his earlier ruling requiring the Pentagon to restore access to credentialed journalists. U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman ruled Thursday Trump administration officials had committed a blatant attempt to circumvent a lawful order. After they failed to comply with his March 20th ruling, voiding large sections of a highly restrictive press policy introduced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, which violated the First Amendment. In October, dozens of reporters turned in their government-issued press badges, rather than agree to the rules, which state that news outlets cannot obtain any information that the Pentagon does not explicitly authorize. Thursday's ruling reinstates the prescudentials of seven New York Times reporters and applies to other members of the Pentagon Press Association. A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has postponed the termination of temporary protected status TPS for about 5,000 Ethiopian immigrants living in the U.S. after determining the Trump administration likely disregarded the rules Congress set up for the TPS program. Wednesday's ruling comes as the Supreme Court is poised to hear oral arguments later this month on challenges to the Trump administration's attempts to cancel protected status for over 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. The United Nations Migration Agency warns over 180 people are feared dead or missing in the latest shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, including more than 80 migrants who went missing when their boat capsized Sunday after departing from Libya. The International Organization for Migration reports nearly 1,000 people have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean into Europe since January, one of the deadliest starts to a year since record keeping began. First Lady Melania Trump unexpectedly summoned reporters to the White House Thursday, where she read from a prepared statement denying any relationship with the late serial sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Melania Trump also acknowledged she'd exchanged emails with Epstein's accomplice, Gillian Maxwell, in 2002, but dismissed it as a casual correspondence. A document from the Justice Department's incomplete release of the Epstein file shows Maxwell referred to Melania in an email as sweet pee, to which Melania replied, give me a call when you're back in New York. The letter concluded, love Melania. Melania Trump infamously appears in a 2000 photo posing alongside her husband and ex Jeffrey Epstein and Gillian Maxwell. Meanwhile, the First Lady is calling on Congress to hold a public hearing specifically centered around Epstein's survivors. In response, the Ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Robert Garcia, said he agreed urging Republican Committee Chair James Comer to schedule hearings immediately. The First Lady's comments reportedly caught White House officials off guard, including President Trump, who told an MSNOW reporter he had no prior knowledge of what his wife was preparing to say. The Acting Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has blocked the publication of research showing COVID vaccines were highly effective at preventing hospitalizations for healthy adults last winter. The Washington Post reports the findings had cleared the CDC's scientific review process and were scheduled for publication March 19 in the agency's flagship scientific journal before Acting Director Jay Badacharia personally intervened to withhold the report. In 2020, Badacharia was a main author of the Great Barrington Declaration, which argued against COVID lockdowns at a time when no vaccines were available. Argentina's Congress has approved legislation that rolls back protections for thousands of glaciers, making it easier for large-scale mining projects to move forward. The reforms are supported by Argentina's far-right president Javier Millay. Environmentalists warn the legislation threatens critical freshwater reserves that are the source of drinking water for about 7 million people. On Thursday, protesters rallied outside the National Congress Building in Buenos Aires. I would tell the lawmakers that they were elected to represent the interests of the people, not those of the big mining companies or big capital, and that they should rise to the occasion, because today they may get the deal that they want, but this affects all of us. Tomorrow, they too will suffer the consequences of not having water. Hundreds of doctors, nurses and public health workers have signed an open letter demanding the removal of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin. They warn Zeldin is, quote, pursuing a deregulatory agenda that will result in a massive increase in health-damaging air pollution, toxic chemicals and climate-heating greenhouse gases, unquote. On Wednesday, Zeldin delivered a keynote address to a gathering of the Heartland Institute, a right-wing think-tank that promotes climate misinformation. Zeldin celebrated his decision to revoke the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which allowed the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and praised the Trump administration's rollback of fuel efficiency standards for new cars and trucks. Factors should make whatever the American consumer wants, rather than what politicians and bureaucrats demand. This morning and today, all of you gathered here in D.C., is a moment to celebrate. It is a day to celebrate vindication. Zeldin's comments came as NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, confirmed last month was the hottest march on record for the contiguous United States, with temperatures more than 9 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average. The finding comes as forecasters warn a strong El Nino is likely to exacerbate global heating from human activity, which could make this year's surpass 2024 as the hottest year on record. Sources say Zeldin is being rumored to be under consideration to replace Pam Bondi as attorney general. And Chinese President Xi Jinping has met with the chair of Taiwan's main opposition party in a landmark meeting, the first of its kind in a decade. Speaking from the great hall of the people in Beijing, President Xi declared China will absolutely not tolerate independence for Taiwan and call for the island's reunification with the People's Republic of China. Cheng Liwen, who leads Taiwan's KMT Party, replied that the Taiwan Strait should no longer be a flashpoint for a potential conflict and warned against external interference and apparent reference to U.S. and Japanese support for Taiwan. Cheng has called her six-day visit to mainland China a journey of peace. It comes as Taiwan's opposition-controlled parliament has stalled a proposed $40 billion increase in military spending. This is Cheng Liwen. What should be flying in the sky are birds, not missiles. And what should be swimming in the sea are fish, not warships. Human technology should be used to seek well-being for humanity and for the Earth. Human technology should not be for mutual slaughter or for the destruction of ecosystems. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. As the U.S. and Iran prepare to hold ceasefire talks in Pakistan, Israel is continuing to bomb Lebanon. The death toll from Israel's massive attack Wednesday has topped 300. More than 1,150 people were injured. In a span of 10 minutes Wednesday, Israel struck 100 sites across Beirut, the Beqa Valley, and southern Lebanon. The Financial Times described Israel's attack on Lebanon as, quote, one of the deadliest single bombing campaigns in the history of a country wracked by decades of war and destruction, unquote. Israel and the U.S. have claimed the Iran ceasefire deal does not include Lebanon, but numerous other nations disagree. Earlier today, foreign ministers of Pakistan and France condemned what they called serious ceasefire violations made in Lebanon, unquote. CBS News reports Trump initially agreed Lebanon was included in the ceasefire, but his position changed after a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The U.S.'s expected toast talks between Israel and Lebanon next week, as Israel continues to attack Lebanon. Hezbollah has retaliated by firing missiles at Israel. At the United Nations, spokesperson for the Secretary General spoke Thursday. With the announcements of the ceasefire between Iran and the United States, the ongoing military activity in Lebanon poses a grave risk to the ceasefire and efforts towards a lasting and comprehensive peace in the region. Since the war began in late February, Israel's killed more than 1,530 people in Lebanon, including at least 130 children. In Beirut, grieving families gathered at hospitals to identify bodies after Israel's attacks on Wednesday. I had dropped off my sister. She went up into the house. I went on a little trip and they hid. I came back and didn't find the building. I didn't find my sister and I didn't find my family, any of them. I found my brother and his son was in the rubble. We go now to Beirut, where we're joined by Rania Abouzed. She's an award-winning Lebanese-Australian journalist author based in Beirut. Her books include No Turning Back, Life, Loss, and Hope in wartime Syria. Her latest piece in New York Magazine just out Thursday headlined, The Iran War Is Not Over, Scenes from a Day of Carnage in Beirut. Welcome back to Democracy Now, Rania. Why don't you describe those scenes of the day of carnage in Beirut? We have a four-second delay, so we will wait. It was 10 minutes of terror, a day that the Lebanese are calling Black Wednesday. It was hard to tell what was blowing up where because those hundred or so attacks were all happening simultaneously and not just in the capital Beirut but also in other parts of the country. They targeted very densely populated parts of the capital, neighborhoods in the capital that were themselves hosting people who had been displaced from other parts of the country. The Bekar mourners at a funeral in a cemetery were targeted. In Beirut, workers at a well-known roastery were removed by civil defense personnel as charred corpses. So it was a very, very ugly day. As we speak, I can't say rescue because unfortunately the people are dead, but search teams continue to try and locate and find and retrieve the remains of people who were killed in the rubble of their homes. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said Israel will, quote, continue to strike his Bullah wherever required, but later said he's approved direct talks with Lebanon as soon as possible. Can you talk about what's happening with these negotiations? You had the Belgian foreign minister who'd come into Beirut to meet with the Lebanese president, Thayoun, and the bombing hit very close to their quarters as he was congratulating the Lebanese president on saying that he would directly negotiate with Israel, then condemned the attack and said Lebanon had to be included with the ceasefire. Can you take it from there? What's happening now? Where do you understand these talks will take place? Well the first thing is that the talks remove Lebanon from the wider ceasefire talks that are due to take place between Iran and America tomorrow. That has many Lebanese worried because they wonder what sort of leverage does Lebanon have. It doesn't exactly have a straight of Hormuz, whereas Iran seems to have a stronger negotiating position. Yesterday, Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam made it quite clear he said that Lebanon, the Lebanese government will negotiate for Lebanon and that nobody else will do so. So he's very clearly drawn the line between whatever Iran negotiates and what he hopes his government will be able to negotiate with the Israelis. Now the Iranian foreign minister has made a ceasefire in Lebanon a condition of tomorrow's talks. So it's unclear whether or not they are going to go ahead. So in addition to the question of what sort of leverage does Lebanon have, some Lebanese are also worried because there is a precedent. There is a 15 month so-called ceasefire where this is the second war in less than two years and there was a 15 month ceasefire between the two. During that period, the Lebanese government was supposed to negotiate indirectly with Israel through something called a mechanism which was US and French led to ensure that each side fulfilled its requirements under the terms of that ceasefire. During those 15 months, Israel continued to occupy five hilltop positions that it had newly seized in the war. It was supposed to withdraw from them under the ceasefire it didn't. So the Lebanese government was unable to get Israel to adhere to any of the conditions of the ceasefire so some Lebanese wonder what it will be able to achieve now. In addition, I have to say that just the mere fact of direct talks not only breaks a taboo here in Lebanon, it also breaks a very long standing law. Since the mid-1950s here, it is considered an act of treason to have any direct interaction with an Israeli. But the Lebanese president himself, General Joseph Houn, about a month ago called for direct talks with Israel, breaking that massive, massive taboo. He had four conditions for these talks that were supposed to be followed sequentially. The first condition was an immediate and complete ceasefire. Condition number two was that the Lebanese army is strengthened. Third was that the Lebanese army would continue its efforts to disarm Hezbollah. And then fourth was the direct negotiation. So it looks like the Lebanese state has jumped over the president's own three of his conditions to go straight to the fourth one. So Hezbollah, for its part, has said it does not think that Lebanon should be negotiating under fire because it puts it in the weaker position. Some Lebanese fear that this is a ploy by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to prolong the war under the pretext of having these talks under fire. The proponents of the talks, I have to say, say that it is an issue of Lebanese sovereignty, that Lebanon will negotiate any sort of deal with the Israelis. They also say that Lebanon is not a card for the Iranians to wield or to use in any negotiations and they point out that, well, you don't exactly talk to your friends to make deals, you talk to your enemies. So it's a very, very divisive issue. The Hezbollah Secretary General is due to give a speech later this afternoon where he will no doubt address the issue of the talks. And there's supposed to be a protest here in Lebanon, just behind me, actually, in front of the Grand Sarai, which is where the Prime Minister's office is, against the idea of these talks. Let me turn to the questions you raise in your latest New York magazine piece, The Iran War Is Not Over Scenes from a Day of Carnage in Beirut. First of all, how much of Lebanon is Israel prepared to destroy while claiming to target Hezbollah and its infrastructure? And will the world just watch as it does so? And your second question, can Israel even defeat Hezbollah militarily? Or is it, as many Lebanese suspect, trying to exact so painful a price from fellow Lebanese that they turn on the group, plunging the country into civil strife? Take on, and to civil strife, those two. Well, the Israelis have made no secret of what they want to do in Lebanon. Officials from the Defense Minister, Smotrich, the Finance Minister, they have all talked about Lebanon being part of their greater Israel project. They have talked about seizing and occupying southern Lebanese territory up to the Littani River, which, at its deepest, is about 30 kilometers away from the Israeli border. Israel's Defense Minister said that he wants to turn that area, that lush, verdant agricultural area into a wasteland that resembles what the Israelis did in Gaza. He has threatened that the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese who have been displaced from there will not be allowed to return. So that's what the Israelis have indicated that they want to do. In terms of what they're able to do, they have, according to Israeli media reports, had to scale back some of those ambitions because of the fierce resistance that they're facing on the ground from Hezbollah fighters. Let me give you the example of a town in southern Lebanon called Chiam, where there are Israeli forces in this town, but they have been fighting for weeks and weeks to try and take control of it, and they have been unable to. So according to the Israeli media reports, they now say that they want to occupy about a three to four kilometer strip of territory. And Hezbollah will no doubt fight and try and prevent them from doing that too. So that's what the Israelis want to do. In terms of Lebanese turning on each other, Israeli officials called up. There are a couple of Christian villages down in the south. There are also Sunni, there are Jaws, as well as the Shiite villages down south. It's a mixed area. And the Israeli officials called up some of those Christian towns where the people refused to leave their territory and told them, listen, do not shelter your Shiite neighbors, otherwise you will come under attack. So that's a very clear sort of indication of what the Israelis are sort of hoping to foment in terms of civil strife and turning literally neighbor against neighbor. Let me play a clip from a Beirut resident, Naim Shebo, survived a bombing Wednesday, said he's now afraid to sleep. He said he wants the fighting to stop and blamed Hezbollah. We want peace. We don't want problems with anyone anymore. 80 percent of Arab countries have peace with Israel. Why doesn't Lebanon have peace so that we can end all these problems? As long as Hezbollah is in Lebanon, Israel will strike Lebanon. That's it. Hezbollah is not defending Lebanon. It's defending Iran's agenda. That's it. Rania Abouzed, how common or typical is this comment of a Lebanese who survived the bombing on Wednesday, Israel's bombing? The Lebanese are very divided over the issue of Hezbollah and its weapons, and they always have been, but more so now in this recent war, because it started on March 2, Hezbollah lobbed about six rockets into Israel claiming that it was in retaliation for the assassination of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei, as well as, quote, in defense of Lebanon. So many Lebanese saw it as a war of choice almost by Hezbollah. Now, Hezbollah and its supporters say that after those 15 months of a ceasefire, that wasn't really a ceasefire, because according to the UN, Israel violated Lebanon's sovereignty about 15,000 times during that period. There were thousands of attacks resulting in the deaths of more than 350 Lebanese. So Hezbollah's supporters say they were patient for those 15 months, and now they have chosen to respond. But certainly there are Lebanese who are very angry with Hezbollah. They don't want any war. I mean, no Lebanese wants war. Even the hundreds of thousands of displaced, many of whom might be Hezbollah supporters, everybody wants to go home. You know, war is not the option for anybody, but it's a question of under what circumstances, for example, will Lebanon negotiate with Israel? Will it be under the Iranian umbrella in these talks tomorrow, or will it try and forge another path, and which is better? I mean, look, there are some Lebanese who don't care if aliens will negotiate on behalf of Lebanon as long as it can secure a ceasefire. I wanted to finally ask you about what's happening on the ground, according to the World Health Organization. Some of Lebanon's hospitals may run out of life-saving medical supplies within days in attempt to treat patients wounded by the Israeli airstrikes. This is WHO representative, WHO representative in Lebanon, Dr. Abni Nasir Abu Bakr. There are some shortages, some of those essential chronic medications, the insulin, but also some of the dialysis supplies. If the current situation and the current demand actually continue, and the current escalation continue, probably the country may be facing a very real risk of critical shortage, including trauma supplies, surgical materials, black products, chronic medications, and any other further disruption could seriously hinder the ability of providing timely, adequate care for both emergency and on-coin health needs. Rania Abouzade, your final comments on what you think is about to happen and do you think Iran will insist on including this in the ceasefire, joined by many countries around the world who are saying Lebanon has to be included, or as you write in your column, many Lebanese are wondering whether Iran will forsake Hezbollah and allow Lebanon to be pounded. Very difficult to tell, Amy. That's the honest truth. But Iran also has its considerations. If it does forsake Hezbollah and goes it alone, well then Hezbollah is part of Iran's axis of resistance. There are other allies in the region who will see this and wonder if Iran might forsake it too. So it's a question of its broader network. There are the Houthis in Yemen. There are various militia groups in Iraq who will be watching very carefully to see what Iran does. If it stands by its ally Hezbollah or if it doesn't, it also has domestic considerations. Iranians have been pounded now for weeks and weeks. They want to reprieve. They don't want to return to war. So the Iranians will be juggling their own sort of conditions as well in terms of what their ultimate stance is with regard to heading to the negotiations tomorrow with or without a ceasefire in Lebanon. Finally, Rania, I mean you are there in Beirut. Israel struck Central Baruch, Southern Baruch, gone beyond the Lahtani River to the Zahraani River. Some are wondering if they'll take over that whole land about a fifth of Lebanon. But you yourself, are you afraid to walk in the streets? It depends on what streets, Amy. It depends on where and what part of Lebanon. Because that's the thing about Wednesday's attack is that it shattered the sense that any place is safe because you just don't know. The neighborhoods that were targeted were very far from, for example, from the southern suburbs of Beirut where Hezbollah has some institutions. Not that that justifies striking a very densely populated area. The southern suburbs are home to hundreds of thousands of people. But it was anybody's guess. Like why target a street with a roastery? Why target during rush hour when children were leaving school and civil servants were heading home? So that's the thing. The sense of safety anywhere has been shattered. Rania Abouzade, award-winning Lebanese Australian journalist. She is based in Beirut. Her latest piece in New York magazine, Just Out, we will link to, headlined The Iran War Is Not Over, Scenes from a Day of Carnage in Beirut. Go to democracynow.org. Coming up, we look at President Trump's threats to pull the U.S. out of NATO after European allies refused to use military force against Iran to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. Will NATO continue to exist? Stay with us. Zahl This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. We turn now to Europe, where the war in Iran has radically upended transatlantic ties with the United States. On Wednesday, President Trump met with NATO Secretary General Marc Rota at the White House amid growing threats to pull the U.S. from the military alliance. After the meeting, Trump lashed out on social media, saying in all caps, quote, NATO wasn't there when we needed them, and they won't be there if we need them again. Remember Greenland, that big poorly run piece of ice, exclamation point three times. The Wall Street Journal reports the Trump administration is considering moving U.S. troops out in NATO member countries, Spain and Germany, as punishment for not supporting the U.S. in its war in Iran. On Thursday, the NATO Secretary General Marc Rota suggested NATO could support the U.S. in the Strait of Hormuz, saying, quote, if NATO can help, obviously NATO is there. He also downplayed European opposition to the war. When it came time to provide the logistical and other support the United States needed in Iran, some allies were a bit slow, to say the least. In fairness, they were also a bit surprised. To maintain the element of surprise for the initial strikes, President Trump opted not to inform allies ahead of time. And I understand that. But what I see when I look across Europe today is allies providing a massive amount of support, basing logistics and other measures to ensure the powerful U.S. military succeeds in denying Iran a nuclear weapon and degrading its capacity to export chaos. They have heard and are responding to President Trump's requests. For more on the Trump administration's strained relationship with Europe, we go to Madrid, Spain, to the heart of Europe's opposition to Trump's war in Iran. We're joined by Natalie Tocci, professor of practice at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Europe, her latest column for the Guardian headlined, Iran is a turning point for Europe's liberation from Donald Trump. Explain, Professor Tocci. Well, I mean, of course, Amy, we have seen over the course of over a year a number of repeated threats and betrayals, I would say, from Washington towards Europe. Be it over Ukraine, over Greenland, over tariffs, and now in a sense, weirdly, using the excuse of the Iran war, where, which frankly speaking, has very little to do with NATO, to lash out again and again. So essentially, what we're seeing is, I think, on the one hand, Europeans sort of feeling almost increasingly numb to these threats, right? Not to say that the threats are necessarily empty, but it's almost regardless of what Europeans do, regardless of how much they kiss or do not kiss the ring. These threats tend to come because if there's one thing that actually one can say about President Trump is that he's been very consistent in his total disdain for Europe and for NATO. So I think there's Europeans that are beginning increasingly to smell the coffee. And I think, coming alongside this, there's this question of trust within NATO and in the transatlantic alliance, which is being, if not completely broken, then very, very seriously put into question. Because of course, it's not the first time that the United States does things that Europeans don't particularly agree with. Just think about the war in Iraq back in 2003. And yet there was an element of trust in the relationship of consultation, of coordination that Europeans basically felt that there was a social contract, so to speak, with the United States that basically held. Now that social contract, beginning with the trust in the relationship, seems to be broken. And of course, once trust is broken, it's extremely difficult to put the genie back in the bottle. Gautja, you're in Madrid, Spain. The Spanish Prime Minister, said on X, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's, quote, contempt for life and international law is intolerable. Sanchez has welcomed the Pakistani-brokered ceasefire, but said Spain would, quote, not applaud those who set the world on fire just because they turn up with a bucket, in reference to President Trump and the US administration. Explain. Yeah, I mean, Spain has basically been very consistent, be it on Gaza, on Lebanon, now on Iran. And actually, it has also been very firm on Ukraine as well, despite the fact that obviously it's much further away from the front line with Russia. So we have basically seen the Spanish Prime Minister take a principled stance when it comes to these various wars and conflict in triangulation with the United States throughout. Now, I think what's interesting about the Spanish case is that especially if you compare it to other European countries, Sanchez, alongside obviously his political color to the center left, Spain in general has the both virtue and luck, I guess, of actually not being that dependent on the United States. Be it in terms of defense, be it in terms of trade, be it in terms of energy, Spain, of course, is the country that has gone farcest and furthest on the energy transition towards renewable sources. So basically Sanchez, in a sense, can afford, quote, unquote, to be perhaps more principled than other European leaders. But I think what's interesting there is that the mainstream view of other European leaders is increasingly moving away from, in a sense, the sort of sycophantic kissing of the ring that we've seen of the NATO Secretary General, Mark Ruther, and in a sense closer to the more principled opposition that we're seeing in Madrid here. So in response to Spain's opposition, Germany's opposition to U.S. war on Iran, President Trump is reportedly weighing, taking the troops out of Germany and Spain and putting them in more U.S.-friendly countries like Poland and Romania. I'm wondering if you can talk about actually what could happen with NATO. Could it break up? German friend Chancellor Friedrich Meritz has warned against a split in NATO when it comes to working with Trump and opening the Strait of Hormuz from divisions in NATO to it falling apart. What do you see? Well, you know, I think what's actually quite ironic about these hints and decorations that President Trump has made is that actually as far as Europeans are concerned, it would make a lot more sense to have more U.S. true presence in Eastern Europe and actually less U.S. true presence in Southern Europe. Now U.S. true presence in Southern Europe, the basis that we're talking about, are not actually to protect Spain. I mean, Spain is not about to be attacked by Morocco or, I don't know, Italy by Tunisia. They have actually served U.S. security interests in terms of its own power projection in the Middle East. So if President Trump wants to move U.S. true presence away from Southern Europe and towards Eastern Europe, both Southern Europe and Eastern Europe, I think, will be very happy about it. Why do you need troops in Europe, east or west? Well, because of course, you know, looking east, there is the Russian threat. So obviously there is, in a sense, a threat and a growing threat perception in Europe. And although obviously Europeans are trying to build their own defenses and reducing dependence on the United States, this is obviously not something that can be achieved overnight. Under peace in the Guardian, you write, Italy has denied U.S. warplanes' permission to use an air base in Sicily. Now that's very interesting, because of course it's a right prime minister, Georgia Maloney, who has supported Trump in the past. That was my additional comment there. Back to your piece, Poland's refused to send Patriot air defense systems to the Middle East, citing the ongoing threat from Russia. France has rejected overflight rights and opposed a U.S. sponsored resolution at the UN Security Council that condemned Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz, calling for its reopening by military means. If you could take it from there, there also—this is exposing, and I don't know if Trump wanted this, exactly where U.S. troops are all over Europe and what these connections are and what the rights of countries are, for example, to deny airspace. And were you surprised about what Maloney did in Italy? Well, actually, I wasn't that surprised. And I wasn't that surprised, because what is becoming increasingly clear is that closeness to Trump is becoming increasingly politically toxic in Europe. And so even far-right governments, like my own in Italy, are actually feeling—regardless of what they feel and where their political heart beats, they're finding it increasingly uncomfortable to show support for Donald Trump. Given—and here we come back to this breaking of trust, this constant lashing out against Europe—Maloney may love Trump and adhere to his ideology, but she is still the prime minister of a European country. And so this constant lashing out is something that is becoming increasingly uncomfortable. So you see—and this is what I was trying to get at earlier, when saying that, okay, Spain started off this way, but you see a number of other European countries, from Poland to Germany to Italy to France and the United Kingdom, gradually shifting towards, in a sense, a more Sanchez-like position, even if they had started off wanting to embrace Trump, but Trump is making it increasingly difficult for them to embrace him. Natalie Tocci, I want to thank you for being with us, Professor of Practice John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Europe and a senior fellow at Poconi University's Institute for European Policymaking. Speaking to us from Madrid, Spain, also a Guardian Europe columnist will link to your new piece, Iran's A Turning Point for Europe's Liberation, from Donald Trump. Go to democracynow.org. Coming up, voters in Hungary head to the polls on Sunday. Well, why was Vice President J. D. Vance there this week, before he now heads to Pakistan? Could the election mark the end of Viktor Orban's rule? Stay with us. The late Malin musician, Kairi B. Arby, Nightingale of the North, performing in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, democracynow.org. I'm Amy Goodman. We turn now to the one country in Europe where the transatlantic relationship has only gotten stronger under the Trump administration, Hungary. But that relationship is about to be tested, because as Hungary goes to the polls Sunday, far right Prime Minister Viktor Orban is facing his biggest challenge in 16 years. Polls show the center-right party led by Peter Madiar, with a significant lead over Orban's party in the days before Hungary's parliamentary election. The latest poll show, Orban's party, has the support of 39 percent of decided voters, 52 percent back his opponent's party. 25 percent of voters said they're undecided. Orban's been Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010, making him the European Union's longest-serving leader. Earlier today, he accused his political opponents of trying to seize power in a video message posted to social media. Our opponents will stop at nothing to seize power. They are colluding with foreign secret services, threatening our followers with violence, and calling out election fraud with fabricated accusations even before the election. They are organizing demonstrations and chaos even before your votes have been counted. Let us speak clearly. This is an organized attempt to question the decisions of the Hungarian people through chaos, pressure, and international discredit. On Tuesday, U.S. Vice President Jay Devance traveled to Budapest, where he appeared alongside Prime Minister Orban and openly campaigned for his reelection. For more, we're joined from New Haven, Connecticut, by Kim Lane-Chuckley. She's Professor of Sociology and International Affairs in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. Her research examines the rise and fall of constitutional government with a focus on Hungary. Professor, welcome back to Democracy Now! Why is Hungary so critical? And what is the U.S. Vice President Jay Devance doing there? He's now headed off to Pakistan to lead the negotiations with Iran. Yeah, so yes, this election is really crucial, not just for Hungary, but for the international right wing. Viktor Orban has controlled Hungary for 16 years. He's become a dictator, though he doesn't like to call himself that. It's crucial to have a state in Europe with the resources of a state backing the undermining of the European Union, backing the kind of policies that Donald Trump has had. So it's not surprising that the Trump administration has been strongly backing Orban. Jay Devance's visit this week was the second visit by a high-level Trump administration official. Remember that Marco Rubio went to Budapest right after the Munich Security Conference. So there's been a lot of American signaling that the U.S. would really love to have Viktor Orban be re-elected. The problem is the Hungarian people don't seem to agree. This is Hungarian Prime Minister Orban speaking to reporters during a joint news conference with Vice President Jay Devance this week. Vice President, my dear friend, Vice President, it has been 35 years since a Vice President last visited Hungary, and we have not had such a high ranking guest from the United States for 20 years. 20 years is a long time between friends. With the election of President Trump, a golden age has dawned in our relations, as we have just looked at 2025. We see it was a year of records in economic cooperation. So that's Prime Minister Orban, who is standing next to Jay Devance at this joint news conference. Why is Hungary led by Orban so important for Europe right now, particularly the right in Europe? And what would it mean if he loses? And why would Jay Devance care about that? Yeah, so Viktor Orban, first of all, is so far behind in the polls that even his rigged election system will probably not save him this time. And it's causing some panic in the right wing in Europe, because once Orban consolidated power in Hungary, he then spent a huge amount of Hungarian money, we think up to 1% of total Hungarian GDP, on an effort to influence and to build a far right network across Europe. So in the last European elections, for example, Orban's Fidesz political party was the primary advertiser on behalf of far right parties across Europe. And as you know, those European elections tilted quite heavily in favor of the far right. Orban came out of those elections not only with a substantial victory in Hungary, but he was actually able to cobble together the third largest party in the European Parliament, which has really tilted European policy in favor of the right. So he's the kingmaker in Europe in terms of building far right cohesion. And the Trump administration has been echoing Orban's language. In fact, if you look at the national security strategy that the U.S. released back in the fall, it could almost have been written by Orban. The language is exactly the same. And the code word for the far right now is the Patriots in Europe, because the Patriots is the name of Orban's European-wide political party. I wanted to ask you about a very interesting figure in the Trump administration, that's Sebastian Gorka, Trump's deputy assistant to the president, senior director for counterterrorism. He advised Trump in his first term, but was pushed out after the forward revealed he once had ties to a Hungarian far right Nazi-aligned group and that he supported an anti-Semitic and racist paramilitary militia in Hungary while he served as a Hungarian politician, Gorka's Hungarian. Yeah, so Gorka's actually a complicated figure. He was raised in Britain by far right parents. And in fact, the far right organization that he supported is actually not neo-Nazi, but Nazi. His father was a member of a Nazi-aligned group when the Nazis were actually dominating Europe. When Gorka showed up at Trump's first inauguration, he wore not only the insignia, but also the uniform of the original Nazi paramilitary organization. After that was discovered, he then got marginalized. He got kicked out of the White House, but he's been still aligned with Trump forces. So now Gorka has come back as counterterrorism director in the White House. But Gorka has this interesting history in Hungary. After the Berlin Wall came down, he moved from Britain to Hungary. He worked in the Hungarian defense establishment, and he got to know the Hungarian government very well. He then briefly founded a rival political party to Orban's political party when Orban was out of power in the 2000s. And then when there was a kind of discussion between, shall we say, Gorka and Orban, Gorka agreed to dissolve his party, and the people from Gorka's political party went straight into Orban's party, where they still are now. Okay, so Gorka has direct personal ties with Orban. So it's not surprising. Gorka speaks Hungarian, etc. So he's the point person in the White House who has the direct contacts with the Orban team. Thursday's New York Times had an interesting story. Headlined U.S. PUSHES ALLIES TO CHASE A NEW TERRORISM TARGET, THE FAR LEFT. It's a push to designate far-left and anti-fascist groups overseas as terrorist organizations and pressure those countries to investigate the groups and find links between left-wing groups abroad and Americans. The leaders of this initiative, and I'm reading from the Times right now, the leaders of this initiative, according to the piece, include Sebastian Gorka. Your final comments. Yes. Yeah, so Gorka heads counterterrorism, so that's the weapon he's going to use. And of course, after 9-11, there's a huge counterterrorism network and a huge set of counterterrorism resources available for going after enemies of different kinds. And what Trump is trying to do and what Orban has already done in Hungary is to start labeling, and I wouldn't even call it the far left, right? It's the entire left as the opposition to these far-right groups. And they've, so far, they've been using media denigration, making fun of them, trying to establish and argue for networks that aren't there. But this move to start to label any kind of group that these governments don't like, that these patriot groups in Europe don't like as part of a far-left network, is first of all false, that the network doesn't exist. But second of all, it's a way of trying to weaponize these resources that governments have against the left so as to get them out of the way so the right has a better chance of coming to power in European governments. And yes, the U.S. is entirely behind this. The U.S. is also talking about setting up, they've destroyed Voice of America and the other kind of global networks the U.S. used to have, but now they're talking about actually building in Europe a kind of, you know, Fox News for Europe in order to, again, give the far-right a push. So this is all playing out on the political field. Orban is central to this, because right now he controls the state and state resources. But after Sunday, you know, I think he's actually going to be out of power and then we'll see. Kim Lane-Chefley, I want to thank you so much for being with us, Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton University, specializing in the rise and fall of constitutional government with a focus on Hungary. That does it for our show. Happy birthday to David Prude and an early happy birthday to Anna Osbeck, Diego Ramos and Maria Inez Teresena. I'll be at the IFC Center here in New York City this weekend, all through tonight and tomorrow morning at 10.30, as well as through the afternoon and evening and Sunday for the opening, the theatrical release of Steel The Story, please, about the 30 years of Democracy Now. I'll be there with the directors of the film, T. Lesson and Carl Deal and many others. You can check it all out at democracynow.org. Democracy Now currently accepting applications for jobs. I'm Amy Goodman.
