Democracy Now! 2026-02-20 Friday

From New York, this is Democracy Now! So now we may have to take it a step further, or we may not. Maybe we're going to make a deal. You're going to be finding out over the next probably 10 days. The U.S. is engaged in a massive military buildup around Iran as President Trump continues to threaten to launch new attacks. We'll speak with Jeremy Scahill of DropSite News. His latest piece, this is not a dress rehearsal. Plus, we look at the growing fallout from the Epstein files following the arrest of King Charles' brother, the former Prince Andrew. I think we're very hopeful that this is the start of the domino effect. This is where the house of cards starts falling. And, you know, kudos to the U.K. for taking the first step, for saying, you know what, we are going to arrest somebody who is held to one of the highest esteems out there, somebody who was a former prince. That's the brother of the late Virginia Giuffre, who accused the prince of sexual assault. We'll go to London and speak to Karol Kadwalader. And then a judge has blocked the deportation of Mohsen Madawi, the Palestinian graduate student at Columbia University, targeted by the Trump administration for his activism around Gaza and Palestinian human rights. He'll join us in studio. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. President Trump's considering a plan to attack Iran and what officials are calling a limited military strike aimed at forcing Tehran to agree to a new nuclear deal with an opening assault possibly coming within days. That's according to The Wall Street Journal, which reports the initial strikes would target a few military or government sites with an option to ramp up attacks into a campaign aimed at toppling Iran's government. On Thursday, Trump said his goal is to prevent Iran from developing nuclear bombs. They can't have a nuclear weapon. It's very simple. They can't have—you can't have peace in the Middle East if they have a nuclear weapon. Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, only Congress can declare war, and lawmakers have not approved any declaration of war against Iran. Congressmembers Roqana and Thomas Massey have promised to force a House vote on a bipartisan War Powers resolution next week after Congress returns from recess. President Trump's threats to attack Iran came as he hosted heads of state and other officials from nearly 50 countries for the inaugural meeting of the so-called Board of Peace, Trump's new initiative to create an alternative to the United Nations. Trump vowed to provide $10 billion in U.S. funds to the board, even though Congress has not approved any such spending, and has named himself the group's chairman for life. Among Trump's board, key proposals is to turn Gaza into an upscale seaside resort with gleaming skyscrapers and entirely new cities. Later in the broadcast, we'll speak with Jeremy Scahill of DropSite News about Iran, Gaza and the so-called Board of Peace. In the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian-American teenager has died of his injuries after he was shot by an Israeli settler Wednesday in a village near Ramallah. According to relatives, 19-year-old Nasrallah Mohammed Jamal Abu Siyam was fired on as he tried to stop Israeli settlers from raiding his village to steal sheep. At least 11 U.S. citizens have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers since 2022. Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists reports dozens of Palestinian media workers held in Israeli prisons since October 2023 have been beaten, starved and subjected to rape and other sexual violence. The committee reviewed testimony and evidence from 59 Palestinian journalists, finding strikingly consistent reports of physical assaults, forced stress positions, sensory deprivation, sexual violence and medical neglect. The journalists lost an average of 52 pounds in Israeli prisons. Most of them were held under Israel's so-called administrative detention policy, never charged with any crime. In Sudan, a group of U.N. experts has determined evidence of atrocities carried out by the paramilitary rapid support forces during the siege of the city of Afashir show the, quote, hallmarks of genocide, unquote. The fact-finding mission said it collected evidence of deliberate starvation and denial of humanitarian assistance, as well as mass killings, rape, torture and forced disappearances since the RSF captured the key city in Sudan's Darfur region last year. The report outlines three acts of genocide, including the killing of members of a protected ethnic group. The U.N. also expressed alarm following reports that over 50 civilians were killed, including children, in a series of strikes this week carried out by the RSF and Sudanese army in four states across Sudan. Police officers in England have raided Royal Lodge in Windsor to search the former home of the former Prince Andrew. He's the disgraced former prince and brother of King Charles, who was previously stripped of his royal title over his close ties to the late serial sex traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Andrew was in police custody for 11 hours after his arrest Thursday morning. Police are investigating whether he committed misconduct in public office by sharing confidential government documents with Epstein while serving as U.K. trade envoy, a breach of the Official Secrets Act. Andrew's arrest was applauded by survivors of Epstein and their loved ones. He was arrested on his 66th birthday. This is Skye Roberts, the brother of Virginia Giuffre, who died in May of an apparent suicide three years after she settled a lawsuit in which she accused Andrew of sexually abusing her as a teenager at Epstein's properties. I think we're very hopeful that this is the start of the domino effect. This is where the house of cards starts falling. And, you know, kudos to the U.K. for taking the first step, for saying, you know what, we are going to arrest somebody who is held to one of the highest esteems out there, somebody who was a former prince. On Thursday, Microsoft founder Bill Gates canceled his planned keynote address at an AI summit in India just hours before he was scheduled to speak, amidst growing scrutiny over his ties to Epstein and as the news broke of the former Prince Andrew being arrested in London. In France, investigators have reopened an investigation into several public figures tied to Epstein, including his close accomplice, Jean-Luc Brunel, a model scout and alleged sex trafficker. Brunel died in a French jail cell in 2022 while awaiting trial on charges. He raped children and trafficked women and girls to Jeffrey Epstein. French officials ruled his death a suicide. The Wall Street Journal reports Brunel was secretly negotiating in 2016 with lawyers representing Epstein's victims and was prepared to tell prosecutors what he knew about Epstein's sex trafficking ring. In an email to attorney Kathy Rumler that year, Epstein said he discovered Brunel was planning to go to the U.S. attorney's office the following week and one of Brunel's friends had, quote, asked for three million dollars so that Jean-Luc would not go in, unquote. It's not clear whether Brunel ever received that payment, but Brunel did not cooperate with prosecutors and Epstein remain free for another three years. In Washington, D.C., Democratic lawmakers are calling for President Donald Trump to be held accountable for his close ties to Epstein, whom Trump once called a terrific guy and a lot of fun to be with, unquote. On Thursday, workers unfurled a giant banner of Trump's face on the facade of the Justice Department headquarters. California Congressmember Ted Lieu linked the banner to the DOJ's refusal to release all files related to the Epstein investigation as required by law. Congressmember Lieu wrote, quote, Want more evidence that the Justice Department is covering up the Epstein files to protect Epstein's best friend, Donald Trump? Look at this photo, he said. We'll have the latest on Epstein files and the fallout in London and around the world after headlines. A federal judge has dismantled much of Trump's policy to indefinitely detain immigrants. The ruling by California U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes came as part of a class action lawsuit and throws out an earlier decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals that had backed Trump's practice of denying bonds and indefinitely jailing thousands of immigrants with no criminal records. Sykes denounced the Trump administration is shameless for refusing to grant bond hearings to immigrants despite her prior court order to do so. In related news, the publication Law Dork reports the Department of Homeland Security has issued a memo that could lead to the detention of thousands of refugees who were resettled in the United States. The memo reportedly states refugees must return or be returned to federal immigration custody as part of the vetting process to obtain a green card. Refugees are already strictly vetted, often for years before they're even admitted to the U.S. Refugee status allows for a pathway to citizenship, with refugees required to apply for a green card one year after their arrival. Press freedom groups are raising alarm over the arrest of four journalists in Cameroon who attempted to investigate Trump's secretive scheme to deport third-country immigrants to the African nation. The New York Times reports police forces detained the group of journalists at a state-run compound in the capital, Yaoundé, along with an attorney representing several immigrants detained there, none of whom are from Cameroon and who were deported from the United States. Many of the immigrants were sent to Cameroon in violation of court orders, protecting them from deportation to their home countries over fear of prosecution. Cameroonian police reportedly confiscated the journalists' phones, cameras and laptops, claiming the journalists had obtained insensitive government information. All five people have been released, among them the attorney Joseph Awafru and a freelance journalist who's worked for the BBC, Randy Jo Sa. The three other journalists were based in Cameroon and working on assignment for the Associated Press. Federal prisons will no longer provide gender-affirming care to incarcerated trans people. That's according to the Marshall Project, which reported the Bureau of Prisons released its new policy Thursday. Under the new rule, trans people will no longer have access to gender-affirming surgery, hormone care, clothing, or toiletry items that align with their gender identity. Hormone therapy will reportedly be replaced with prescription medications for depression and other mental health conditions, many of which are caused by hormone withdrawal, including suicidal ideation. Advocates have vowed to fight Trump's latest attack on the trans community as they say this policy threatens the life of hundreds of people who were receiving gender-affirming care in federal prisons. And Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders is rallying support for a proposed wealth tax in California. The ballot measure would see California residents worth a billion dollars or more pay a one-time tax of 5 percent to offset the cost of looming federal cuts to health care while funding public education and food assistance. It would affect roughly 200 billionaires worth more than two trillion dollars. On Wednesday, Senator Sanders rallied wealth tax supporters in Los Angeles, arguing the billionaire class no longer sees itself as part of U.S. society. Like the oligarchs of the 18th and 19th centuries, you know, the kings and the queens and the czars, these guys literally believe that they have the divine right to rule and are no longer subject to democratic governance. Starting right here in California. These billionaires are going to learn that we are still living in a democratic society where the people have some power. Billionaires, including Palantir founder Peter Thiel, have poured millions of dollars into campaigns aimed at defeating the wealth tax. Last year, Palantir reportedly earned one and a half billion dollars and paid zero federal income tax. California Governor Gavin Newsom, a likely contender for the Democratic Party's 2028 presidential nomination, opposes the idea, arguing it's already led wealthy residents to move from California. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. We begin today show in London following the arrest of former Prince Andrew on Thursday He was held in police custody for 11 hours before being released in the latest fallout from the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files Andrew is the brother of King Charles and the son of the late Queen Elizabeth. The former prince is the first senior member of the royal family to be arrested in almost 400 years. Police are investigating whether he committed misconduct in public office by sharing confidential government documents with Jeffrey Epstein while serving as U.K. trade envoy, a breach of the Official Secrets Act. King Charles has said he will give his, quote, full and wholehearted support to the investigation, saying, quote, the new the law must take its course. Andrew's ties to Epstein have been known for years. Virginia Roberts-Jouffre, who died last year in an apparent suicide, said she was forced to have sex with the prince three times, beginning when she was 17. On Thursday, Virginia's brother Sky Roberts and his wife Amanda responded to the arrest of the former prince. Moving forward, we don't know, but we're hopeful. I think we're very hopeful that this is the start of the domino effect. This is where the house of cards starts falling. And, you know, kudos to the UK for taking the first step for saying, you know what, we are going to arrest somebody who is held to one of the highest esteems out there, somebody who was a former prince. I mean, this hasn't been done before. And so to know what we should expect, it's really naive to say that we do. But we won't stop. I mean, Virginia said it so clearly in her statements. And I'll say it again here today. Like, we won't stop until justice is served. We are trailing too far behind injustice, especially when we are sitting on the mountains of information that we have. Whether this administration likes it or not, it is sitting at your doorstep. You do not have a choice now. OK, the world is looking at us to do the right thing here. And if they can't do the right thing, they should resign. That was Amanda Roberts and her husband, Sky Roberts, the brother of Virginia Roberts-Jufres. We go now to London, where we're joined by Carol Codwalader, award-winning investigative journalist, whose sub-stack is How to Survive the Broligarchy. She gained international recognition for her expose on the Facebook Cambridge Analytica data scandal in 2018. Carol's also the co-founder of an independent news outlet called The Nerve, launched with five former Guardian journalists. Carol, welcome back to Democracy Now! First, this news of the last 24 hours that the former prince, Andrew, the brother of the king, was arrested on his 66th birthday. The picture of him as he was released after 11 hours now under investigation with his homes being raided is startling. It's stunning. To say the least, a deer caught in headlights. Explain the significance of this moment for British society when a senior royal has not been arrested in what, over 400 years? Hi, Amy. Thanks so much for having me back. Yeah, it's it's I mean, it feels like a really significant moment in Britain and almost a rupture because the royals have they've been sacrosanct in Britain. You know, they are treated with such reverence and respect by the British media. And I think in all honesty, we didn't see this coming because it's because it just hasn't happened before, I think. So it's definitely it was definitely a sort of incredible moment in Britain. And that image that you refer to, that is splashed across every single newspaper in Britain this morning across the tabloids. and I think it's sort of indelible now that that photo is going to be a sort of a moment in time, I think. But I think the thing that I would say is that this isn't just an incredible moment in Britain. It's an even more incredible moment in America because we are the old country. We are the country with a monarchy, with absolute rule, that you had to have a revolution to get away from. And yet here we are arresting a former and only very recently former prince. And in America, you know, what are we seeing? We're seeing this sort of culture of complete impunity where it appears the law is not equal, where there are people who are above it. So I think it's less a moment of reckoning for Britain because we are doing the right thing. I mean, it's like it's a it's a I think we're proud of it. It shows that we are equal before the law. I think in America, it's hugely embarrassing. It's significant and it should be a wake up call. Now, interestingly, the former prince, Andrew, was not arrested over assaulting this teenager, assaulting Virginia Giuffre. in her book nobody's girl and when she was alive she talked about how he knew she was underage because uh someone said to her do you know how old she is what's your guess and he said 17 um but he's been arrested for passing on information that could financially benefit jeffrey epstein the The same is the case, right, with Peter Mendelsohn, who is the former U.K. ambassador to Washington, D.C., very close to the prime minister, Starmer, leading to questions in British society, the possibility of the toppling of Starmer for not having Mendelsohn investigated properly. But he, too, was a trade envoy for Britain. And he, too, now that these emails have come out, is being investigated for passing on financial information, something that really increased Epstein's power over so many as he networked, both bringing in underage girls and women to be assaulted in the United States or in the U.S. Virgin Islands, but also just creating this network of people that gained financially from knowing Epstein. yeah sorry sorry amy the the the you know you're you're absolutely completely right there and and i think i mean it's i mean it's so it's the tragedy of it is the thing i think to really hang on to in this moment as you say the police did not arrest and um um question prince andrew for the alleged crimes which Virginia Giuffre, you know, told in that book. And that, I mean, it's heart-rending, really, because what if they had, what if she had been believed, what if there had been accountability while she was still alive? So, you know, I think the debt that we owe to Virginia Giuffre, her courage, her strength in telling this story. It is why we are here now. And it's just a terrible, terrible indictment that it wasn't because a woman's word was sufficient for this investigation to take place. It was, you know, what on the surface of it are lesser, less significant crimes that we're now having sort of the wheels of justice turning. Interestingly, as you're talking, Carol, we're showing that famous, famous photograph of Andrew, the man formerly known as Prince, with his arm around Virginia Giuffre, standing next to Ghislaine Maxwell. I think it was in Ghislaine Maxwell's apartment in London when she was first assaulted by the former prince. And you see a flash in the window reflected beyond them because Epstein is taking this picture on on Virginia's own camera. She asked for it incredibly prophetically, and this is what has taken him down. You also have, here in the United States, Les Wexner, who is the former head of Victoria's Secret, Limited, Elle Brands, being questioned at his Ohio mansion by the House Oversight Committee. Interestingly, no Republican went for that questioning, even though when they put out the video yesterday, they had—I think there was a picture emblazoned across the video—GOP oversight. I want to go to the clip. You can hear Wexner's lawyer, as he's being questioned by the Congress members, saying, I'll effing kill you if you answer another question in more than five words. It was just regularly done. Answer the question. OK, a discreet question on a different topic. I mean, amazing that we can hear this over the mic, the lawyer warning him. But this goes to a bigger point, and it goes to the word part of the title of your substack, the broligarchy. On the one hand, you have Andrew being arrested, and in this country, the man that bankrolled him, possibly to the tune of billions of dollars, how he had his mansion in New York, how he had his island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and his mansions now being investigated the Zorro Ranch in New Mexico and using Ohio, the mansion of Les Wexner, he couldn't possibly maybe have had even this huge sex trafficking network that has led now to a sex trafficking investigation in as far as Latvia and the former prime minister of Norway being investigated, two investigations in France being opened. But this Les Wexner, hearing this and having the U.S. Attorney General saying there are no investigations, the case is closed, even though they haven't released another three million pages. And President Trump saying, see, I've been exonerated. I mean, I think the thing I think, Amy, you're so completely right. And I think that if we if you don't look at this story about Epstein and see that it's some part of something much, much bigger, if you don't connect it to the political moment that America is in, and that the absence of inquiry and leadership, and actual, you know, accountability in any sense around this story. You know, I wrote a piece and I said, it's the dog that doesn't bark. And if it doesn't bark now, it is not going to bark when the midterms, the midterm elections come. And what, you know, many people I think see is going to be a sort of authoritarian assault on them. And I think you don't want to look back and look back at this moment and see that there is this moment in which Congress didn't act, in which the press didn't summon the necessary sort of fire and fury and realise that actually it's a bellwether, it's a sign, it's this culture of impunity. And so I think that's my sort of message from here in Britain, in this old class-ridden society that, as I say, you had to have a revolution to get away from. We are actually able in this moment to show that there is accountability to show that people are equal before the law. And you are not, you no longer can. Like America is no longer the land of the free. You know, your constitution is breaking down in real time. And I think Epstein is such a symbol of this. And I think in exactly the same way that these women were not believed that it took these files to come out for suddenly people to go, oh, actually, you know, it turns out that it was not only true that it went to a far, far, far, you know, bigger scandal and story than we realised. I think that's it. It feels like a parallel moment in that you're not actually believing what they're telling you now, what the story is telling you now. You're still in complete denial over it. And I think, you know, I'm speaking here from, as I say, from this vantage point in London and saying you have this is this, you know, this this should be the moment when you realise that, you know, it's this thing. the call is coming from inside the house that actually you really need to step up now. And if you cannot, if you cannot realise that this huge, vast money laundering, international sex trafficking operation that involves every single institution in your country, it involves banks, you know, it involves people who are part of the government involves people who are part of the press. It's It's it's it's everywhere. And and I know it must feel kind of overwhelming because it's so pervasive. But I think I think really the thing which is missing I suppose is this sort of leadership in being able to signal this and call it out and to demand that the steps are taken now Finally we just have 30 seconds but you just republished the U coup one year on Explain why Because, well, a year ago I published this article and in which I put what I thought should have been the headline on the front pages of The New York Times, which was It's a Coup. And I did that because they're historians of authoritarianism. Tim Snyder, Ruth Ben-Gear, they were calling it out. They were saying that the overturning of the rule of war in this sort of blitzkrieg of executive orders that Trump was doing, they said this is a coup. And the thing which the vantage point that I came from in my work of looking at the way that data is used, it was the assault by Doge, the illegal assault by Doge on the US Treasury in which they illegally captured and data harvested, you know, the personal data of the entire US population. And then they went to do that across the US government. Now, in the age in which we live, knowledge is power and data is knowledge. And that power was being concentrated in, as I said, this totally illegal data gathering operation. And that for me is the foundation of a surveillance state. That is what we can see now coming into being. That is what is happening in Minnesota. And I think it's really important to mark these landmarks that we're a year on from that moment. and nothing has got better, everything's got worse. This is now consolidating. And you're now in the final stretch. You now have, you know, it's months now, not years, in terms of the midterm elections, really. Is that going to be a performative election in which there's going to be, you know, it's going to look like democracy as it is in Hungary, as it is in Turkey? Or do you have a chance now to save your country? And I think it's really, really uncertain, but there is still time, but you have to recognise the moment that you're in. And I think there's a lot of people out there who still aren't. Carol Kudwalader, I want to thank you for being with us. Award-winning investigative journalist. We'll link to your sub-stack, How to Survive the Broligarchy, gained international recognition for expose on the Facebook Cambridge Analytica data scandal in 2018. Co-founder of independent news outlet, The Nerve, launched with five former Guardian journalists. Coming up, The U.S. is engaged in a massive military buildup around Iran as President Trump continues to threaten to launch new attacks. We'll speak with Jeremy Scahill of DropSite News. His latest piece, This Is Not a Dress Rehearsal. Stay with us. Today I feel weak. But tomorrow I'll feel a queen. I was raised by the street Do you know what that really means? All this hurt I've suffered It just begins again In a baby girl Or a full-grown man Tomorrow will come like the turning of the sun over tall buildings and the beating of a drum. It lives in my heart, but buried in the past. The Navigator by Elinda Seguera of Hooray for the Riff Raff, performing in our Democracy Now! studio on Monday night. We'll be live streaming our 30th anniversary celebration from Riverside Church. Guests will include—hooray for the riffraff—Angela Davis, Naomi Klein, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Maria Ressa, Michael Stipe, the jazz legend Wynton Marsalis, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mossab Abu Toha. To see our live stream, you can go to democracynow.org and get more information. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I'm Amy Goodman, President Trump's continuing to threaten to attack Iran as the U.S. expands its massive military presence in the Middle East. On Thursday, Trump said he would give Iran 10 to 15 days to reach a new nuclear deal. They cannot continue to threaten the stability of the entire region, and they must make a deal. Or if that doesn't happen, I maybe can understand if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. But bad things will happen if it doesn't. The Pentagon has amassed an immense strike force of aircraft and warships and the largest military buildup in the region since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Earlier this week, the world's largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, passed through the Strait of Gibraltar on its way to join the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Persian Gulf. the USS Gerald Ford, had been stationed in the Caribbean when the U.S. attacked Venezuela and abducted its president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife. Trump's threats to attack Iran came during the inaugural meeting of the so-called Board of Peace, Trump's new initiative to create an alternative to the U.N. On Tuesday, U.S. and Iranian negotiators held indirect talks in Geneva and left without a clear resolution. Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes. To talk about all of this and more, we're joined by Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of DropSite News. His latest piece, this is not a dress rehearsal. U.S. engaged in massive military buildup as threat to bomb Iran grows. Jeremy, lay out your findings. Well, Amy, what I've been hearing from sources is that Donald Trump has been running around for some time saying that he wants to be known as the American president that forever ended the Islamic revolution in Iran. And he's even, I'm told by sources, been saying that he wants to complete this before the midterm elections. And so part of what we've seen is that, you know, Trump, who ripped up the original nuclear agreement with Iran that was signed in 2015 under President Obama, is that he has used the veneer of engaging in negotiations with Iran as cover to launch more strikes. That was the case last June when the United States and Israel waged a 12 day massive bombing campaign that killed more than 1000 Iranians. Now we're in the process of Trump saying I was told a couple of days ago that Trump had made clear to the Iranians that they had two weeks to come back with what amounted to a pretty sweeping capitulation to his demands. The Iranian foreign minister this morning said that the U.S. has not formally demanded zero enrichment. But what I understand is that the Iranians have been told that the issue of their ballistic missile supply and reducing it dramatically has to be on the table and also their support for regional resistance movements. Remember, Iran is the only actual nation state, with the exception of Ansar Allah, the Houthis in Yemen, that has launched any sort of attacks against Israel in response to the genocide in Gaza. The Israelis have been empowered by both President Biden when he was in office and Donald Trump to wage these sweeping wars across the Middle East. And so what we're looking at right now is the Trump strategy is either we force them into capitulation and we make a deal that is entirely on Trump's terms. And if they make that kind of a deal that would eliminate large capacity of the ballistic missile system, the Iranians basically don't have any deterrence anymore. And so I'm told that part of Trump's calculation is, look, if we get them to do that, they don't really have a state anyway anymore. And their days are numbered because it would make them much more susceptible to Israeli attack, not to mention American attack. But if the Iranians say that their red lines are essentially their self-defense, which is their ballistic missile and drone program, then the United States is poised to attack. There's two potential scenarios here. One could be that we see some form of initial limited scale attack that the United States may think would, quote unquote, soften the Iranians. And if they don't come back with capitulation, then you wage a much wider war. I'm told by sources who are in direct contact with military planners and others that in the bigger picture, the U.S. is looking at two possible scenarios. One would be the Libya scenario where you have U.S. air power that is used to enact regime change. And then you allow chaos and civil war to brew on the ground. Or you have something that they're comparing to a Venezuela scenario. It doesn't mean that that they would try to kidnap Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader or senior Iranian officials. It means that they would try to decapitate the leadership and then make some sort of a deal with lower echelons within the Iranian state, akin to what's happening now in Venezuela, where you have American oil companies coming in and the Venezuelan authorities doing essentially whatever Marco Rubio and Donald Trump order them to do. At the same time, I've been told by military experts who spent decades working in the Pentagon that there's a spirit of delusion that has just taken hold in the administration, that a lot of the decisions being made now are not tactical decisions. They have to do with politics and Donald Trump's ego and wanting to be known as the man who forever smashed the Islamic revolution. So there's no doubt about it. The U.S. is on the verge of some form of military action. It remains possible that the Iranians are going to try to thread the needle. The foreign minister and others say that they're working on a draft to come back to what the U.S. demanded in Geneva and in Oman before that. But it's a very dire situation. And if the U.S. does launch a larger scale attack, I'm told that probably what they would try to do is a blitzkrieg to knock out as much of Iran's offensive military capability as possible alongside its air defenses. hit command and control centers, try to blow up naval assets. And then the question becomes, what kind of response can the Iranians offer? In the past, they've calibrated their strikes. They've intentionally not tried to kill large numbers of American troops. They showed a capacity to defeat Iron Dome in Israel. Their hypersonic missiles certainly are advanced and they're very strong. They do have an ability at this moment to do significant damage to Israel if they want to, and also to attack oil infrastructure, potentially close the Strait of Hormuz. But all of that sort of assumes that the Iranian missile capability is not severely damaged in an opening massive U.S. strike. And that's a very big wild card here. The Iranians said they're not going to calibrate anymore. They're not going to do backdoor choreography if the U.S. attacks. They view it as an existential war for the Islamic revolution and the existence of the independence of Iran's state. Jeremy, you talked about political reasons that could be why President Trump is ramping up against Iran right now. I mean, could that have to do, interestingly enough, with Epstein? You have the former prince who's been arrested. Trump cannot, no matter how hard he tries, get this off the front pages of the newspapers in the United States, even though co-conspirators and he himself are not being gone after by the Justice Department, according to the attorney general. But Britain is doing it, that no matter what he does, this is extremely threatening. And so what we saw over the New Year's is President Trump moving that USS Gerald Ford, the largest aircraft carrier, next to Venezuela. This was when the headlines were dominated in December by Epstein. And he attacks and abducts the Venezuelan president. Now he brings the same aircraft carrier, the U.S. Gerald, USS Gerald Ford, to join the USS Abraham Lincoln. I mean, the cost of maintaining this armada near Iran. Are you scared that this is what is driving him? Well, also on that issue of the Gerald Ford, I mean, this is a crew that has been in a heavy rotation. Normally, there would need to be maintenance on that aircraft carrier. There would need to be troop rotation. And to send them to the region is a very clear indication that the U.S. has on the table a very serious intent to strike Iran. When I saw that the Gerald Ford was getting moved from the Western Hemisphere to the Eastern Hemisphere and looked at some of the troop rotation and maintenance issues, that's a very ominous sign. But to your broader point about Epstein, you know, the Iranians have have started referring to to themselves as being at war with the, you know, Epstein regime, you know, the kind of coalition of nations that are amassing alongside Trump right now in their posture in the world. And with Donald Trump himself being one of the main suspects in this entire thing, certainly the wag the dog scenario is an element here. Donald Trump is at great exposure because of the Epstein files, no matter how many lies he wants to tell or how often he tries to distract from it. That certainly is a factor here. But I wouldn't underestimate the degree to which you have elements of this administration right now. It's very different in several core ways from Trump one. You have elements here who are absolutely obsessed with Iran and destroying the Islamic revolution. That is not something to be understated. And Trump, I'm told, is walking around constantly bringing up that he wants to forever be the president that changed these regimes in the world. I mean, we can you know, you can talk about Cuba in a different program, but that's the vibe right now. It's like the resurrection of the dullest in the early stages of the CIA worldview that the United States is just going to be toppling regimes around the world. So while I think the Epstein part of it is a convenient element for what Trump is doing, I think they're dead set on trying to change the Iranian regime or force them into a capitulation that would forever weaken the existence of Iran as an independent state. I mean didn President Obama work a nuclear deal with Iran that President Trump pulled out of Yeah You know Amy what what incredible too is that Donald Trump Marco Rubio you know, War Secretary Hegseth all said after the June strikes that they had completely and totally obliterated Iran's nuclear program. Let's remember, though, that beginning in late 2003, According to even current U.S. intelligence assessments, Iran had ended its nuclear weapons program. There was a fatwa issued by the supreme leader decades ago that said that it was forbidden to use or possess weapons of mass destruction. Now, you can say, oh, that's just propaganda. That's just lies. But the reality is, if you talk to Iranians, I recently met with a former senior Iranian diplomat who helped to negotiate that 2015 deal. And he said that, you know, what the U.S. is doing right now is actually helping the camp within Iran that says it was a grave mistake that we ended that program. So there's there's that element to it. But I think what we're looking at right now is that you have this kind of neocon ideology that despite all of Trump's rhetoric about hating the neocons and saying the Iraq war was a catastrophic mistake, Trump seems dead set on sort of legacy work here and regime change in Iran. And the question here, Amy, is if the United States does attack and if it's true what the Iranians are saying, that they're not going to calibrate strikes anymore. You know, I was told by one well-connected Iranian that he's heard talk of wanting to kill at least 500 American service members in retaliatory strikes. Donald Trump has never had to endure a mass casualty incident as president of American soldiers or American personnel. And the question then becomes, what does Trump do if the Iranians are able to successfully strike military bases or other areas where there are large numbers of Americans? There's tens of thousands of Americans positioned in the Gulf right now. This is a very, very dangerous scenario that we're facing right now. I want to go back for a moment before we end to the board, the so-called Board of Peace. President Trump speaking at it in Washington, D.C. on Thursday. The war in Gaza is over. It's over. There are little flames, little flames. Hamas has been. I think they're going to give up their weapons, which is what they promised. If they don't, it'll be, you know, they'll be harshly met, very harshly met. They don't want that. So, this was the inaugural meeting of the so-called Board of Peace, Trump's new initiative to create an alternative to the United Nations. By the way, the pope has refused to join it, talking about it as a threat to the United Nations. Trump vowed to provide $10 billion in U.S. funds to the board, even though Congress has not approved any such spending and has named himself the group's chair for life. Among Trump's board, the key proposals is to turn Gaza into an upscale seaside resort with gleaming skyscrapers and entirely new cities. Your final comment on this. Well, let's let's skip forward from all of the ridiculous pageantry of this scene at the Board of Peace and talk about what's really happening here. Palestinians are being told that they must completely surrender, not just Kalashnikovs and other weapons that they would use to defend themselves against Israeli occupation, but the very cause of Palestinian liberation or self-determination. And what Palestinians in Gaza are being faced with is you either fully bend the knee and accept a colonial apartheid regime as your overseer, that you accept a new reality as dystopian plantation workers on Jared Kushner's real estate project, or we're going to kill you. That is what's being said here. And so the U.S. has plans to build a huge military base there for their international occupation force. The Israelis are in control of nearly 60 percent of Gaza in the east of the Strip. They don't seem to have any intent of leaving. You have a re-education program that Israel's foreign minister spoke of at this so-called Board of Peace meeting yesterday and said that it begins with disarmament and demilitarization and then de-radicalization. So if you're a Palestinian family, what they're saying to you is your children need to be raised to accept that Zionism is going to dominate their lives now, that colonial apartheid regime is going to dominate your lives now. And if you dare think otherwise, we erase you from the earth. They still very well may try to mass remove Palestinians. But it does seem that the plan right now is to turn them into the plantation workers for Jared Kushner's real estate plans moving forward, while you have Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority rewriting the Palestinian constitution alongside France and other Western powers to try to ban any Palestinians that don't accept the Oslo Accords, don't accept Israeli colonialism from ever running for office. So what they want to do is put in this Palestinian technocratic committee in Gaza and force them to essentially be like Mahmoud Abbas, where you're the mayors of a large prison camp run by the United States and Israel. And the residents of this prison camp are just keeping the land until Israeli settlers can come in and take it over. That's what this board of peace is entirely about. And Israel has just joined the board of peace. Jeremy Scahill, I want to thank you for being with us. Co-founder of DropSite News. We'll link to your new piece. This is not a dress rehearsal. U.S. engaged in massive military buildup. His threat to bomb Iran grows. Coming up, Palestinian activist, Columbia graduate student Mohsen Madawi, a judge has just blocked his deportation. Stay with us. People have the power People have the power Make it so We're there with deserts. I saw fountains. People of the Power by Patti Smith, joined by Michael Stipe, performing at Democracy Now!'s 20th anniversary on Monday night. We'll be streaming our 30th anniversary celebration with Michael Stipe and Angela Davis, with Wynton Marsalis and Maria Ressa. also with the Palestinian Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Mossab Abu Toha, and many others. Go to democracynow.org for that live stream. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I'm Amy Goodman. An immigration judge has blocked the Trump administration from deporting Mohsen Madawi, a graduate student at Columbia University, who was detained last April for his outspoken support for Palestinian rights. Mohsen is a green card holder who grew up in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. At Columbia, he served as co-president of the Palestinian Students' Union and served as president of the Buddhist Association. Last April, masked and hooded ICE agents detained him when he appeared for what he believed would be a naturalization interview in Vermont. He spent two weeks in ICE custody before federal Judge Jeffrey Crawford ordered his release. At the time, Judge Crawford wrote, quote, our nation has seen times like this before, especially during the Red Scare and Palma raids of 1919 to 20 and during the McCarthy period in the 50s, unquote. Mohsen is just one of many international students targeted by the Trump administration solely for expressing solidarity with Palestinians and opposing the Israeli war on Gaza. Mohsen Madawi joins us now. Mohsen, welcome back to Democracy Now! Now, we spoke to you right after you were released from jail. It was right before graduation at Columbia, the reception in front of SIPA, the School of International Affairs, where you're now a graduate student. Can you talk about the significance of this immigration judge's ruling? Thank you for having me, Amy. This is very significant. And actually, it's unprecedented, considering all of the cases that were brought forward against students for deportation. students activists. So what Judge Nina Forrest has done, she has actually taken a very brave and courageous step towards justice by holding the rule of the law. Even though this immigration court is under the executive branch, still the judge has found that the document which was used, which is the memo by Marco Rubio, was unauthenticated. And the hope that this same finding will apply on other students, and based on this, the termination of the case was done without prejudice. Now, I have to share with you, Amy, that we also have to consider the many different circumstances. The first step that allowed me to get here was to not be transferred from Vermont to Louisiana, which allowed me to be freed on bail by Judge Jeffrey Crawford, and then to be able to be here in this immigration court, which is in Massachusetts, rather than one that is in Louisiana. So that gives you hope that there are judges who still hold the integrity and refuse to sell their souls to the Trump administration. Now, for people who don't understand how the system works, explain the difference between an immigration judge and a federal judge. You have cases in both courts. Correct. And I hope my lawyers would not be angry at me because I'm not a lawyer. But my understanding that technically and actually it's part of the vision of this country to have checks and balances and federal courts are part of the checks and balances. This is actually has been designed and envisioned by Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers. And the idea is to separate the executive branch from the judicial branch. It's interesting. This is an immigration judge who's under the department of who is under the executive branch. That's exactly right. So even though the immigration judge is bounded by the executive branch, the immigration judge has to go through the rules and the rules of law. And based on those rules of law, what the Trump administration has done, in fact, they have violated the rules of law. And that's why the case was terminated. This was your message to Trump after you were released from an ICE jail in Vermont last year, following more than two weeks in custody. And I am saying it clear and loud. Yes. To President Trump and his cabinet. Yes. I am not afraid of you. Talk about that moment as you say you're not afraid of you and what it meant to be released and what it meant after you had gone for your naturalization hearing for these federal immigration agents to move in on you when you've been told to come for the hearing? By this time, I would imagine that it's becoming very clear to the American people and to the rest of the world that this administration's mentality, the Trump administration, is to intimidate people, to scare people, and to make an example of people like me so others would not actually dare to raise their voice and to share their truth. And what I meant to say, actually, why I wanted to say that I am not afraid, because if I am afraid, I would lose sight, and I would lose not only sight, vision and imagination. Mohsen, we just have a minute. You were raised in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. You're a permanent U.S. resident. You enrolled in Columbia University to study philosophy, where you're also president of the Columbia University Buddhist Association. How has your faith and upbringing in the occupied West Bank guided your activism and your stance today? Amy, I have to share because of one minute. I have to share with you that I was attacked and other students were attacked not merely for protesting. The media has missed the point. And they started saying the pro-Palestine protest or the Palestinian movement. The movement had an actual goal, an objective, and that is divestment. Divestment, boycott, and sanctions, because this is the only way that we can bring peace and justice in a nonviolent and peaceful way. And we do it with love, compassion, and empathy. And that's why the Trump administration gets so scared of people like me who organize and are still organizing because I will not be deterred and I will not actually give up to their exhaustion tactics. The harder they come on me, the more energy and power I will have. And I will continue to work for the freedom of the Palestinian people and the right of return and equal rights and human rights for Palestinians. Mosa Madawi, graduate student at Columbia University. Thank you so much for being with us. I'm Amy Goodman.