This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

The blowback of the failed 2024 Biden-and-then-Harris Democratic presidential campaign, which supported Israel’s genocide in Gaza, continues as another grassroots candidate runs for Congress. Dr. Karishma Manzur, a scientist who is running for senate in the September New Hampshire Democratic Primary against Chris Pappas, joins Chris Hedges in this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to talk about her campaign.

Manzur, who is also an activist for peace and climate justice, has had firsthand experiences with elected officials through her non-profit work, revealing to her the corrosive power of money in politics. She witnessed the ways big donors, such as AIPAC, control the politicians and both political parties, and the corruption and deceit, which she says are most pervasive at the federal level. She finally asked herself, “Why am I being forced to pick the lesser of two evils because the lesser of two evils is still evil. We’re having to choose between bad and really bad.”

Both the Democrats and Republicans engage in anti-democratic practices and demonstrate their allegiance to the wealthy. Manzur criticizes the revolving door between Congressmembers and corporations: “The money in politics is not just bribing our lawmakers and bribing our candidates, these lawmakers themselves are part of the big money.” A major focus for Manzur is what it means to be a public servant. She loathes the culture of treating politicians as celebrities rather than people who work for the public.

Manzur’s campaign rejects corporate donations and is running on a popular program of Medicare for All, affordable housing, living wages and stopping wars, all of which are gaining traction with voters. Despite the Democrat’s efforts to marginalize Manzur and the wide disparity in fundraising between her and her opponent, Manzur is optimistic that she can win.

Pre-order my new book "Requiem for Gaza"

Host

Chris Hedges

Executive Producer:

Max Jones

Intro:

Margaret Flowers

Transcript:

Margaret Flowers

Crew:

Milena Soci

Transcript

Chris Hedges:

Dr. Karishma Manzur is a medical scientist with a PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology. She is running as a first-time candidate for the Senate seat in New Hampshire, part of the wave of insurgent candidates within the Democratic Party. She is challenging Chris Pappas, who is supported by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and who has deep ties to the Democratic Party establishment in the New Hampshire Primary on September 8th. Like other insurgent candidates, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, she calls for an end to military support for Israel, Medicare for all, and castigates the Democratic Party hierarchy for its subservience to corporate lobbyists and the billionaire class. She does not take money from super PACs.

She calls for a massive increase in affordable housing and an end to the buying up of residences by private equity firms. “Single family homes,” she says, “are for single families” She demands an end to the war in Iran and a halt to the nation’s addiction to endless wars. She calls out Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, whose biggest donor is AIPAC, for doing the bidding of the Israel lobby and big business.

“Is the Democratic opposition establishment really in opposition?” she asks, “or is it a controlled opposition serving the interests of the same donor class that funds Donald Trump and the Republican Party?” She is a member of the New Hampshire Coalition for a Just Peace in the Middle East, which includes New Hampshire Veterans for Peace, Vermont, New Hampshire Jewish Voice for Peace, New Hampshire Peace Action, New Hampshire program for the American Friends Service Committee and 350 New Hampshire. Joining me to discuss her candidacy is Dr. Karishma Manzur.

Let’s talk about what it is that propelled you into this race. We had spoken earlier when you were visiting Princeton, and it was really, from what you told me, born out of a kind of deep frustration.

Karishma Manzur:

First of all, thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to speak to you and to your listeners. I can start with my frustration at various levels in my life. There is a family history that also impacts the way I think about foreign policy here in the United States. And, also, being a Democrat and being frustrated by the establishment and the corporate Democrats that are basically failing us and have lost twice to Donald Trump. So, it can be at various stages, but it just kept building up and finally we said, “That’s enough.” And we’re right running a grassroots campaign, as you mentioned, honest and unbought and for the people.

Chris Hedges:

Well, let’s talk about those frustrations. You ran into one kind of brick wall after another on a series of issues. I know for instance the climate crisis is big on your agenda, wars are big on your agenda, but talk about your - because the reason at the end of that introduction, I listed you have been an activist involved with these groups, which has meant that you have been reaching out to centers of power, in particular the Democratic Party, and were really rebuffed. So, speak a little bit about that experience.

Karishma Manzur:

So, I’m a scientist by training, that’s my profession, but also for the last several years I’ve been very involved with the nonprofit sector in New Hampshire. And one of those was Peace Action, because this war economy is hurting our communities across this country. It is also causing massive death and destruction across the planet, and it’s burning our planet down. We need to stop this war economy. So, Peace Action is something that is very close to my heart. And the other nonprofit that I’m very involved with is Open Democracy Action. We’re trying to get big money out of politics because it’s the greatest threat to our democracy, and we don’t even have to say that anymore. We are living through that kind of terrible nightmare.

So, I kept my paid job, but I was involved with the nonprofit sector, and through that, we were trying to advocate for getting money out of politics and actually having a foreign policy that was based on national interest and national security and not war profiteering. So, we’re a tiny state, so we only have two representatives. But through my coalition work, through my nonprofit work, we would go various times to our two senators’ offices and our two representatives’ offices advocating for things that made sense to us right here in New Hampshire. Increase the minimum wage to a livable wage. Stop weapons transfers to Israel to fuel a genocide. Pass Medicare for All, like co-sponsor and pass Medicare for All, because right here in New Hampshire there are families that are facing dire conditions because they cannot access healthcare. And we kept hitting, like you said, a brick wall because it didn’t matter. Just because we are rising up and going to our delegate’s office that they will care because they’re taking money from National Restaurant Association, AIPAC, Big Tech, Big Oil, Crypto, AI, not every single one of them takes money from every single one of these organizations, but of our four delegates, there’s a nice little game going on where they’re taking a lot of money from various organizations. Yes, these people are Democrats. Our two senators are Democrats. Our two representatives are Democrats. But when I’m trying to improve people’s lives, I don’t care if it’s a Democrat or a Republican. If you’re answering to your donors and you’re not serving the people, I have nothing to more to do with you. The job of a public servant is to serve the public, not corporations. And unfortunately, we see this across this country.

So, through my work in the nonprofit sector, yeah, we went many times, but it didn’t matter. We advocated for increasing the minimum wage. So right now, Chris, you know this: the federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour for the last 17 years. The last time it was increased was 2009. 17 years it has not increased. In 2021, President Biden tried to increase it from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour. And we were very concerned that both our sitting senators were going to vote against it. And indeed, they did. Both Senator Shaheen and Senator Hassan, two Democrats, voted against increasing the minimum wage. These are multimillionaires, and they didn’t have the heart to change a starvation wage to a less starvation wage. For me, that was like a betrayal. And for me that was strike one.

Medicare for All, the fact that none of them co-sponsor Medicare for All, including my opponent Chris Pappas, was strike two. And strike three came in 2024 when they were taking money from AIPAC on one side and sending our hard-earned tax dollars, billions of our hard-earned tax dollars, instead of spending it right here in New Hampshire or across this country, it was being sent overseas to kill children, to kill people. And yet they did not listen to us. They did not care to meet with us. They gave us whatever needed to be said at events, like, “Oh, yeah, talk to my office, call me, we will set up a meeting.” Nothing. And yet many of them have regular meetings with their AIPAC handler. This is what we’re facing.

John Sununu is running in this race in the Republican side. Chris Pappas is running in this race in the Democratic side. Sure, there might be some slight differences between them, but they’re both answering to the same donor base. And that is exactly what we’re challenging in this race.

Chris Hedges:

Just before we go on, I know the housing crisis is something that you have spoken out against, which is hitting New Hampshire, but also just across the country, with private equity firms like BlackRock and others just buying up residential housing and making it impossible for families to have homes of their own.

Karishma Manzur:

Yes. So, the housing crisis or the healthcare crisis tells you it’s a systemic failure from the federal government because it’s not just one town that’s suffering or one state, it’s across the board, across this country. So, people might tell you, “I don’t want to be involved in politics,” or “I don’t want to care about politics.” Politics is making your housing unaffordable. It’s making your health care inaccessible. It’s making your childcare too costly. So, people across this country might say, “I don’t care about politics.” Well, politics is impacting you so you better care about politics because the candidates you’re helping elect or others are helping elect to Congress are going to impact your life.

So, the housing crisis, right now in New Hampshire, we are facing about a 40,000 unit shortage. We’re a tiny state of 1.4 million people. 40,000 units short because there’s not enough affordable housing being built. The developers, when they get access to land, they do build houses, but these are million-dollar homes, mansions, McMansions. Nothing against the developers. These are businesses and they want to build what they can sell for the maximum profit. It’s the job of the federal government and the state government to make sure to work with developers in building affordable housing. If we don’t reverse the course of our housing crisis here in New Hampshire, by 2040, it is estimated that we will be 90,000 units short.

So, in New Hampshire, for example, our governor, Kelly Ayotte, you would expect that the chief executive of our government will be the person to help us mitigate the housing crisis. She was on the board of Blackstone, one of the private equity causing the housing crisis. What are we expecting from somebody who caused the housing crisis? This is what we’re talking about. The money in politics is not just bribing our lawmakers and bribing our candidates, these lawmakers themselves are part of the big money. They themselves are part of the problem. She made money from the housing crisis, so we cannot turn to her and ask her to get private equity out of the housing crisis.

Chris Hedges:

When did you exactly decide to run? You’d not run for political office before. And then I want you to reflect a little bit on the Biden-Harris campaign.

Karishma Manzur:

It was kind of building up. Every election cycle I would just look at the ballot and go, “Wow, is this the best we can do?” Because in many of our industries across this country, we have meritocracy. The best people who are the most capable at their job, whether it’s in the construction industry or a police force or in a business, they’re the ones who move up the ladder. But in the Congress, we’re not necessarily seeing meritocracy. We’re not sending the best. We’re sending the ones that the donors can control that are sometimes spineless, sometimes soulless. They will be just corporate politicians. There are wonderful people in Congress. There are wonderful people in the Senate, but the majority, unfortunately, are bought politicians from both parties. So, it has been building up.

I kept going into the ballot box or during the election cycle thinking, “My god, the lesser of two evils. Which one do I pick?” Okay, I’m a Democrat, so I usually pick the Democrat. But still, why am I being forced to pick the lesser of two evils. Why are we, any one of us, having to pick between the lesser of two evils? Because the lesser of two evils is still evil. And yet, this is what we’re asking. The people who will impact our lives, we’re having to choose between bad and really bad. Why not vote for the greater good? So, I kept being very frustrated. Where is that person that inspires me to vote for them and not vote out of fear?

In 2024, this is at the height of the genocide in Gaza, as peace activists, we were, of course, doing vigils in front of the representative’s office, vigils in front of the senators’ offices, going there to hand over pamphlets, reports from Oxfam or Amnesty International, thinking maybe they don’t know what’s going on. And then in May 2024, five of my peace activist friends were arrested in Chris Pappas’ office. They had gone 12 times to meet with their representative, 12 times from January 2024 to May 2024, and yet he did not want to meet with them or have a phone call with them. So, they would go in, ask for the meeting, talk to the staff. They would be, “Oh, yeah, come back, we’re going to do something. Drop off your material,” and that’s it. So, on the 12th time, they planned if they don’t receive their meeting or the phone call, they’re going to do a peace sit-in. It’s a form of civil disobedience. It’s a nonviolent civil disobedience, similar to what Rosa Parks did when she didn’t get up from the bus seat, or what John Lewis did when he crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, even though he was told not to cross it by the governor. So, the five of them, these community leaders, went to Chris Pappas’s office in May 2024, asked again for a meeting or a phone call, and they were told come back or whatever and so they decided just to sit in the waiting room and sit there. And so, they just sat there peacefully. At 5 p.m. they were asked to leave, and they said, “We will leave if you give us the meeting of the phone call.” Instead, the police were called in and these five people were arrested.

Let me tell you how scary these people were that Chris Pappas was afraid to meet with them. Two of them were 80-year-old women, Janet Zeller and Janet Simmons. And Janet Zeller is in a wheelchair. The third person was David Grishaw Jones. He’s the pastor of the Community Church of Durham. The fourth person was Amy Antonucci, she’s the executive director of Peace Action, and the fifth person was Em Friedrichs, an elected official in the town of Durham who was six months pregnant at the time. These are the five people that Chris Pappas did not have the decency to meet with. They’re his constituents. And he never called them back or anything. There was nothing in him. That he had five of his constituents arrested, there was nothing that moved him. I mean, he had them arrested, I guess. At their arraignment, I was there, and that’s the day that we decided that’s enough. We’re not going to keep voting for the any Democrat, we want to vote for the right Democrat. And that’s the day we decided to start the process of having our own campaign.

Chris Hedges:

What was your reaction to the Biden-Harris campaign? I’m sure on the genocide, I mean, in the end, genocide’s a moral issue, it’s not a political issue. How can we possibly vote for anyone who funds genocide was certainly how I approached the election. What was your reaction to that whole almost farcical process whereby which Biden, who had clear cognitive decline, the Democratic Party blocked anyone from running against him in the primaries, and then when that decline became too public to hide because of the debate, they anointed Harris. So, nobody voted for Harris, It’s so patently undemocratic. How did you view that campaign and what it said about the Democratic Party?

Karishma Manzur:

So, before I answer that, which is a great question, let me say one more thing about those arrests. So, in May they were arrested, those five people by Chris Pappas. Then in June there was the arraignment. He never contacted them in all of 2024, even though he was running again for reelection to Congress. All of 2025 he didn’t contact them, even though in the beginning of 2025 he started his Senate campaign. In August of 2025, I launched, and in my campaign, I talk about those five arrests. Right after I launched, he contacted those five people and asked them to have a meeting with him. This is what happens when you challenge them. They suddenly care. They don’t really care, they just want… how embarrassing.

Chris Hedges:

Well, that’s right. Fear works.

Karishma Manzur:

Yes, fear works. So now let’s talk about another problem. So, I do want to say, I will talk about Biden and Harris, but they are, given the nightmare we’re living under with Donald Trump, many people might say, of course, if they wanted to compare Biden to Trump, you might say there are lots of good things about Biden versus Trump because there’s nothing much you can say that’s good about Donald Trump, my god. And I completely understand it. But why did we lose to Donald Trump, right? If we don’t learn from that, the next election cycle we will lose to someone like Donald Trump again and again because we’ve already lost to Donald Trump twice. So, if we are not learning from our mistakes, we’re not learning from these losses, then it is inevitable that it’s going to happen again.

So, let us take a moment to understand what happened in 2024, at least from my humble perspective, that Donald Trump won. So, knowing how lethal that man is in his ability to connect with the people, regardless of whether they’re lies or not, that’s immaterial. He is an effective communicator. He’s able to bring out people to his cause. The Biden-Harris, and the Biden campaign had to take him seriously. Instead of just saying, “Well, Biden is not Trump, therefore Biden’s going to win.” I mean that kind of a ridiculous idea. We knew that it was not going to work because in 2016 it didn’t work. Clinton lost to Trump.

In 2024, Biden was being so arrogant, and the DNC was being so arrogant in the primary process that here in New Hampshire we have the first in the nation presidential primary. Biden wasn’t even on the ballot in New Hampshire in January of 2024. There was a campaign going on, millions of dollars were spent, people were standing around for several weeks holding signs in the bitter cold of January 2024, saying, “Write in Biden.” Because he’s not on the ballot. So, we have to go in, check that we’re writing in, and we have to write in Biden. This was our campaign because he never came to New Hampshire because they wanted to take the first in the nation presidential primary away from New Hampshire. Okay. Dean Phillips was running. Whatever you think about Dean Phillips is immaterial, but he was running. If it’s “we care about democracy,” that’s another campaign that’s running. Give him the ability to connect with the voters. Let there be a free and fair primary. Dean Phillips, part of the problem that he was running into that was DNC was trying to take him off the ballot in some states. I don’t know if you guys remember, but back in 2024, Dean Phillips was spending a lot of time just suing Democratic committees of different states. That’s ridiculous. All right, so fine, Biden wins the nomination. I mean, there’s no one else to get the nomination. And then nobody hears him, nobody really sees him, and suddenly he’s now the nominee. And then, of course, that disastrous debate happens. And afterwards, everyone kept saying, “He has to drop out.” And I remember that New York Times had a headline where Biden said, “Even God cannot make me drop out.” Two days later, he drops out.

So, what happened? Did God intervene? No. The donors intervened. The donors told the Democratic Party that if Biden doesn’t drop out, they’re not going to donate to the presidential campaign. And so, Nancy Pelosi takes the message from the donors to Biden and says, “You got to drop out,” and he does. So, I guess Nancy Pelosi and the donors are even more important than God. Where is democracy in that? The donors have a say? The party has a say? What about the people? And then of course Harris was a Hail Mary candidate. But we were still excited. My God, we were still excited. and I was actually in the Harris convention in Chicago. My daughter was a delegate, and I was her plus one. It was quite exciting. We were hoping that she would change the direction of the campaign. Instead of thinking about the donors and thinking about Benjamin Netanyahu, that she was actually going to listen to the American people. What were the American people asking? It was a very small ask: “Stop the genocide. Give us health care. And stopped burning down the planet.” But maybe one out of those three would have been enough. Instead, for those 108 days, she campaigned everywhere. She had a lot of energy. She was flying all over the country. She did a lot of work, but continuously she was on the stage with Liz Cheney. So, while the base of the Democratic Party was asking Harris to just reach out to them, just stop the killing, just stop the weapons transfers, at least speak out against the genocide. That was all they were asking for. And what was Harris’s thought? “Forget the base. I’m going to get enough voters from the right side, from the Republicans. They’re going to leave Trump and support me.” Well, not once did she go on stage with a Bernie Sanders or AOC in those 108 days.

You cannot stop listening to the people. It doesn’t matter who you are and what race you’re running for, whether it’s in your town level, state level, federal level, it doesn’t matter. The voters don’t owe anyone a vote. Every candidate has to earn the votes. I need to earn the votes. Not because millions of dollars are going to be poured in from my opponent’s side. I have to go out there and earn the vote. And she had to earn the vote. So, it’s sad, right? And in New Hampshire, Dean Phillips was on the ballot and he received approximately 20% of the votes, which means 20% of the delegates to the convention would have been Dean Phillips’s. But they wiped out the entire record and gave all the delegates to Harris.

Chris Hedges:

I just want to say my family comes from Maine, not far from the New Hampshire border. The Democratic Party, especially starting with the Clinton administration, has betrayed the working class. My family is working class. Those towns in Maine are devastated. About just a week or two ago, I was in Mechanic Falls, where my grandparents are from. The bank is boarded up. The mill is closed. Methamphetamine labs, very similar, I think, to impoverished parts of New Hampshire. The Democratic Party turned their back on the working class. And when we compare Biden and Trump, I think we have to acknowledge that the betrayal by the Democratic Party gave us a figure like Trump and when we have insurgent candidates such as yourself and others, I really see it as a kind of return to the principles that once defined the Democratic Party with all of its problems, which have always been there, but nevertheless working people and Labor, they had a voice and that voice was eradicated essentially with a decision starting under Clinton, and Obama was no different, to serve the interests of the billionaire class and the corporate elites. And that’s why I look at your campaign as important. I just interviewed Adam Hamawy here in New Jersey who’s already won the Democratic Primary. But I think that this returns us to, rather than being radical candidates, I think it brings us back to where the Democratic Party should be.

Karishma Manzur:

Where every party should be. Where every candidate should be. Where every lawmaker should be. These are not celebrity positions. Your job is to serve the public. My job is to serve the public. I’m a public servant. We almost treat them like celebrity status, right? They get driven around, like the other day it was a Fourth of July parade. It was my third parade of the day. We were going from town to town, making sure we were able to hit as many parades as possible. It was the third parade, it was such a hot day, must have been like 95 degrees, everyone was just soaking wet. We were lining up for the parade and Chris Pappas was sitting in his air-conditioned SUV while all his staffers were lined up and just before the parade started, he got out of his air-conditioned SUV, walked the parade, and then got into his SUV and went away. Whereas I was out there helping my people. If people in my campaign are working and sweating, well, I’m going to be out there working and sweating with them. No one should be above anyone in any situation, especially not a public servant. I think what we’ve forgotten, Chris, from my perspective, is that public service, the honor is not there anymore. And that is really sad. The job of a public servant is to improve people’s lives in the community, and if people are suffering, then the public servant is not serving the people. Or at least they have to have a very good reason why they can’t. Maybe the money is not there. The budget is not there. But at least be a true a person, like from the people. And we are constantly electing these multimillionaires who are backed by billionaires. They’re so out of touch. So out of touch.

Like you said, you saw those impoverished towns in Maine. Yeah, we have them here too. After the paper mills left, many of these towns were abandoned by the state government, the federal government, but both by the Democratic Party as well as the Republican Party. I think we have just become so disenchanted with the Republican Party, we don’t even bother criticizing them. But they are, what is this, like spineless sycophants running around Donald Trump, a fascist. The man is making money from our misery, causing allies to turn against us, has become a thug committing war crimes in Venezuela, in Iran, in Gaza, and yet these donors, shills are just running around him in the Republican Party. Can we also fix up the Republican Party? I mean, I would like the Republican Party to also become humane. I want them to not be corrupt. I want them to also be answering to the people, just like the Democratic Party needs to reform itself.

In the base, if you just talk to regular people across New Hampshire, it doesn’t matter if you’re red, blue, Democrat, independent, Republican, everyone just wants a job that pays well. They just want to be able to afford housing. They just want to have access to healthcare. They want to be able to retire with dignity. These are the things that all of us want. And yet the establishment of both of the parties are answering to the donors. So, it’ not the base. It’s not the people. It’s not the state level. These are amazing public servants. At the town level, amazing public servants. It just seems like at the federal level, we’ve lost touch with the base, with the real people.

Chris Hedges:

Let me ask, I think you’re polling at 34 percent, is that correct?

Karishma Manzur:

Yes. Amazing.

Chris Hedges:

So, let me ask, because boy they came after Adam here, and let’s talk a little bit about their response to your candidacy.

Karishma Manzur:

Let’s see, so we have not had any TV ad. We have not had any mailer, and we just started digital ad today, and yet we are polling a 34%, down from like zero. We started from zero, and Chris Pappas has come down to 47 percent. So, now there’s a 13-point differential, and about 18% of the people are still undecided, and like 40% say they don’t enough know enough about me, which means in 11 days, we can actually win this race. We just need to get our message across the state.

Have they come down upon me? This is a four-term Congress member whose name is known across this tiny state. He’s a multimillionaire. He has billionaire JB Pritzker raising money for him. AIPAC donated anywhere from $800,000 to $3 million to him, and yet he still needed Hilary Clinton to stump for him, Andy Beshear, Pete Buttigieg. Let’s see, who else came? Mark Kelly came around. Like a whole slate of all these people coming around stumping for Chris Pappas. Last weekend the DNC sent its vice chair, Malcolm Kenyatta, to stump for him against me. And then a couple of my supporters were in this crowd as Malcolm Kenyatta is announcing in front of town chairs, county chairs, our party chair in New Hampshire, voters... Kenyatta is announcing that Chris Pappas is going to be the next senator from New Hampshire. And so, two of my supporters went up to him and said, “Malcolm Kenyatta, we have a primary. Why are you getting involved?” They started recording him and he said, “I didn’t know there was a primary.” You don’t know there’s a primary? You’re the vice chair of the DNC, you don’t know there’s a primary? You don’t know there’s a primary challenger?

Chris Hedges:

I don’t know, Karishma, they didn’t know there was a genocide. Maybe they didn’t know there was a primary?

Karishma Manzur:

Yeah, that’s true. Okay, maybe they don’t read the news that we read. That’s true. They have very filtered… imagine, Chris. So, then I was a little late and I got there and my supporters told me what had happened. And I see Malcolm Kenyatta leaving. So, I called him out. I said, “Malcolm,” and I went over and I said, “I’m Karishma Manzur. I’m running in this primary. Did you just announce to everyone that Chris Pappas was going to be the next senator?” And then, of course, my supporters started to record. And he said, “I’m really sorry, Karishma. I told your supporters I didn’t know about you. I didn’t know about the primary. I’m really sorry. You know, I wish you all the best.” Then it’s almost like a joke.

But let me just say, it’s not about just me. I’m a scientist. I will go back to science. I’ve given so much of my life, so much of my family time, but if, God forbid, if I don’t win, that’s one thing. But the people of New Hampshire do not have health care. Thousands of people in New Hampshire do not have health care. They’re literally dying because of cancer treatment that they cannot afford. People are sleeping on the streets of New Hampshire. People are working multiple jobs and can’t make ends meet while these little games are being played. The Democratic Party should, if they were truly democratic, they would say, “Wow, let’s have a free and fair primary. Chris Pappas, you have all your money, go for it. Karishma, your campaign, it’s grassroots. You don’t have a lot of money, but go for it.” I’ve raised $300,000. He has $16 million. The ratio doesn’t even make sense, like talk about David versus Goliath. Yet at every instance, they’re trying to crush me. And this is not just about the Democratic Party it’s also the Republican Party here in New Hampshire. I’ve talked to people who would like to run, but John Sununu and the Sununu family have been controlling the Republican Party for 50 years. The first John Sununu, that’s the daddy John Sununu, the son John Sununu, the brother John Sununu, the uncles, aunts, cousins, their donor class, everything. They’ve been controlling the party. They decide who the candidates are going to be, not the regular people. People don’t decide. They’re just given a choice. They’re actually not even given a choice. And I’ve talked to folks who would like to run as a Republican candidate, and they say, “The party discourages us, actively tells us not to run.” So, it’s happening on both sides. People are hurting across this country.

Chris Hedges:

Have they gone after you, I mean, used racist tropes? I mean some of these campaigns have been pretty nasty.

Karishma Manzur:

So, I do see bots or people commenting. So, I’m Muslim, I’m brown. I was born outside this country, so I’m a naturalized citizen. I’m an immigrant. So that’s three. I’m a progressive. So, keep let’s keep adding. I’m for Medicare for all. God, that’s brings out a lot of hate. I’m for livable wages. That brings up a lot of hate. I want to stop the genocide and stop war profiteering and bring the money back to our community and our country. That causes a lot of hate. So, there’s so many reasons why I’m hated upon. I wouldn’t say necessarily, maybe, I don’t know if I would say that the party itself is causing any kind of hate against me, but it’s this whole line of AIPAC-aligned politicians coming to stump for him. Mark Kelly’s coming back next weekend. Mark Kelly, go take care of Arizona. Why are you coming to New Hampshire to stump the day before the Primary because it’s Labor Day weekend? He’s coming just to stump for Chris Pappas. So embarrassing. So embarrassing. A four-term Congress member needs all his aunties and uncles to stump for him. He cannot stand on his own record. And of course, John Sununu, God, I’m running around this entire state visiting places. I’ve put 36,000 miles on my car. I’ve only run into John Sununu once at an event. He doesn’t even show up. He has millions of dollars. He has name recognition. And his yard sign that he puts up just says, “Sununu Senator.” It doesn’t matter which Sununu. It could be the mother, the father, the sister, the brother. It’s just one of the Sununus running for one of these positions. When you see Sununu, just vote for that person. He doesn’t talk about policy. He doesn’t even have any policy. All he does is, “I’ll cut your taxes. Oh, by the way, I’m a Sununu, vote for me.” That’s not public service, Chris. And when these people like Sununu, when they get elected, because Sununu did serve in the Senate, what do they do? They tell us whatever we want to hear. They use wedge issues to divide us, and yet they answer to the donors. John Sununu, since he left, he lost his Senate seat and he has been in the private sector, he has made like $30 million dollars from all his little connections. This is the reason that anyone who serves in Congress should never be able to lobby, should could not be a lobbyist ever again. There should be a lifetime ban on lobbying.

They use their positions, their connections to make personal wealth. And now that revolving door, he’s a perfect example. John Sununu was a senator, was a lobbyist, and now wants to become a senator again. This has to stop. He’s not a public servant. He’s just a corporate hack. He has been on the board of various corporations making lots of money for himself. And now he will go tell us whatever little games he wants to tell us about. And if he wins, then he’s just going to be working for his corporations.

Chris Hedges:

Yeah, although Karishma, the Democrats are no different. I mean, Clintons, the Obamas, they’re all multi-millionaires as well. But I think that just gets into the whole system has been gamed, which is why your candidacy is so important, and there’s a reason he has $16 million dollars and you don’t.

Karishma Manzur:

Yeah. In New Hampshire, every election cycle at the end of the quarter when you would have your FEC filing, WMUR would always talk about who had raised the most money, “So and so has raised three million, so-and-so has raised five million in this one quarter.” When I started this campaign, I said, “Let’s start to talk about where those millions are coming from. Don’t talk about it as if it’s an achievement. Follow the money. What are the strings attached to that money?” And since then, they have stopped.

We are a tiny little campaign. We are now, of course, at 30, but we have completely, just this one campaign has changed the language, the direction of this race. I used to call myself, which I still am, I’m the anti-corruption candidate running against a corrupt Democrat and a corrupt Republican. Chris Pappas, who’s a poster child for the corruption in Congress and why we need campaign finance reform, is now calling himself the anti-corruption candidate. Now he always has to defend his money. All this time he was talking about his money as if it was an achievement, “I got three million. I raised five million.” This is the first time in his nearly eight years of campaigning that he’s now having to hold back. And he says things like that he doesn’t take corporate PAC money. Well, I’ve news for him. This is one of those places again he deceives the people. He may not directly take corporate PAC money, but what he does is he takes leadership PAC money from Schumer and Jeffries. Leadership PAC money is full of corporate PAC money and super PAC money. It’s just a money laundering scheme. “Don’t deceive the people of New Hampshire. You take that money, just own up to it. Don’t deceive us. We are done with all these deceits by the corporate politicians from the Democratic Party and the corporate politicians from the Republican Party. We are done. If you do not know how to serve the people, then don’t run for public service positions.” That’s my message to Sununu and Pappas.

Chris Hedges:

Great. Thank you, Karishma. Good luck on September 8th. I’ll vote for Adam. If I was in New Hampshire, I’d vote for you, but I’m not. I spent a lot of time in New Hampshire and love it. And I want to thank Malena and Max who produced the show. You can find me at ChrisHedges.substack.com.

Photos

Democratic Senate Candidate Maggie Hassan Attends Campaign Canvas Kickoff

DOVER, NH - SEPTEMBER 10: U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) speaks during a campaign canvas kickoff event alongside incumbent Democratic Senate candidate, U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) on September 10, 2022 in Dover, New Hampshire. Hassan is running for Senate reelection this year in New Hampshire and her Republican opponent will be chosen in the upcoming GOP primary. (Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty Images)

Mayoral Candidate For New York Zohran Mamdani Holds Primary Election Night Party

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 24: New York mayoral candidate, State Rep. Zohran Mamdani (D-NY) speaks to supporters during an election night gathering at The Greats of Craft LIC on June 24, 2025 in the Long Island City neighborhood of the Queens borough in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Bernie Sanders Continues His “Fighting Oligarchy” Tour In Detroit With Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed

DETROIT, MICHIGAN - MAY 03: Abdul El-Sayed, candidate for US Senate in Michigan, speaks before U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) takes the stage at Mumford High School on May 3, 2026 in Detroit, Michigan. Sanders is visiting the midwest on his Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here tour. (Photo by Sarah Rice/Getty Images)

Celebrities Attend March For Israel

WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 14: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks during the March For Israel at the National Mall on November 14, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images)

Former President Donald Trump Attends Alfred E. Smith Dinner In New York

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 17: Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump points to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as he speaks during the annual Alfred E. Smith Foundation Dinner at the New York Hilton Midtown on October 17, 2024 in New York City. Trump was the featured speaker with comedian Jim Gaffigan as the Master of Ceremonies at the the 79th Annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Lawmakers Continue To Negotiate Funding Government As Shutdown Stretches Past A Month

WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 09: Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) speaks during a press conference following a vote on Capitol Hill on November 9, 2025 in Washington, DC. The Senate convened for a rare Sunday session in an attempt to end the government shutdown. (Photo by Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images)

Democratic Senate Candidate Maggie Hassan Attends Campaign Canvas Kickoff

DOVER, NH - SEPTEMBER 10: Incumbent Democratic Senate candidate, U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) speaks during a campaign canvas kickoff event on September 10, 2022 in Dover, New Hampshire. Hassan is running for Senate reelection this year in New Hampshire and her Republican opponent will be chosen in the upcoming GOP primary. (Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty Images)

BlackRock Headquarters In New York City

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - AUGUST 08: The BlackRock company logo is seen outside of its NYC headquarters on August 08, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

GOP New Hampshire Senate Candidate Kelly Ayotte Holds Election Night Event

CONCORD, NH - NOVEMBER 9 - GOP New Hampshire Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte greets supporters at her election night party at the Grappone Convention Center on November 9, 2016, in Concord, New Hampshire. Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte and Democratic Governor Maggie Hassan ran a hotly contested Senate race that was still undecided in the early morning hours of November 9, 2016. (Photo by Kayana Szymczak/Getty Images)

Tech Illustations

The Blackstone logo is seen in this illustration photo taken in Warsaw, Poland on 17 November, 2024.Blackstone is one of several major asset managers set to sell shares in the IntraFi fintech company. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

New York City Marks 23rd Anniversary Of September 11, 2001 Attacks

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 11: Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, and U.S. President Joe Biden, join family and friends at Ground Zero honoring the lives of those lost on the 23rd anniversary of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

US-VOTE-POLITICS-DEBATE-HARRIS-TRUMP

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (R) shakes hands with former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan Holds Election Night Gathering In Manchester, New Hampshire

MANCHESTER, NH - NOVEMBER 08: Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) talks to members of the press after his midterm victory during an election night watch party at the Puritan Conference Center on November 8, 2022 in Manchester, New Hampshire. Pappas defended his seat against Republican Congressional challenger Karoline Leavitt who conceded her race. (Photo by Sophie Park/Getty Images)

Rosa Parks

American civil rights activist, Rosa Parks (centre), riding on a newly integrated bus following a Supreme Court ruling ending the successful 381 day Montgomery bus boycott of segregated buses. The boycott began when Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white person. (Photo by Don Cravens/Getty Images)

John Lewis Speaking

African American civil rights activist and future Georgia Congressman John Lewis (1940 - 2020) speaks into the microphone at a meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, held at the Statler Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC, April 16, 1964. (Photo by Trikosko/Library of Congress/Interim Archives/Getty Images)

The Inauguration Of Donald J. Trump As The 47th President

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 20: U.S. President Joe Biden (L) and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris stand together at the White House ahead of the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Donald Trump takes office for his second term as the 47th president of the United States. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Democratic Presidential Nominee Vice President Harris Campaigns Across Pennsylvania Day Before Election

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA - NOVEMBER 05: Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the closing rally of her campaign at the base of the iconic “Rocky Steps” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on November 05, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With one day to go until election day, Vice President Kamala Harris is campaigning across Pennsylvania. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

TOPSHOT-US-VOTE-POLITICS-TRUMP

TOPSHOT - Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives to speak during his final campaign rally at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on the early morning of November 5, 2024. (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP) (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images)

TOPSHOT-US-VOTE-CLINTON

TOPSHOT - US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton makes a concession speech after being defeated by Republican president-elect Donald Trump as former President Bill Clinton(L) and running mate Tim Kaine look on in New York on November 9, 2016. (Photo by JEWEL SAMAD / AFP) (Photo by JEWEL SAMAD/AFP via Getty Images)

Democratic Representative From Minnesota Dean Phillips Announces Run For President

CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE - OCTOBER 27: U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN)(R) holds a rally outside of the N.H. Statehouse after handing over his declaration of candidacy form for President to the New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan, on October 27, 2023 in Concord, New Hampshire. While touting the accomplishments of President Biden, Rep. Phillips believes that new democratic leadership is needed and has joined the 2024 presidential race. (Photo by Gaelen Morse/Getty Images)

Don Young Lies In State At U.S. Capitol

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 29: (L-R) Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi greets President Joe Biden in the Rotunda as he arrives to pay his respects to the late Rep. Don Young (R-AK) while lying in state in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol March 29, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Kamala Harris Campaigns For President In Ripon, Wisconsin

RIPON, WISCONSIN - OCTOBER 3: Vice President and Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris walks out with former US representative Liz Cheney during a rally at Ripon College on October 3, 2024 in Ripon, Wisconsin. The rally comes a day after Harris visited Georgia to assess the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. (Photo by Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)

The Elm Trees In Castine, Maine

CASTINE, ME - FEBRUARY 16: Scenes from downtown Castine, Maine on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022. Castine is one of the oldest villages in America, settled since the 1600s by colonists, and by indigenous peoples well before that, and fought over by the French, the Dutch and the British. (Photo by Tristan Spinski for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker Holds News Conference Discussing Security At The Democratic National Convention

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - JULY 25: Illinois Governor JB Pritzker smiles during a 2024 United States Secret Service Democratic National Convention security briefing on July 25, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. Pritzker is among a small group of Democratic politicians who are reportedly being considered to join Vice President Kamala Harris on the Democratic ticket for the upcoming election.(Photo by Vincent Alban/Getty Images)

Bill And Hillary Clinton Give Deposition To House Oversight Committee On Epstein Connections

CHAPPAQUA, NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 26: Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks to the press after testifying in a closed-door deposition with the House Oversight Committee at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center on February 26, 2026 in Chappaqua, New York. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton provided testimony to the Republican-led House Oversight Committee as part of an ongoing inquiry into the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s case. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton is expected to testify tomorrow. (Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

Kamala Harris And Cory Booker Speak At Michigan Democratic Luncheon In Detroit

DETROIT, MICHIGAN - APRIL 18: Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear speaks at the 38th Annual Michigan Democratic Women’s Caucus Legacy Luncheon on April 18, 2026 in Detroit, Michigan. Michigan will be a closely watched State in the 2026 midterm elections with statewide races being held for Governor, Attorney General, and Secretary of State, and national races for U.S. Congress and an open U.S. Senate seat. (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

2024 Democratic National Convention: Day 3

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - AUGUST 21: U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg speaks on stage during the third day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 21, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. Delegates, politicians, and Democratic Party supporters are in Chicago for the convention, concluding with current Vice President Kamala Harris accepting her party’s presidential nomination. The DNC takes place from August 19-22. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Sen. Kelly Speaks On President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth At US Capitol

WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 01: U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) speaks at a news conference in the U.S. Capitol on December 1, 2025, in Washington, DC. Kelly held the event to address what he described as intimidating actions by U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, following a video in which Kelly and several lawmakers urged U.S. troops to refuse “illegal orders.” (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

2024 Democratic National Convention: Day 2

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - AUGUST 20: Pennsylvania State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta speaks on stage during the second day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 20, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. Delegates, politicians, and Democratic Party supporters are gathering in Chicago, as current Vice President Kamala Harris is named her party’s presidential nominee. The DNC takes place from August 19-22. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Alberto Gonzales Survives Senate No Confidence Vote

WASHINGTON - JUNE 11: U.S. Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) speaks to reporters after the Senate Democrats failed to invoke cloture to proceed to a no confidence vote in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales June 11, 2007 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Senate Republicans have blocked a Democratic effort to vote no confidence on Gonzales. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The Presidents Cup - Round One

JERSEY CITY, NJ - SEPTEMBER 28: (L-R) Former U.S. Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton attend the trophy presentation prior to Thursday foursome matches of the Presidents Cup at Liberty National Golf Club on September 28, 2017 in Jersey City, New Jersey. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)

Government Shutdown Looms As House And Senate Disagree On Funding Bill

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 29: U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) (L) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) deliver remarks following a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on September 29, 2025 in Washington, DC. The Democratic leaders met with President Trump to negotiate funding legislation to avoid a government shutdown. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Aug 31, 2026

Speechless - by Mr. Fish

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The Trump White House has put into place a series of mechanisms to fix or invalidate the midterm elections. Congress will not save us. The courts will not save us. Our only hope — should the election be rigged or stolen — is nationwide strikes. Our only hope is to cripple the machinery of commerce and government, although this militancy will be met with savage state repression.

Otherwise, we are doomed. There will be no exit.

If the measures advocated by the Trump administration are implemented, emergency powers will be invoked to assert unprecedented federal control over voting. Federal agents will seize election materials. They have already seized ballots from previous elections.

The U.S. Postal Service will only send ballots to those included on federally approved eligibility lists drawn from state voter rolls. These rolls, subject to citizenship checks, will deny election-mail services entirely in states that refuse the administration’s demands for voter data.

Trump-backed mid-decade gerrymandering has already dismantled Democratic-held districts and created new ones for the Republican.

Federal ID and citizenship-document requirements will disenfranchise millions of eligible voters, including lower-income Americans who lack access to the required documents and married women whose current names do not match those on their citizenship records.

Federal troops and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — with $113.5 billion in additional funding allocated by Congress through September 2029 — will be deployed to or near polling stations which have a traditional Democratic Party majority. Those branded as “anti-capitalist” and “anti-Christian” or charged with belonging to antifa will be intimidated or blocked from voting.

The Republican majority in the House — regardless of the vote — will use its authority to certify election results to retain power, gaming the Electoral College and refusing to seat newly elected members of the opposition.

Overseeing the massive election fraud will be loyalists seeded by the Trump administration across state and federal election offices.

Trump — who attempted to overturn the 2020 election results and said he would refuse to accept the outcome of the 2024 election if he lost — ruminates about defying the Constitution in order to serve a third term. He has also floated the idea of canceling the upcoming election, telling Reuters “when you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.”

When Volodymyr Zelensky — whose presidential term ended in May 2024 — informed Trump that elections would not be held in Ukraine because of the war, Trump responded, “So you’re saying, during the war you can’t have elections…So, let me just say, three and a half years from now, so you mean if we happen to be in a war with somebody, no more elections? Oh, that’s good.”

Trump told The New York Times in January he regretted not directing the National Guard to seize voting machines after the 2020 election. Trump not only wants to abolish mail-in ballots – Democrats vote by mail in higher numbers than Republicans – but voting machines and tabulators which allow election boards to post results on election night.

Trump laid the groundwork for federal interference in his national address in July on election fraud, charging that the elections are dangerously exposed to “hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference.”

This assault has been decades in the making. It did not begin with Trump.

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I warned about the Christian nationalist movement and its latent fascism in my book “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.” These Christian fascists are enemies of the open society. They seek to disenfranchise huge segments of the public, demand the deregulation of industry and the elimination of all social services, including public education, public health programs and consumer protection. The only proper tasks for the federal government, they believe, are tax collection, war and domestic security.

These goals are laid out in numbing technical detail in Project 2025.

Power — as in all dictatorships — is to be permanent. It will be configured to enrich the inner circle of Trump and his family, who have made at least $2.3 billion from their crypto currency ventures during Trump’s first year since returning to the presidency. The billionaire class and corporations will continue to pay little or no income tax. They will have no external restraints or oversight as they exploit the citizenry and pollute and poison the earth.

The rest of us, under constant state surveillance and denied legal redress, will be reduced to the status of serfs.

Dissent will be criminalized. The media will be an echo chamber for the dictatorship. Education — from kindergarten to graduate school — will be indoctrination. Culture will be reduced to its lowest common denominator: sentimental kitsch. Christian tropes, iconography and symbols will be employed to sacralize white supremacy, capitalism, endless war and empire, while demonizing those on the margins of society.

Trump has already been handed absolute power. In 2024, the Supreme Court granted Trump immunity from prosecution for acts within his “conclusive and preclusive” constitutional authority. In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor charged that as a result of the court’s decision “[i]n every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”

Trump and his supporters in Silicon Valley are acutely aware that the level of their corruption and disdain for democracy — unlike anything seen in U.S. history — makes them vulnerable if they lose power. They have no intention of allowing this to happen no matter how egregious the constitutional violations. They seek to extinguish the last vestiges of democracy. They believe, as PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel wrote in 2009, that “freedom and democracy” are not “compatible.”

Theil is sweeping up all our information gleaned from government tax, medical and law enforcement records. This information is being delivered to databases that can be exploited for state control and profit. Thiel and his coterie of technocratic billionaires are implementing the agenda he envisioned 16 years ago: to make technology an “alternative to politics.”

“The populists get the MAGA anti-woke hymn book,” write Mark Medish and Joel McCleary in their “Dancing in the Dark” series in The Spectator on the upcoming elections:

The lords of the cloud get the contracts and the deregulation; the President gets the adulation, the money, tools to destroy his enemies, and dominance of all forms of media. Each of the partners believes it is cleverly using the others. All of them need the marriage to survive this November and to further consolidate power.

FBI agents seized original 2020 ballots, ballot images and voter rolls in Georgia. The Justice Department seized 2024 ballots from Michigan. And Chad Bianco, the Sheriff in Riverside County, California, as Medish and McCleary point out, in March “seized some 650,000 ballots on a complaint from a local ‘election integrity’ group that is organizing to replicate the maneuver in a half-dozen more counties this cycle.”

This is a foretaste, I expect, of the widespread seizures of ballots in November.

Presidential Emergency Action Documents (PEADs) which are “pre-drafted emergency orders in case of an attack on the homeland,” await “only a decision and a signature to become operative law by necessity,” Medish and McCleary note, giving Trump unilateral power to suspend civil liberties in a domestic crisis.

First created under President Dwight Eisenhower, the secret directives have since been periodically revised and expanded under successive administrations.

“At least fifty-six of these PEADs exist, by the last credible count,” Medish and McCleary continue. “None has ever been published, leaked, invoked, reviewed by Congress, or tested in any court. Their reported subject matter includes suspension of habeas corpus, martial law, censorship, the detention of citizens ‘considered dangerous,’ [and] the seizure of property.”

The feebleness of legislative and judicial branches of government, coupled with the transformation of federal agencies into appendages of the Trump White House — including the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security — make these institutions unreliable.

We can only save ourselves.

This means shutting the country down.

Millions of us must be prepared to take the streets or the iron doors of fascism will slam shut.

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Speechless - by Mr. Fish

Subscribe now

The Trump White House has put into place a series of mechanisms to fix or invalidate the midterm elections. Congress will not save us. The courts will not save us. Our only hope — should the election be rigged or stolen — is nationwide strikes. Our only hope is to cripple the machinery of commerce and government, although this militancy will be met with savage state repression.

Otherwise, we are doomed. There will be no exit.

If the measures advocated by the Trump administration are implemented, emergency powers will be invoked to assert unprecedented federal control over voting. Federal agents will seize election materials. They have already seized ballots from previous elections.

The U.S. Postal Service will only send ballots to those included on federally approved eligibility lists drawn from state voter rolls. These rolls, subject to citizenship checks, will deny election-mail services entirely in states that refuse the administration’s demands for voter data.

Trump-backed mid-decade gerrymandering has already dismantled Democratic-held districts and created new ones for the Republican.

Federal ID and citizenship-document requirements will disenfranchise millions of eligible voters, including lower-income Americans who lack access to the required documents and married women whose current names do not match those on their citizenship records.

Federal troops and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — with $113.5 billion in additional funding allocated by Congress through September 2029 — will be deployed to or near polling stations which have a traditional Democratic Party majority. Those branded as “anti-capitalist” and “anti-Christian” or charged with belonging to antifa will be intimidated or blocked from voting.

The Republican majority in the House — regardless of the vote — will use its authority to certify election results to retain power, gaming the Electoral College and refusing to seat newly elected members of the opposition.

Overseeing the massive election fraud will be loyalists seeded by the Trump administration across state and federal election offices.

Trump — who attempted to overturn the 2020 election results and said he would refuse to accept the outcome of the 2024 election if he lost — ruminates about defying the Constitution in order to serve a third term. He has also floated the idea of canceling the upcoming election, telling Reuters “when you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.”

When Volodymyr Zelensky — whose presidential term ended in May 2024 — informed Trump that elections would not be held in Ukraine because of the war, Trump responded, “So you’re saying, during the war you can’t have elections…So, let me just say, three and a half years from now, so you mean if we happen to be in a war with somebody, no more elections? Oh, that’s good.”

Trump told The New York Times in January he regretted not directing the National Guard to seize voting machines after the 2020 election. Trump not only wants to abolish mail-in ballots – Democrats vote by mail in higher numbers than Republicans – but voting machines and tabulators which allow election boards to post results on election night.

Trump laid the groundwork for federal interference in his national address in July on election fraud, charging that the elections are dangerously exposed to “hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference.”

This assault has been decades in the making. It did not begin with Trump.

I warned about the Christian nationalist movement and its latent fascism in my book “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.” These Christian fascists are enemies of the open society. They seek to disenfranchise huge segments of the public, demand the deregulation of industry and the elimination of all social services, including public education, public health programs and consumer protection. The only proper tasks for the federal government, they believe, are tax collection, war and domestic security.

These goals are laid out in numbing technical detail in Project 2025.

Subscribe now

Power — as in all dictatorships — is to be permanent. It will be configured to enrich the inner circle of Trump and his family, who have made at least $2.3 billion from their crypto currency ventures during Trump’s first year since returning to the presidency. The billionaire class and corporations will continue to pay little or no income tax. They will have no external restraints or oversight as they exploit the citizenry and pollute and poison the earth.

The rest of us, under constant state surveillance and denied legal redress, will be reduced to the status of serfs.

Dissent will be criminalized. The media will be an echo chamber for the dictatorship. Education — from kindergarten to graduate school — will be indoctrination. Culture will be reduced to its lowest common denominator: sentimental kitsch. Christian tropes, iconography and symbols will be employed to sacralize white supremacy, capitalism, endless war and empire, while demonizing those on the margins of society.

Trump has already been handed absolute power. In 2024, the Supreme Court granted Trump immunity from prosecution for acts within his “conclusive and preclusive” constitutional authority. In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor charged that as a result of the court’s decision “[i]n every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”

Trump and his supporters in Silicon Valley are acutely aware that the level of their corruption and disdain for democracy — unlike anything seen in U.S. history — makes them vulnerable if they lose power. They have no intention of allowing this to happen no matter how egregious the constitutional violations. They seek to extinguish the last vestiges of democracy. They believe, as PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel wrote in 2009, that “freedom and democracy” are not “compatible.”

Theil is sweeping up all our information gleaned from government tax, medical and law enforcement records. This information is being delivered to databases that can be exploited for state control and profit. Thiel and his coterie of technocratic billionaires are implementing the agenda he envisioned 16 years ago: to make technology an “alternative to politics.”

“The populists get the MAGA anti-woke hymn book,” write Mark Medish and Joel McCleary in their “Dancing in the Dark” series in The Spectator on the upcoming elections:

The lords of the cloud get the contracts and the deregulation; the President gets the adulation, the money, tools to destroy his enemies, and dominance of all forms of media. Each of the partners believes it is cleverly using the others. All of them need the marriage to survive this November and to further consolidate power.

FBI agents seized original 2020 ballots, ballot images and voter rolls in Georgia. The Justice Department seized 2024 ballots from Michigan. And Chad Bianco, the Sheriff in Riverside County, California, as Medish and McCleary point out, in March “seized some 650,000 ballots on a complaint from a local ‘election integrity’ group that is organizing to replicate the maneuver in a half-dozen more counties this cycle.”

This is a foretaste, I expect, of the widespread seizures of ballots in November.

Presidential Emergency Action Documents (PEADs) which are “pre-drafted emergency orders in case of an attack on the homeland,” await “only a decision and a signature to become operative law by necessity,” Medish and McCleary note, giving Trump unilateral power to suspend civil liberties in a domestic crisis.

First created under President Dwight Eisenhower, the secret directives have since been periodically revised and expanded under successive administrations.

“At least fifty-six of these PEADs exist, by the last credible count,” Medish and McCleary continue. “None has ever been published, leaked, invoked, reviewed by Congress, or tested in any court. Their reported subject matter includes suspension of habeas corpus, martial law, censorship, the detention of citizens ‘considered dangerous,’ [and] the seizure of property.”

The feebleness of legislative and judicial branches of government, coupled with the transformation of federal agencies into appendages of the Trump White House — including the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security — make these institutions unreliable.

We can only save ourselves.

This means shutting the country down.

Millions of us must be prepared to take the streets or the iron doors of fascism will slam shut.

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This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

The United States recently launched a new offensive against Iran, “Operation Economic Outcast,” asking countries around the world to participate in a massive economic blockade. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is threatening to punish any country that is unwilling to comply with secondary economic sanctions. Many people view this latest US strategy as a Hail Mary Pass.

To discuss the possible outcome of the US’s economic war, and the impetus for it, John Mearsheimer, a former Air Force captain, professor of political science and author, returns to The Chris Hedges Report.

Mearsheimer explains that the United States has lost on each of the four military objectives it laid out before waging this war on Iran. The result, Mearsheimer says, is “a complete flip-flop here in terms of who has the most coercive military leverage, and it’s the Iranians who do.” He calls the June Memorandum of Understanding signed by President Trump a “surrender document” and characterizes the war on Iran as “the greatest strategic blunder that the United States has ever made.”

In addition to military losses, the United States has ruined its reputation on the global stage and has lost historic allies. The world views the United States as a bully and, and as Mearsheimer says, is waiting to see its “get its nose badly bloodied.” They view the United States and Israel as rogue states that are deeply connected to each other. In this scenario, Iran emerges as the lesser evil.

With Iran imposing the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and then the Bab el Mandab Strait, the US war on Iran threatens a global economic collapse leading to inflation and shortages of food and fuel later this year. The obvious way to avoid this catastrophe is to end the war, which would require the United States to make significant concessions to Iran. Mearsheimer concludes, “…if this war or crisis goes on and on, it could end up leaving President Trump as President Hoover, which he doesn’t want to do.”

Pre-order my new book "Requiem for Gaza"

President Trump Makes An Announcement And Signs Executive Order From The Oval Office

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Israel Launches Strikes Against Iran

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Iranian Revolution

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U.S. President Trump Visits USS George Washington In Japan

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Arab League Summit in Amman, Jordan on November 11, 1987.

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NEW YORK, UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 19: (----EDITORIAL USE ONLY - MANDATORY CREDIT - ‘TURKISH PRESIDENCY / MURAT CETINMUHURDAR / HANDOUT’ - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS----) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) who is in New York for the 78th session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, receives Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) at the Turkish House in New York, United States on September 19, 2023. (Photo by TUR Presidency/ Murat Cetinmuhurdar / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

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TOPSHOT-ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-CONFLICT

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Join me for a live Q&A on my YouTube channel and X account, Friday August 28, at 7:00 - 8:00pm ET. Questions will be taken from the comment section of this Substack post, as well as during the live on YouTube/X.

Please attempt to keep your questions direct and relatively brief, as I cannot read entire paragraphs during the show.

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

Chris Hedges, a former New York Times Middle East Bureau Chief, is certain about at least one thing regarding Israeli propaganda tactics: “If there is one indisputable fact, it is that Israel lies like it breathes.” The task of professional journalists and media outlets is to review evidence and verify the information they are reporting, but when it comes to Israel, Western establishment media function as stenographers, echoing their lies globally.

In this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, Hedges explores the mechanisms by which Western media function as propaganda outlets for Israel with media scholar Robin Andersen, who documented these practices in her new book, “The Complicit Lens.” They begin with a discussion of the ways media corporations control the narrative through omissions of historical context, dehumanization of Palestinians and censorship of specific words, such as “massacres.” Journalists who work for these commercial outlets are aware of their complicity — a fact corroborated by leaks detailing the propagandistic guidelines editorial departments force their journalists to follow — but sacrifice their integrity and honesty for access to those in power and to protect themselves from retaliation.

Hedges and Andersen explain the ways that media outlets manipulate language to cover up war crimes being committed by the Israelis and shift the blame for Israeli attacks on civilians and infrastructure, such as hospitals and schools, onto the victims, Palestinians themselves. Outlets engage in ‘atrocity propaganda,’ amplifying horrific lies about sexual assault and “beheaded babies” told by the Israeli State without factchecking them to generate public support for the genocide of Palestinians, who are characterized as ‘terrorists’ and members of the demonized national resistance organization, Hamas. Andersen reports, “The Israelis were presented in their whole humanity… and the Palestinians are dead bodies, and that’s it.”

Another method of information control is by limiting access. Foreign journalists are restricted from entering Gaza, and those who are allowed in are vetted by Israel in advance. In violation of international law, the Palestinian press is censored through murder. Over 270 Palestinians, including those who work for major media outlets, and their families have been targeted and killed by the Israeli military. The price that we all pay for this complicity by the media is the legitimization of genocide, the absence of accountability and the lack of reliable news sources. As Andersen concludes, our loss is that there are “fewer and fewer voices, fewer and fewer documentation [that] can make sense of this and bring it to global publics.”

Pre-order my new book "Requiem for Gaza"

Host

Chris Hedges

Executive Producer:

Max Jones

Intro:

Margaret Flowers

Transcript:

Margaret Flowers

Crew:

Diego Ramos and Thomas Hedges

Chris Hedges:

Robin Anderson, the author of “The Complicit Lens,” documents how the Western media in the United States and Europe amplifies Israeli lies about the genocide in Gaza and discredits the reporting by our Palestinian colleagues, especially in Gaza. This complicity includes repeating Israeli fabrications that routinely blame Palestinian resistance groups for attacks on their own hospitals, schools, and universities. It includes allowing Israel to smear Palestinian journalists as members of Hamas. It includes giving credibility to Israeli fabrications about beheaded babies, babies cooked in ovens, secret command tunnels under Palestinian hospitals and schools, Palestinian journalists who direct rocket attacks on Israel, and the supposed widespread sexual assault against Israelis by Palestinians on October 7th.

The question is why? Why does the commercial press give such prominence to Israeli lies when it often knows -and I speak as a former New York Times reporter, covered the Middle East - that they are lies. The simple answer is access and careerism. There is a cost, sometimes the cost of your job, if you will repeatedly question the Israeli narrative and earn the enmity of the powerful Israel lobby. If a reporter exposes Israeli lies, he or she swiftly finds requests for briefings and interviews with Israeli and even U.S. officials rebuffed. These kinds of reporters are not invited by press officers to participate in visits to Israeli military units or background briefings. They and their news organizations are viciously attacked. And those who run media organizations, who too often prize this access above the truth, view these renegade reporters as management headaches, often terminating their assignment and sometimes their employment.

The slander used by Israel to discredit my Palestinian colleagues, claiming they are members of Hamas, is sadly familiar. Many Palestinian reporters I know in Gaza are, in fact, quite critical of Hamas. But even if they have ties with Hamas, so what? Israel’s attempt to justify targeting journalists from the Hamas-run Al Aqsa Media Network is also a violation of Article 79 of the Geneva Convention. In every war I covered, I was attacked as supporting or belonging to whatever group the government, including the U.S. government, was seeking to crush. I was accused of being a tool of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front in El Salvador, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity in Guatemala, the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army, Hamas, the Muslim-led government in Bosnia, and the Kosovo Liberation Army. I covered the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis, much of that time in Gaza, for seven years. And if there is one indisputable fact, it is that Israel lies like it breathes. The decision by Western reporters to give credibility to these lies, to give them the same weight as documented Israeli atrocities, is a cynical game. The barrage of Israeli lies, amplified and given credibility by the Western press, violates a fundamental tenet of journalism: the duty to transmit the truth to the viewer or reader. It legitimizes mass slaughter. It refuses to hold Israel to account. It betrays Palestinian journalists, those reporting and being killed in Gaza, and it exposes the bankruptcy of Western journalists, whose primary attributes are often careerism and cowardice.

Joining me to discuss the complicity of the Western press in this genocide is media scholar Robin Andersen. Robin, the author of “The Complicit Lens,” is a professor emerita of media studies at Fordham University, an award-winning author of a dozen single and co-authored books. She edits the Rutledge Focus Book series on media and humanitarian action, serves as a Project Censored judge, and contributes to the annual State of the Free Press. You put it all together in the book, and it’s a pretty damning case. Israel damns itself, but early in the book you make the argument, and I think correctly, that nothing that is happening at the moment can be understood without historical context. Israel works very hard to make the starting date of this October 7th, and I think you correctly point out that by doing that, you essentially make it impossible for us to understand what’s happening. So, can you address that point to begin with?

Robin Andersen:

Sure. It’s a standard media frame to start any conflict at the moment that the aggressors want to start it. And so, when Israel started the narrative and the press, without any pushback whatsoever, just kept saying that every time Israel dropped a 2,000-pound bomb on a refugee camp or a tent or a building, killing numerous Palestinians in Gaza, they would say, “This is in retaliation for the October 7th attacks by Hamas that killed 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians.” It was like a mantra. And they could say that because of this media frame where all of the historical reporting, all of the reporting at all about Israel and Palestine, was condensed into this narrative that began on October 7th, and by beginning on October 7th, then everything that Israel does is retaliatory. It is in defense. It’s a security discourse, and in that way, justified.

What that frame leaves out, as you well know, Chris, is this history of build-up and aggression on the part of Israel in Palestine, that as Rashid Khalidi has pointed out, is “The Hundred-Year War on Palestine.” Just in the 2010s, some of us may recall the “Great March of Return,” which lasted for a month and not one Israeli soldier was killed because it was a peaceful, nonviolent protest at the wall that divides Gaza and Israel. And they were simply demanding the right to return to their homelands. Israeli snipers on top of that wall shot into them, aiming mostly at their legs. We know now that the Israeli soldiers love to do target practice on Palestinians. They shot into their legs and their knees. 124 children had to have prosthetics. They injured 33,000. They killed about 300 over the course of that time, so much so that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch appealed to the ICC to look into war crimes because it was, again, of course, disproportionate violence. They were in no way threatened by peaceful Palestinians. And, by the way, this wasn’t organized by Hamas. This was organized by civil society groups inside Gaza and their international allies. So, those things are completely forgotten.

We know in media studies that a conflict never simply starts, right? It has a long genesis of conflict that that leads up to this one moment. And of course, the other added benefit to that narrative, that falsified narrative, is that since there is no reason whatsoever for Hamas to attack the ‘poor, innocent’ Israel, they have to simply be ‘terrorist’, ‘warmongering’, the ‘hyper-sexualized oriental’ spoken about by Edward Said, all of the stereotypes. All of the demonization and dehumanization then is brought to bear on what many consider a resistance fighting group. That’s all I’ll say. Thanks.

Chris Hedges:

Well, I was there for the founding of Hamas. I knew Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, one of the co-founders of Hamas, along with Sheikh Yassin, and they were very clear that there was a national resistance group, which was certainly birthed out of the Muslim Brotherhood, but that they welcomed Christians, non-Muslim Palestinians. That is how they defined themselves.

October 7th wasn’t enough. Certainly, atrocities were committed against Israeli civilians, no one is disputing that, but that wasn’t enough for the Israelis. They had to ramp up the narrative. I want you to deal with this, with the claims that there were widespread sexual assaults, number one, and number two, and this was really reported by the Israeli press, there were significant numbers of Israeli citizens who were killed by the IDF, which just fired blindly, used attack helicopters and tanks, blowing up houses in kibbutzes where Hamas fighters were holding Israeli hostages or families. They would just obliterate the whole house, firing on any car that was traveling back into Gaza, many of which of course probably had Israeli citizens. Attacking Erez, which is the border crossing between Israel and Gaza, just blowing up the whole center with Israeli soldiers that were being held captive by Hamas fighters inside.

October 7th had to be even more, or at least the Israeli narrative had to paint October 7th as being far more brutal, far more savage than it actually was. And the Western media, unfortunately including my old employer, the New York Times, danced to that tune and amplified those lies. And I think even to this day, the New York Times has not retracted its appalling story, I think it was called “Screams Without Words” or something, which was essentially reduced to being based on one source that the whole family recanted and said the woman wasn’t raped, etcetera. But let’s talk about that moment.

Robin Andersen:

Right. The British filmmaker Richard Sanders, who did a couple of documentaries, has done a few documentaries for Al Jazeera. One is “October 7^th”, and he looked at oodles of footage from the helmets of the fighters, and they really surveyed it, and he has a layout of how Hamas went in. And of course, initially they didn’t have any pushback from the Israelis. And you know what Richard Sanders points out is that Hamas had been posting on social media that they were practicing with the balloons, that they were basically gearing up to go into Israel. Now, for some reason, the Israelis weren’t prepared. Even though they were prepared with their Hasbara, their propaganda, right away. And so, you have Netanyahu calling up then-President Joe Biden telling him, “Oh, it was horrible. It was like the Holocaust. They tied up a bunch of infants and they burned them alive. It was terrible. They chopped off their heads.” This is the kind of atrocity propaganda you were pointing out, Chris.

This atrocity propaganda, this very same kind of thing where it hits you in the gut and it makes you so angry that you want to do something that you say, “Go ahead. Do whatever you want because these people are beyond the human community. They are inhuman,” as they followed up with that very dialogue, the Israeli spokespeople. So, they had to do that to make the violence so horrifying that it would justify whatever Israel was about to do.

Atrocity propaganda, as I mentioned, goes back to World War I, where we have the Germans – ‘babies bouncing off bayonets.’ It follows through historically to justify any war. And then, of course, at the First Gulf War, where we had the Kuwaiti member of the royal family testify before Congress that over 300 babies had been thrown out of their incubators on the floor at the border of Kuwait and Iraq. So, this is a border town, Chris. This is out in a rural area. So, just think about how many babies there could be, premature babies, in incubators. Certainly not anywhere near 300. So, right off, when we think about these in retrospect, we said, “Wow, how could the media have perpetuated this kind of atrocity propaganda?” Also, given, if you think about the legacy media, the establishment media in America, they are supposed to have their very best journalists on a story, right? In the New York Times, how much money does it have? How many employees? 7% of American journalists, are employed by the New York Times. They’re supposed to have seasoned journalists who can recognize atrocity propaganda.

Instead, many outlets in the US repeated the ‘40 beheaded baby story’, and all across Britain and the Western world. And as you point out, from the beginning, and I heard you on an interview very early on, you said, “My experience with the Israelis is that they lie. They lie, and they lie, and they lie some more.” They never pushed back in the US media, never pushed back on the constant lies that were being told by the Israelis. And that’s another way in which they completely abandoned their journalistic mission.

But just to wrap up, what Richard Sanders says, “Isn’t it interesting that, yes, Hamas committed war crimes that day. You can’t kill civilians, and Hamas killed civilians, and they took hostages, which is also against international law.” But what they did that day will never be known, probably, because also, as you point out, even though Israeli media itself aired the testimony of one Israeli woman, for example, who had been held hostage, Yasmin Porat, who told about how, as you just narrated, the Israelis came to Kibbutz Be’eri and opened fire on everyone. She said she was with about 12 hostages. So, they killed all of them. She was the only one left. And then by December 2023 you have a very well-documented, based on investigations by Haaretz, that the military, in fact, called in the Hannibal Directive, which is a military procedure dictated by the IDF that if it’s in a hostage situation, you kill all of the hostages because Israel doesn’t want to negotiate with the hostages. So, you kill the Israelis. We’ll never know.

So, every time the media repeated the mantra, “1,200 Israeli civilians killed, mostly civilians,” that’s a lie, a pure lie. And US media must have known, because certainly they can read Haaretz because it’s in English, and they should have translators who heard the other testimony on some of the Hebrew language outlets in Israel. And then one more thing, Chris. Right within the first month, the Israeli insurance agency published the names and demographic details of the people killed that day. There was exactly one baby under two years old who was shot. So, there was no ‘40 beheaded babies.’ There was no ‘infants rounded up and burned.’ And President Biden lied over and over through November that he had seen pictures of beheaded babies. So, instead of challenging a foreign military, our government and our press amplified their lies.

Chris Hedges:

Let’s talk about the way Israel essentially paints every civilian, including children, as members of Hamas in a way to justify the genocide and the role the press plays in facilitating that mischaracterization.

Robin Andersen:

Well, one of the ways they habitually do that is simply by the by the dehumanization of Palestinians that has happened for years. And we just look at the language. I think the New York Times, and as we know in the Spring of 2024 when the Intercept published the leaks that journalists and then staff at the CNN and journalists and staff at the New York Times released to them, that in fact they had been being told what they could say and what they could not say. And what they could not say was ‘massacres,’ especially for Palestinians. And they were told not to even report Palestinian deaths in any kind of emotional terms because they didn’t want Hamas using their outlets for propaganda. And so, the Palestinians were reported with body counts.

One time, a content analysis showed that the New York Times used the word ‘massacre’ 50 times for Israeli people killed by Hamas and one time for a Palestinian killed. And keep in mind, Chris, within the first 25 days, 5,000 Palestinians had been killed. So, this content analysis of the early coverage, very telling, very damning on the side of the press. And so, with the dehumanization and the body counts, then they added the “Hamas-led Gaza Health Ministry reported,” right, for further discrediting.

A body count is not a person. It is a body. By that time, the person is dead. Oftentimes, the Israelis, and then all of these heartfelt reporting we had on the hostages that were still being held, if you look at the difference in coverage, the Israelis were presented in their whole humanity, often pictures of them, videos of them, their works, their place within their culture, their society, their professionalism. And the Palestinians are dead bodies, and that’s it. And when they were on the air, professors, lawyers, aid organizations, anybody who was on the air was, as I quote a Palestinian writer in the book, “They were asked to sing for their airtime. They were bullied. They were shouted down.” We remember then, right? “Do you support Hamas?” “Do you think Israel has a right to exist?” And that that’s what they got. That’s what Ta-Nehisi Coates got a year later. So, it’s the thoroughgoing dehumanization. Of course, and when you dehumanized Hamas that they were ‘terrorists’, they were ‘animals’, then Hamas, it filters down where we lose civilians.

And then everyone becomes Hamas. And Israelis have actually said that, “Everyone in Gaza is a terrorist. There are no innocents. There are no children.” And here’s what I think is very ironic. At the one time they keep lying, they’re not doing this. To this day, they are now saying that the starving of the Palestinians, as they continue to do it as we speak, it’s a hoax, right? Meanwhile, they are all over media, which we don’t see in our media, saying, “There’s no innocents in Gaza.” Israelis in ministries and officials are saying, “We think every person in Gaza should be dead. We want them out. The settlers want Gaza.” All of that saying, which is admitting, at the same time, that they are committing war crimes, while the media is doing everything to downplay the war crimes that they are committing.

Chris Hedges:

I want to talk about how Israel will plant this narrative repeatedly that Palestinians are responsible for the attacks against them. We saw this with Israel’s attacks against schools, hospitals, infrastructure, bakeries. I mean they were even bombing wells, desalination plants, power plants. And the bombing would be reported and then the Western press would dutifully report the Israeli narrative that it was an errant rocket or the famous press dog and pony show they, I think it was in the basement of - was it Shifa Hospital where they pointed to a list of workers - I think it was a timetable for workers - and said it was a Hamas terrorist and because it was all in Arabic, the press couldn’t read it. But they’re just shameless about blaming the Palestinians for their own suffering.

Robin Andersen:

Over and over again. The Flour Massacre that took place in early spring, well, no February 2024. Think about it, as the Palestinians were already hungry, they were on the verge of starvation then. That’s how much the Israelis control what happens in Gaza. They’ve controlled the amount of calories Gazans can have since the early 2000s. As many of the human rights people have said, they will be studying food security by using Gaza as an example for years to come and how that can happen. They were starving already by weaponization of food by Israel, even in the Spring of 2024, and the Israelis shot at the hungry Palestinians who came to the aid trucks to collect flour. And what did the Israelis say that was repeated widely over the course of this 24-hour period where they had killed over 100 Palestinians and directly shooting at them? Well, the first one was that the soldiers were scared because the Palestinians came to the truck. Then then they trampled themselves, right? They stampeded. And there was ‘lawlessness’. Lawlessness has been the thing that has justified the starvation and hidden Israel’s blocking of aid ever since that moment. All through this time, it’s been lawlessness. Lawlessness blames the people who are being starved. It’s an old saw. It’s a trope, it’s a media trope. And so that you don’t have to identify who’s doing it? What’s the cause? Why are people hungry? No, it’s chaos and lawlessness. They called it a “food-related death”, “an aid-related death”.

Whereas this wonderful journalist that I followed for 10 months before he was assassinated by Israel, Ismail Al-Ghoul, in that instance, writing for Al Jazeera, went to the hospital and found the bodies that were a result of this Flour Massacre that Israelis had shot Palestinians collecting aid, and said that they had no evidence of trampling, and it wasn’t a stampede. And instead, they had the bullets from Israeli rifle fire to show that that’s what killed them. So, evidence, and over and over again, the Palestinians were constantly blamed for what they were doing.

And the Al-Shifa hospital example gives us another view of this. Before that, Israel attacked a hospital in an absolutely unprecedented attack on a medical facility in modern history. No one has done that before. They built up this propaganda with a slick 3D video showing a Hamas Pentagon three layers deep below the hospital, all out of the Israeli imagination. It looked like, as someone wrote, a James Bond lair, if nothing else. It was completely fabricated. And they built up and built up to that. And then when they went in, they told the media - and here’s the thing, on the other side the media is actually showing the doctors in Al-Shifa hospital. And the doctors are saying, “We have asked international teams to come in and prove that there aren’t Hamas functioning out of this hospital. They’re asking for sanctuary.” They say, “We are surrounded. We are just about ready to be attacked.” Israel comes into this hospital, kills doctors, nurses, patients, and basically bombs and destroys the hospital. The media then follow up with this outrageous claim where “Yes, hospitals are protected under international law unless the enemy has gotten into the hospital.” They repeated that over and over again. This is the first time that the major hospital was taken out in November 2023, Al-Shifa. And it was an absolute lie.

Hospitals, even if they were treating Hamas patients, which they weren’t, they were as full of civilians, even if they had a Pentagon in that hospital, which they didn’t, not one piece of evidence was shown afterwards, even if they had all those things, the aggressors are still obliged under international law to protect the doctors, the patients, the medical staff, and the medical facility. The way they got away with that first one, and the press bought it. And, by the way, Biden also confirmed, “Yes, we’ve got intelligence, our own intelligence has also shown that Hamas is using that hospital.” They never told you who they were. They never gave any names. They never showed any evidence of an investigation. And so, Biden’s blood is all over the hands there, too, of the attack. And that was the first one, and over the course of the genocide, and they are still attacking what’s left of the medical facilities in Gaza. And they completely wiped out the entire healthcare system in Gaza, which is again just unprecedented genocide in the modern era.

Chris Hedges:

I want to talk another about another aspect of how they control the press. First, of course, they have prohibited foreign journalists from entering Gaza. The very few times that any foreign reporters have entered Gaza, they have done so in groups organized by the Israeli military, and those reporters, I know because I used to do it, are handpicked by the Israeli military, because they will be obsequious to whatever it is they’re fed or told. That’s number one. Number two, they have killed over 270 Palestinian journalists, and I’ve covered a lot of war, but that number is far beyond any number that I experienced in the wars in Central America or in Yugoslavia or anywhere else. I mean, frankly, I think it calls for a complete boycott of Israel given the number of journalists that they have slaughtered. And then, at the same time, Israel has created mechanisms, which you document in the book, by which they actually filter the reports that are disseminated by international news organizations such as CNN. And as you point out, anything that appeared on CNN had to be fed through the Jerusalem Bureau, which meant that it was vetted by Israeli censors because, having worked in Israel, nothing goes out unless it’s approved by the censor.

Robin Andersen:

Absolutely. They didn’t tell the American people, their readers, their audiences, that in fact they didn’t have access, that Israel had blocked all Western media out of the enclave. And of course, before that, as we know, journalists and mainstream media have always measured their ability to cover a war by being with the soldiers in the field, in the theater of operations, right? That’s standard. Journalists, that’s their wish list. They want to record what’s happened and that’s how in the War on Terror, what they did is those first, as you’re talking about those special journalists that are chosen and vetted, they were embedded with the troops that went into Iraq during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

They turned that war basically into a reality show. I’ve written a lot about that war, and that was the first time they embedded journalists. And they had worked up to that to make sure that they could control the media. This is the US military, part of their Psy-op strategies. And when they went into Israel, on the occasions that they did, and they were there for Al Shifa afterwards, yes, they vetted their copy and everything that they printed went through Israeli censors. I think that this was also dependent on us not knowing that they had blocked Western journalists.

But another thing is, and you know, I’ve had a lot of people ask me, these are their colleagues, these are journalists on the ground. They not only worked for Al Jazeera - yes, a lot of them were just working with their cell phones and posting - but these were Arab language outlets, a lot of very legitimate outlets were global outlets, and even the AP and the wire services were using the photographs and the testimonials taken on the ground in in Gaza, but they wouldn’t tell anybody. They very rarely reported anything. Early on, the Washington Post did, at least they showed some of the journalists who had been killed with their photographs and their hopes and desires and why they were a journalist. It was like one of the only things that was out there early on.

But they never said that Israelis targeted them or killed them. And they even, Hamza Wael Dahdouh, the son of the Al Jazeera bureau chief in Gaza, his son, they killed him, direct strike, and they called him a ‘terrorist.’ And that was how, as they killed more and more journalists, they increasingly labeled them terrorists. But you know, you’re talking about a heat-seeking missile that a car is moving at high velocity, and it’s found by a heat-seeking, that is a direct assassination. And that’s what they were doing toward the end. Then they were also just taking out hospitals when they could, also take out four journalists who, one was in the hospital and being treated from the first attack by Israel. They killed their families. They directly targeted the houses of their families. While Dahdouh’s family was also just massacred before they killed his son.

So, we’re talking about, as you point out, this is the slaughter of journalists like we’ve never seen. We have organizations, Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, all of these, Palestinian, in this case, journalism syndicate recording this stuff, telling the FCC, trying to tell the world, and silence. This is probably one of the most horrible things that the that the journalists who were being killed noted. And they said, “Our colleagues in the America are just completely ignoring our deaths, and we’re their colleagues,” because they didn’t see them as colleagues. They saw them as Palestinians, who weren’t worthy of the title. And also, if they had told them that, they understand that their reporting simply repeats Israeli talking points and it’s standardized. And they’ll show you some of the brutality, but it’s never about Israel. It’s always, “This is the consequence of the Israeli Hamas war.” This is not a war. Hamas wasn’t an army. We know full well it wasn’t a war. And still to this day they won’t say it’s a genocide, although everybody in the globe now knows that it’s a genocide. And even the American public knows it’s a genocide. But somehow the New York Times just can’t bring itself to use the word genocide. So, that’s the standard frame, and they know if they start to talk about the Palestinian journalists, they will put them to shame and they will have to talk about their reporting. And to my mind that’s as also a significant reason that they never reported on the deaths of Palestinian journalists.

Chris Hedges:

Well, if they did report on the deaths, they gave the Israeli line, I mean headlines like “Israeli targets Hamas cameras,” one of my favorites. I think this was the Reuters team, where they killed all of these people. And they’ll kill them in what they call double tap strikes where they’ll shoot journalists. Journalists often set up their tents around hospitals because they needed generators and power and everything else. But they would target the journalists and then moments later, when people came to their aid, if they’d been wounded, they would hit them again. This was repeatedly done to journalists and the Israeli characterization of those journalists who were killed were picked up in the headlines of all of the major media outlets.

Robin Andersen:

Yeah. I remember the reporting on the direct hit of Ismail al-Ghoul and his colleague Rami al-Rifi and it was a direct hit on the car. And the New York Times wrote very, very little about it. They never even explained how Ismail was killed and they directed it to some conflict Israel was having with some agency. And you get this type of reporting that’s just column inches of nonsense reporting that really makes no sense and is not to the point. And then I wonder, I have friends who wake up every morning, and they read the New York Times and I say, “Why do you do that to yourself?”

Chris Hedges:

I mean this is part of the reason that the legacy media or the establishment media has such low credibility. I mean it has approval ratings that are lower than Congress, which takes some work. I mean in many ways what they’re doing is completely self-destructive.

Robin Andersen:

Absolutely. And to go back to killing the journalists around hospitals, the second time Israel went into Al Shifa was the spring of 2024. And that attack on that hospital again was even worse than the first. And the media coverage was also worse than the first, because what they did is they related to the first hospital and they said, “Just like they were there a few months ago, they’re there again.” And the IDF sent out their press release: “We didn’t kill one civilian. It was so great. We got 500 terrorists there.” And that’s how they reported the final attack on Al-Shifa, which really did destroy it.

That was the one, if you recall, looking at some of that footage and some of the testimony afterwards of the nurse and the other ones who survived it, they said they had three different wristbands of different colors. They put one on you and they just took a group of men out and they shot them. They just executed about 300 people. They said those people were Hamas terrorists. What those people were were civil defense employees working for Hamas, which would gather at the hospital along with some journalists because the hospital, as you point out, was the place that had power. And it was also the place that was telling the journalists what was going on because they saw the bodies. They saw the wounded. They were caring for the wounded.

So, there’s a whole bunch of reasons why Israel wanted to take out all the hospitals. But they killed civil defense workers that day. They mowed them down, the bodies, and then a few weeks later, they started to unearth them and that’s what we saw with the unearthing of these, many of them had been patients. But they were civil defense workers. So, this is something that today remains very underreported and not understood very well, is that the civil defense workers were working for Hamas in government capacity and being paid. When they deliberately wiped out all of the fabric of life in Gaza and all of the social services, including health care and food aid, but civil defense, they were the ones left that had to go, for example, and dig up the bodies that they had mowed under in front of the hospital. So, when then they say “chaos,” the level of deviousness and lying becomes extraordinary. When you then say, “There’s so much chaos in Gaza,” which they have deliberately engineered, and deliberately what I call ‘censorship by murder,’ murdering the journalists and fewer and fewer voices, fewer and fewer documentation can make sense of this and bring it to global publics.

Chris Hedges:

Great, thanks Robin. And we have to honor the tremendous courage and integrity of our Palestinian colleagues, huge numbers of whom have paid with their lives. They did the real reporting, while the Western press went down to the border area and put on flak jackets and helmets and did stand ups where they had about as much chance of being hit by a piece of shrapnel as they would by an asteroid. I just stand in awe of my Palestinian colleagues, many of whom I know and some of whom I’ve lost. I want to thank Diego, Thomas and Max, who produce the show. You can find me at ChrisHedges.substack.com.

Photos

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This article was read by Eunice Wong. You can find her work at www.eunicewong.actor.

Text originally published July 6 2026.

Pre-order my new book "Requiem for Gaza"

Full Text:

FIRE ISLAND, New York – I am on a boat with 100 drag queens who are traveling from the gay enclave of Cherry Grove on Fire Island to the neighboring community of the Pines. They have staged this “invasion” every year since 1976, after a drag queen was denied service at a restaurant. Incensed by the discrimination, a group of 17 drag queens from Cherry Grove piled into a water taxi and traveled to the Pines before storming the restaurant.

The invasion is part political statement, part party. But in the age of Trump, when drag queens, people who identify as transgender, immigrants, feminists, people of color and the so-called radical left are demonized and targeted, the invasion is at once outrageous and poignant. It captures the best of the United States of America — what it means to be a patriot and what compassion, individual liberty and a civil society looks like.

If I was going to celebrate the nation’s 250^th birthday, it could only be here.

“Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP,” Trump posted on Truth Social last year, later announcing he would allow “NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA.”

Former Miss Fire Island 2022, Zelina Duval, is wearing a topaz sequin gown, stiletto heels decorated with rhinestones and huge flower droplet earrings with a matching ring and bracelet. She has an auburn wig and long, black false eyelashes. Like the other drag queens, she instantly sees through Trump.

“Trump’s a queen,” Zelina says. “We all know. He wears makeup, bronzer and highlighter. He has a new costume every day.”

“Our founding fathers wore wigs, heels and makeup,” says Paige Monroe, dressed in a champagne sequin gown, a honey-blond wig, rhinestone earrings and redolent in Cap Camarat perfume. “Drag is nothing new. It has been with us since the beginning of time. In ancient Greece and Japan, men played women’s roles.”

Trump’s gaudy ballroom, his smothering of the Oval Office in gold leaf and gold ornaments, his finicky concern about the color of his drapes, his penchant for old show tunes, his love of the gay national anthem “Y.M.C.A” by the Village People, his 1950s aesthetic of men in dark suits and black Florsheim shoes and his Mar-a-Lago women, whose surgically enhanced bodies sport huge breasts, puffed up lips and taut death masks, could be transferred to any of the evening drag shows held next door to my hotel at the Ice Palace.

The shows are very loud. They often don’t end until 4 a. m. The hotel staff leave ear plugs on the nightstand. It helps. A little.

During this Fourth of July weekend there was an “underwear dance party,” where in the morning, blurry eyed men told me their underwear swiftly became optional. There was also Alaska Thunderfuck’s “Fourth of July Alien Invasion Party.” Alaska sang selections from her albums “Anus” and “Poundcake.” Songs included “Your Makeup is Terrible,” “This is My Hair” and one song, whose refrain, repeated over and over, was “I fucking love you.”

The frequent sexual liaisons — the Ice Palace has a curtained off area for those who want immediate and often anonymous gratification — mirror the promiscuity of the Epstein Class, but with one important difference: Epstein’s girls and women were trafficked and enslaved. Here, relations are consensual.

Fascism is an inverted form of camp. Its evil side. It is devoid of irony and humor. It takes itself seriously. It uses exaggerated, theatricalized art to turn a leader — like any drag queen — into a larger-than-life persona. The outward forms are the same. But fascist camp is about instilling obedience. Drag queen camp is rebellious. Drag queen camp seeks to expand human possibilities and identities. Fascist camp crushes identities into narrow, state-approved molds of good and bad, man and woman, patriot and traitor.

“Trump doesn’t know its camp,” says Bob Levine, who arrived in Cherry Grove in 1955 and has been performing for 70 years under his alter ego, Rose Levine. He was one of the original 17 drag queens who invaded the Pines. At 93, he is still performing. His next show at Cherry Grove Community House and Theatre is on July 11. It is the oldest continually operating gay summer theater in the country.

He was here in the 1960s when police sent undercover officers to entrap gay men. Once arrested, the men’s names were published in the papers. Most were fired from their jobs.

“So many lives were destroyed,” Levine says.

As rights are rolled back, as all who do not conform to the Trump administration’s rigid definition of what it means to be a man or woman are attacked, the darkness of the past becomes that of the present.

Thom Hansen, known in drag as “Panzi,” is dressed as the Statue of Liberty. She wears a long green gown, has a towering white wig with a crown and a small torch. In 1976, Panzi was one of the drag queens who stormed the Pines.

As our boat enters the harbor at the Pines, hundreds of people line the docks. They clap and cheer. Docked boats let out loud blasts. Sirens wail.

A singer in shorts wearing red, white and blue socks on the dock sings “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” He changes the lyrics to, “My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the queens.” When he closes with “The queens are marching on,” the crowd erupts in sustained cheers.

Panzi, disembarks. She stands on the pink carpet rolled out on the dock. She grips a microphone. Signs in the crowd read: “We will not be erased.” “We the People Means Everyone.” “Drag sets our imagination free.” “Fuck Fascists.” “Fuck ICE.”

“The invasion was founded because someone here in the Pines did not allow a trans woman to dine in a restaurant,” she says to the crowd. “That’s all history. We all love each other, well, most of you anyway. If you have phones on, if you are recording this, send these recordings to our little trans brothers and sisters in fucking Texas, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota and Washington because they are alone. They need to know we are there with them. I will fight until I die for their freedom and mine.”

The crowd roars in appreciation.

“I love you Panzi,” a man screams.

“I love you too!” Panzi replies. “Are you pretty? Do you have a big dick?”

The drag queens who disembark are announced to the onlookers. There is a group of men dressed as “trad wives.” They have brown and blond wigs and matching beige dresses. There are crosses dangling from their necks. They are holding wicker baskets and are wearing straw sun hats. There is a group of drag queens who call themselves “America’s Sweethearts,” carrying blue pom-poms and dressed in blue and white cheerleader outfits. There is a drag queen in a short green skirt with a sash that reads, “Best Ass.” A group of men in shorts wear white hard hats with the words “Trad Repair.” Sophya Medina, Miss Fire Island 2025, wearing her sash and crown, disembarks to sustained applause.

“I keep praying that the administration and the policies will change,” Panzi tells me later. “Everybody is praying for that, but nobody wants to do anything. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand why the immigrant community doesn’t rise up. Why don’t the Black and Hispanic communities rise up? Why don’t ethnic communities rise up? Everybody is quiet. The LGBTQ community is quiet. If we all get together and rise up, it might mean something. But people are terrified. In my day we were rebels. We fought. We burned cars, for God’s sake. We broke windows. But nowadays, I don’t know. They are rolling us back to the 1950s.”

There are many here who have been rejected by their families and communities. For them, gay enclaves such as Cherry Grove are like oxygen.

“Why can’t we have a country where it’s just okay to be yourself?” asks Basit Noor, an oral surgeon who moved to New York from Pakistan after repeated death threats. “Why should anyone feel endangered for being themselves if it’s not hurting anyone? We fought for our rights. We fought for our freedoms. We fought for where we are today. If this movement stops, we won’t have a place to be who we are. We get tired, like ‘Oh my gosh, when is the change going to happen?’”

The melancholy is a constant theme.

“Back in 1984, I was 15 years old,” says Flaggarina Ivanna Diamond, this year’s Cherry Grove Homecoming Queen. “I was on a ninth-grade field trip at Sailors Haven’s Sunken Forest. One of the boys points to Cherry Grove. I didn’t know anything about Cherry Grove. I didn’t even know it existed. At that time I’m this closeted gay, teen boy. And there’s a lot of homophobia at the school. The boy says ‘Watch out, those guys, they’ll grab you.’ I’m praying as hard as I can, ‘Oh please grab me, please grab me, please grab me.’ And after all these years, Cherry Grove did grab me. It grabbed my heart.”

Fascism is not only a poisonous political movement. It is a poisonous cultural and social movement. It eliminates the space for those who do not submit to the narrow definitions of what it means to be a citizen, a man, a woman or a patriot. It ruthlessly crushes independent lives and identities. It leaves in its wake loneliness and trauma. Fascism begins with the marginalized and demonized, but it does not stop there. It destroys community after community until we are orphans in our own land.

I wanted to be in my country on July Fourth before it disappeared.

Photos

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Joy to the World - by Mr. Fish

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The Western media manufactures consent for genocide. It normalizes Israel’s decades-long military occupation and apartheid. It erases Israel’s flagrant violations of international law. It perpetuates the fallacy of Israeli victimhood. It betrays, discredits and demonizes the work of Palestinian journalists and media workers in Gaza, at least 220 of whom have been killed by Israel between Oct. 7, 2023, and August 2025. It supinely accepts draconian Israeli censorship. It acquiesces with tepid letters of protest at Israel’s refusal to allow foreign reporters in Gaza — an effort by Israel to mask its war crimes. It amplifies Israeli lies, from beheaded babies to widespread sexual assault of Israeli women on Oct. 7, to obfuscate the truth.

When writing about Gaza, verbs are in the passive tense. There is no subject. No one is accountable. Genocide, it seems, is an act of God. No different from an earthquake or tsunami. Clichés and opaque adjectives such as the “cycle of violence” or “clashes” distort and falsify reality.

“If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought,” George Orwell warned.

Terms such as “genocide,” “atrocity,” “ethnic cleansing” and “occupied territories” magically disappear from media reports on Palestinians, whose resistance is routinely described as “savage” and “barbaric.” New York Times reporters are instructed by editors to avoid terms such as “Palestine,” “genocide,” “carnage,” “refugee camp,” “slaughter” and “massacre,” when referencing Palestinians.

The media slavishly regurgitates what Israel feeds it. Saturation bombing becomes “surgical air strikes.” Israel’s weaponization of famine becomes a “food shortage.” The killing of unarmed civilians — including children — becomes “clashes.” The hilltop fortress-like compounds of Jewish colonists becomes “neighborhoods.” Extrajudicial assassination of a journalist or a doctor becomes “died.”

Genocide, referred to as the “Israel-Hamas war” is justified as “self-defense,” part of the mantra of Israel’s “right to defend itself.” When schools, hospitals, clinics, ambulances, mosques, churches and other civilian targets are obliterated, they are labeled “Hamas command centers” or targeted because Hamas is “using civilians as human shields” — something Israel does routinely, when the army binds detained Palestinians and forces them to enter potentially booby-trapped buildings and tunnels ahead of Israeli troops.

When Israelis are held by Hamas, they are “hostages,” even if they serve in the military. When Palestinians — including children — are held without charges or trial and disappeared into Israeli detention centers, where torture is “widespread” and “systematic,” they are “prisoners.”

Missile attacks on tent cities or hospitals are blamed on Palestinian armed groups firing errant rockets. If Israel acknowledges the attacks — which very rarely happens — they are described as a “tragic mistake.”

Civil institutions in Gaza are characterized as “Hamas-run” to cast doubt on the veracity of what they report. The New York Times routinely qualifies announcements from the Gaza Health Ministry by noting it “does not distinguish between civilians and combatants,” masking the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians.

The result is some of the most convoluted writing in the history of journalism, including the Nov. 5, 2023 New York Times headline that reads: “Explosions Gazans Say Was Airstrike Leaves Many Casualties in Dense Neighborhood.”

“When Middle East Eye journalists Mohamed Salama and Ahmed Abu Aziz, along with Reuters photojournalist Hussam al-Masri, and freelancers Moaz Abu Taha, and Mariam Dagga — who had worked with several media outlets, including the Associated Press — were killed in a “double tap” strike — designed to kill first responders arriving to treat casualties from initial strikes — at Nasser Medical Complex, how did Western news agencies respond?” I asked in my column The Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists.

“Israeli military says strikes on Gaza hospital targeted what it says was a Hamas camera,” the Associated Press reported.

“IDF claims hospital strike was aimed at Hamas camera,” announced CNN.

The camera belonged to Reuters, which said Israel was “fully aware” the news agency was filming from the hospital.

“When Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al Sharif and three other journalists were killed on Aug. 10 in their media tent near Al Shifa Hospital, how was it reported in the Western press?” I asked.

“Israel Kills Al Jazeera Journalist It Says Was Hamas Leader,” Reuters titled its story, despite the fact al-Sharif was part of a Reuters team that won a 2024 Pulitzer Prize.

The German newspaper Bild, published a front page story headlined: “Terrorist disguised as a journalist killed in Gaza.”

“The linguistic gymnastics employed by the media went as far as redefining words, making them meaningless,” writes Assal Rad in “Don’t Say Palestine: How the Media Manufactured Consent for Genocide:”

Mainstream media failed to describe Israel’s repeated breaches of the ceasefire with the language of violation. Instead, the coverage followed the same patterns of rationalizing Israel’s attacks and uncritically parroting Israel’s claims to justify its actions. As Palestinians continued to be killed — during a ‘ceasefire’ — and the flow of aid did not reach the level of need or what was agreed to, Western media framed these flagrant violations as ‘tests’ or ‘challenges’ to a ‘shaky ceasefire.’ As leading human rights organizations like Amnesty International warned that the genocide was, in fact, not over, legacy media continued to frame it as a war with a ‘fragile ceasefire.’

Words matter. Words justify actions. If there is no genocide, if Israel is defending itself in a war, the U.S. and Israel’s European allies have the right to provide tens of billions of dollars in military aid. If this is a war begun by Hamas on Oct. 7 then it is possible to lament the obliteration of Gaza and mass slaughter by Israel as the regrettable result of the Hamas attack.

This corruption of language is designed, as Orwell noted, to defend the indefensible:

Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements.

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Adam Johnson in “How to Sell a Genocide: The Media’s Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza,” examined over 12,000 articles from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN.com, Politico, Axios, USA Today, and The Associated Press, along with 5,000 TV segments aired on CNN and MSNBC. His carefully researched book is a damning indictment of the “liberal” media’s justification of the genocide.

CNN and The New York Times instructed their editors and journalists that attacks could only be attributed to Israel after confirmation from the IDF and GPS coordinates. Johnson quotes a source at CNN:

Whether it’s in the newsroom or in the field, we couldn’t credit anything to Israel unless we were held to this impossibly high bar of having to call it an “explosion,” until we geolocated the site of the explosion, sent the coordinates to the Israelis and asked them for comment.

You can see an interview with Johnson about his book at The Electronic Intifada here.

CNN journalists reporting on Israel and Palestine must submit their work for review to the network’s Jerusalem bureau prior to airing. The CNN bureau, like all news bureaus in Israel, is required to abide by restrictions imposed by Israeli military censors.

The very few Palestinians who appear on CNN and other legacy media outlets, are routinely asked — usually before they are even permitted on air — if they “condemn” Hamas. Guests who express even tepid criticism of Israel are asked whether Israel “has a right to exist.”

No one is ever asked if they condemn Zionism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide or Israel’s 100 year war on Palestine. Nor are they asked if the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves — which under international law they do, including with weapons.

Our domesticated journalists and news organizations are, as Robert Fisk pointed out, “prisoners of the language of power.” They dutifully parrot the official lexicon. This makes them not only propagandists, but accomplices to genocide.

Those who protest the genocide, including students on university campuses — many of whom are Jewish — are smeared as “Hamas supporters” and “antisemites.” Journalists ferret out Zionist students, usually found esconced in campus Hillel houses, who claim to be “fearful for their safety,” because of the protests. The media pays little attention to the rise in anti-Muslim bigotry or the repression meted out to student protestors, which includes not only police brutality and 3,000 detainments and arrests, but suspensions, probations, expulsions, withholding of diplomas and the firing of sympathetic faculty.

Slogans which call for Palestinian liberation — including “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — along with the Palestinian flag, have been criminalized.

The message is clear: Jewish lives matter. Palestinian lives do not.

“The reports of UN agencies, of respected human rights monitors, of medical journals, and of professional medical personnel, are generally treated with respect and given prominence in the mainstream media,” writes the historian Rashid Khalidi in the introduction to Robin Anderson’s book, “The Complicit Lens: US Media Coverage of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza:”

Not in this war: instead, if such sources are cited at all, equal media treatment is given to the outrageous slanders and calumnies against these organizations and individuals, smears that are produced in profusion by Israel’s legion of professional propagandists and its myriad of defenders in the US. Besides smearing critics of Israel’s genocide as supporters of Hamas or terrorist sympathizers, the main weapon in their arsenal of defamation is their systematic and outrageous misuse of the deadly accusation of antisemitism.

The massive defections of readers and viewers from mainstream media to social media platforms that do not filter news through the Israel lobby, the U.S. government or corporations, are a stark indicator of the media’s bankruptcy. The response to these defections has been “platformicide” — the use of algorithms, shadow banning, restriction of live streaming capabilities and the closing of accounts by social media giants such as Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube and TikTok, to dramatically reduce the reach of reporting on Palestine.

This censorship is part of a coordinated effort to hide the horror of the genocide from the public.

By constantly referencing Oct. 7, the Western media decontextualizes the genocide. It ignores Israel’s 19-year siege of Gaza. Oct. 7 is characterized in the Western media as “unprovoked.” Israel’s massacres of unarmed Palestinians in Gaza in the winter of 2008 and 2009, along with its attacks on Gaza in 2012, 2014 and during the Great March of Return in 2018 and 2019 are ignored.

The 1948 Nakba — when European Zionists seized more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, violently expelled 750,000 Palestinians, destroyed more than 530 Palestinian villages and killed 15,000 Palestinians — is rarely referenced. Seventy percent of those driven from their homes in 1948 were forced into Gaza.

The Zionist project is predicated on fostering historical amnesia.

“Once Hamas was established as a brutal, terrorist group whose members gleefully tortured, dismembered, and beheaded babies without conscience, no further explanation was needed,” writes Anderson in her book. “The media simply avoided reporting Israel’s history of violence and as a result, establishment media also avoided the conditions of everyday life for Palestinians.”

The fiction that there is currently a ceasefire in Gaza — Israel has killed at least 1,286 Palestinians and injured 4,257 since it supposedly went into effect — has become the excuse used by Western media to turn its back on Gaza. This genocide denial has characterized the coverage since its inception. It masks not only Israel’s crimes, but Israel’s stated intention to ethnically cleanse all Palestinians from Gaza. It effectively neuters international law. And it makes a mockery of the profession of journalism.

When the last act of ethnic cleansing happens, Western media will, I am sure, continue to bombard us with Israeli agitprop, euphemisms and clichés.

It will justify the genocide until the end.

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The bipartisan US-backed genocide in Gaza exposed the corruption of the political system in the United States and the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party, which claims to represent working people. Rather than recognizing this fact and shifting its stances to better represent its voting base, the Democratic Party establishment is attacking candidates who run on progressive platforms and is setting the stage for another Republican victory.

In this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, Chris Hedges speaks with Dr. Adam Hamawy, a military veteran and trauma surgeon running for Congress in New Jersey to replace the retiring representative Bonnie Watson Coleman. Similarly to Dr. El-Sayed, who won his Democratic primary in Michigan despite record spending to oppose him by the Israeli lobby, AIPAC, and Democratic Party leadership’s support for his opponent, Dr. Hamawy recently won the primary and will face a Republican in the November election.

Hamawy discusses how his experiences of talking to members of Congress after coming home from volunteering in hospitals in Gaza drove him into politics and describes the vicious, racist and false attacks launched against him, his family and co-workers since the start of his campaign. He laments the influence of money on politics, especially by the military industrial complex, that puts profits over people and robs communities of funding for basic necessities. Hamawy calls for the consistent application of laws, especially the Leahy Law, which restricts foreign aid to countries that violate human rights.

Hedges and Hamawy analyze the failures of the Democratic Party to unify around a platform that represents their voting base’s interests, instead trying and failing to push progressive candidates out of the party. Dr. Hamawy says, “The Democratic Party has actually shifted more to the right and we are really holding that center.” Hamawy outlines his political priorities if he is elected and the struggles ahead for this new “wave of candidates that are fighting for the people,” saying, “We are going to fight to start bringing these resources back home.”

Pre-order my new book "Requiem for Gaza"

Host

Chris Hedges

Executive Producer:

Max Jones

Intro:

Margaret Flowers

Transcript:

Margaret Flowers

Crew:

Diego Ramos and Thomas Hedges

Transcript

Chris Hedges:

There are a string of Democratic Party insurgents who defied party leadership to run on a progressive agenda that includes universal health care for all, a cessation of military aid to Israel, and the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Abdul El-Sayed, who narrowly beat Representative Haley Stevens in Michigan’s U.S. Senate primary, is one example. He overcame more than $60 million in outside spending, much of it coming from corporate and pro-Israel super PACs, making the race the most expensive Democratic primary ever. His opponent was also backed by the party hierarchy, including Governor Gretchen Whitmer, outgoing Senator Gary Peters, and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer.

Dr. Adam Hamawy, a U.S. Army veteran and outspoken critic of the genocide in Gaza, is another insurgent candidate who won the Democratic primary for the New Jersey House seat being vacated by retiring Representative Bonnie Coleman. He will compete in November against the Republican candidate and Trump supporter Gregg Mele in a district where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans more than two to one.

Joining me to discuss this insurgency and what it means for the Democratic Party is Dr. Hamawy. Let’s begin, Adam, with what it is that propelled you into this race. As I mentioned, you were a doctor in the army, including in Bosnia, where we both were, but you also, as a private citizen, made two trips to Gaza to work as a doctor, and you’ve not been politically active until now. What is it that made you decide to run for this seat?

Adam Hamawy:

So, I grew up in New Jersey, and after serving in the army, I came back and was a doctor in the community. I have my own practice. I cover the emergency room. I cover trauma at Robert Wood Johnson where I see patients coming in for facial fractures and hand surgery, and every year it’s getting more and more difficult to take care of patients here at home. Whether it’s coming in without insurance or having high premiums or not even understanding the system, people are discharged, have no follow-up. They’re struggling to pay their bills and choosing between their medical bills and their rent. And at the same time, I’ve experienced the other side of it. I served in the US Army. I was a combat trauma surgeon in Iraq, and after serving eight years, I’ve been volunteering around the world. So, I did volunteer in Bosnia and I volunteered in Central America, Africa, throughout the Middle East, and we can’t afford universal health care or Medicare for all here in the United States, but we always have enough money for bombs. We are able to support our military with over a trillion dollars a year and have these endless wars. We are supporting, by making bombs for Israel, and what I saw in in Bosnia was a genocide and what I experienced in Gaza was ten times worse that. It is something I’ve never seen before. And we are using taxpayer dollars for that.

I got sick of always complaining. I came back from Gaza not only as a doctor who’s worked in a genocide but as a witness because no one else is allowed in there and to talk about it. Journalists aren’t allowed to enter. A few humanitarian workers in there, including the doctors and nurses, and so it fell on us as an obligation to go to Congress and tell them this is what we are doing. And I started doing that after my trip in 2024. I ran into many types of doors. I always classify it into three types. There are those who sat, listened and were moved to do something, very few. One of them was our current Congresswoman, Bonnie Watson Coleman, who allowed me a platform to speak and I was a guest at her State of the Union and did some press conferences with her, but most did not. There were some that would listen and say, “Well, that sounds horrible, but we can’t do or say anything. It would be political suicide to speak against that.” And even more doors that were completely shut that would not even meet with me and my colleagues and listen, whether you agreed to or not.

And so, that being the case, as soon as Rep. Bonnie said that she’s stepping down, I felt it was critical that we have a voice in Congress that speaks the truth, that is able to bring the resources back to the community where we really need it. Our healthcare system here in the United States is broken and every year it gets more and more difficult. We are fighting insurance companies every single day to be able to provide decent care to our neighbors and co-workers and at the same time, we are funding a genocide. We are funding the warmongering military-industrial complex. The only one benefiting from these wars are them. We clearly are not benefiting. We’re not safer today than we were a year ago or 20 years ago. We have created more people that hate us and more enemies, and we are pushing away our allies. So, this excuse of making the world safer is falling flat. And so, we need voices in Congress that understand that. And I have not been involved in politics other than being a voter, but I’ve been on the ground working here in New Jersey and around the world and I see the effects. And as a surgeon I always go to the source. I don’t give a lot of medicine. I go to the disease and cut it out and we can’t fix our healthcare system here in the hospitals. It has to be done in Washington. And that’s what I’m doing.

Chris Hedges:

When you announced, I remember you were really viciously attacked because, of course, your opposition to the genocide is an anathema of the Democratic Party leadership. One of the things that stunned me, and maybe you can detail some of it, is just how patently racist these attacks were. On the one hand, Jewish students who feel ‘uncomfortable’ by encampments are used to demonize those students who are protesting the genocide, but there are no rules when you attack Muslims.

Adam Hamawy:

Unfortunately, that is the current reality, and I experienced that not just when I announced that I was running, I experienced that growing up to a small extent. But after I came back from Gaza, I wasn’t quiet. I used every outlet that I could. I spoke at universities, spoke to any press that would allow me to speak and, like I said, I was going to Congress and I was getting attacked back then. The attacks were personal against me. They were personal against my business and my practice. And it just got worse obviously when jumping into politics because it just gave an excuse is that “Well he’s running for office and we could attack him any way you want.” But Muslims are consistently attacked and I call it the last frontier of racism because you could say anything against a Muslim that you’d be admonished if you were in any other underrepresented class. And it’s unfortunate, but that is the reality.

Chris Hedges:

Well, I want to cite some specifics because they called you or they tried to tag you as a terrorist. They linked you to Omar Abdel Rahman, who I think you testified as a medical authority in his trial, if I remember correctly. But they used every kind of stereotype that is used to demonize Muslims against you.

Adam Hamawy:

So, to clarify, I testified as a fact witness of events that I was present at. As you know, he was a prominent figure in New Jersey and New York, at the time. I mean he had been throughout the state. That’s when I had first met him and I was asked to come and clarify events that happened. They’re trying to extrapolate and say that I was a character witness, which I was not, that I was defending him, I was clarifying events. And you know, I believe in our system of justice. I mean, this is how it was set up is that we are supposed to have witnesses. We’re supposed to have a trial, and I was in the military at the time. I was in the military before it and afterwards, I gave testimony under oath. I was probably in the court for about twenty minutes and then left. I was never accused of anything beforehand, never accused of anything afterhand. It was public, the New York Times did cover it. And yet now, because they seem to have nothing else to attack me on, they can’t talk about the issues that I’m addressing, which are that we should have healthcare not bombs, that we should be abolishing ICE, that we need to unrig this economy. They fall back on terrorism because that’s all they have. You can’t even talk about Israel anymore because they know that that’s not a winning topic. And so, the fallback with any Muslim is that they must be a terrorist. That’s what they’re using against me. That’s what they’re using against their colleagues. And to a lesser degree, in the workforce and in general society, it’s okay to call us anything you want because that’s the stereotype that’s still out there and The Right will always use that to attack and unfortunately we see some Democrats using the same tactics especially if you have nothing else to use.

Chris Hedges:

I just want to be clear, I covered Omar Abdel Rahman for the New York Times and I’m pretty certain he was framed. He was a radical cleric and many of the things he said were perhaps unpalatable to many people, but he was not the engine behind the World Trade Center attack, the earlier one, which he was accused of.

Let’s talk a little bit about the Democratic Party leadership. I think it’s interesting that Chuck Schumer’s approval rating, I believe, is lower than Donald Trump’s, which is 17 percent or something, but that’s a hostile force to people like you.

Adam Hamawy:

It shouldn’t be a hostile force. We should have a common goal and that is to beat the Republicans, to have a Democratic administration, to really address the issues that people care about. That’s what the Democratic Party is supposed to be about. It’s supposed to be about health care. It’s supposed to be about housing and affordability. And the perceived threat that is being laid out there, I think, is not what people want and I think that has been probably a failure on the Democratic Party for years in that we are a big tent. There are many people that are living in that tent, and we have to learn how to live with each other, kind of a small model of the entire country. How are we going to move forward? aAd that’s bringing everyone together.

So, this false dichotomy that they’re trying to do with ‘establishment’ and ‘progressive’ is like really these are labels and I think we need to look at what are the issues that people care about and once we start addressing the issues, we will start winning. And that’s what we’re seeing right now across the country. We’re seeing that candidates like myself that are not talking about labels. We’re not talking about Left and Right. We are talking about health care. We’re talking about housing. We’re talking about childcare. We’re talking about unrigging this economy. We want an immigration system that works. We have to get back to the issues, and I think once as a party we start focusing on that and rather like who’s who and what label you are within the party, then I think we’re going to see real success come.

Chris Hedges:

Well, while they try and demonize or characterize people like you as coming from fringe leftists or whatever terms they use, in fact the positions that you support, refusing to sustain the genocide, universal health care, these have majoritarian support within the Democratic Party. I think 77 percent of registered Democrats want to stop weapon shipments to Israel. I don’t know what the figures are for universal healthcare, but it’s 80+ percent, you probably know the figure. Within the Democratic Party base, these have majoritarian support and yet the hierarchy of the party ignores the base.

Adam Hamawy:

Yeah, unfortunately we are not fringe left. We are actually the center. This is where the Democratic Party needs to be based on the data, based on the base, based on what people actually want, and it really crosses party lines as well. I mean, these are the basic needs that people are looking for. I think that the Democratic Party has actually shifted more to the right and we are really holding that center and we’ve become perceived as farther left because everything else has shifted. But when we look at the issues, this is the majority view, as you are saying, and this is what has played out in election after election and poll after poll. And I think we need to get grounded again on why we were running, stop running after the corporate interests because that’s what’s shifting things right. The corporations have their demands and needs, and as we are taking corporate money and special interests like AIPAC, that’s changing the narrative of the entire party. And we need to really understand what we are serving and we should be serving people and that’s why we need to get the money out of politics.

Chris Hedges:

Do you worry about, especially with this kind of critique that the Democratic National Committee published, which was just vapid and empty, do you worry that the party is so adrift that Trump and the Republicans may be able to dominate the midterms?

Adam Hamawy:

If we continue to do that, we will continue to lose. We have to come to terms at some point on what are the goals. I know the Republicans themselves are not fully united, but at least they come together in elections and to have the call, pushing people out on the Democratic Party is, I think, it just hurts everyone involved. If we’re going to actually do this, like again, I think the whole two-party system is a problem in the first place, but this is the reality of our system. And so, if we are going to really work for people, what’s the most effective way to do that right now? And that’s for us to find out how we could work together to get real goals accomplished that matter. And that’s really getting the corporate interests out of our platforms and really looking at the basic needs that people are looking for.

Chris Hedges:

Do you draw a distinction between yourself and these candidates from the Democratic Socialists of America people like Mamdani?

Adam Hamawy:

I think we are all in agreement on certain issues. I am new to politics. If you asked me a year ago if I would have been here, I would have said, “Why would I do that? That’s crazy.” I found out I was a progressive when I just started running and this is what I stand for. It’s like, “You’re a progressive.” I’m like, “Great.” And so, that’s why I come from this the point of view that these labels are artificial.

So, with the DSA candidates, again, I’ve endorsed and supported many of them because they are standing for issues that people care about. They stand for health care. They stand for childcare. They stand for getting money out of politics. They stand for the working people. And while I’m not a member, I will ally myself with anyone who is working for people like myself, not taking corporate money and I think that’s something that we should all take as a sign because at this point, they’re getting attacked again by fearmongering, which is really always the last resort when you have nothing to talk about. Rather than talking about issues, they’re being called socialist. They’re being called communist. They’re being called whatever. Let’s listen to what’s actually being said on these campaigns and platforms and let’s get beyond whatever label either you’re calling yourself or anyone else is calling you.

Chris Hedges:

Well, the Democratic Party, if it was in Europe, would be considered a Far Right party, especially on the issue of war. Europeans take universal health care for granted. It’s part of a civilized society.

Adam Hamawy:

We are so far behind on the things that really matter. We are the richest country in the history of the world, yet we don’t have universal health care. We don’t have universal childcare. Our infrastructure is crumbling. We call ourselves the most powerful country in the world, but other than having a big military that we bully people with, we have nothing else to show for it.

Chris Hedges:

Having entered this race, what is it that surprised you the most? I mean what were you not expecting, number one? And number two, I want to talk about the recent State Department report put out by Rubio where he demonized people like you and particularly the DSA, and to what extent these threats against the ‘radical left’, which is ridiculous, but how they would tar you, to what extent that worries you?

Adam Hamawy:

No, I’m not worried at all. I mean, the Republicans always fall back to fear tactics. And the fact that they are demonizing and coming out on an attack like that, that means they are threatened themselves. They know that they can’t talk about the issues that really matter. So, the same thing they did for the last 30 years is that they’re going to trump up something and given what are the two arch villains that have always been used, it’s communism and Muslims. And so, here’s their perfect storm to get them together on one fictional story about how they’re taking over. No one is running on platforms of communism or having some kind of Islamic Republic. Everyone is running on issues that people care about and that’s why we are winning because people see that. We are in the communities talking to our neighbors. We’re knocking on doors. People know who we are, and they’re trying to paint us with another brush. And I found on the campaign trail, no one’s specifically asking or care about that. I think people are on their phones and they get riled up and scared. But when you go to town halls, people want to hear about how it’s going to actually impact them, how they can afford their groceries, why their energy bills are going up, why there’s a data center being built in every town at this point. These are the questions that people are asking about. And if you live in your bubble and you’re on social media and you just listen to what you want to listen to, I don’t think when it comes to elections, they’re going to matter that much.

Chris Hedges:

And what is it that you weren’t prepared for? What is it that kind of surprised you once you entered this campaign?

Adam Hamawy:

You know, I expected attacks. I think the viciousness that it comes at, it’s just at another level. It’s not just political. It does affect your family. It does affect, for me, my business and my coworkers. They try to create an environment of intimidation and fear at a level that I didn’t expect even just as a candidate.

Chris Hedges:

And how is this delivered? Is it anonymous? What tactics do they use?

Adam Hamawy:

Yeah, it’s phone calls. It’s harassment, obviously on social media it’s unfiltered. You try to ignore those as much as possible, but there are crazy people out there and they use this as an excuse to do whatever crazy thing they want to. So, while most of us are sane, unfortunately there are people who are unhinged and you can’t take these threats lightly.

Chris Hedges:

No, you only need one. So, in Congress - we’re all hoping you’re going to get there - what will be your priority?

Adam Hamawy:

So, my priority is going to be, first of all, if we take the House, which I I expect we will, is that we will have some ability to start holding the Administration and Congress to account for what’s been happening over the last few years. So, working together with my colleagues, we need to have hearings. We need to have transparency. We need to start going after the corruption that has exploded basically over the last few years. I mean it’s always been there at a level but now it’s so blatant and there’s no accountability for it. Hopefully, in a couple years, once we are actually able to start passing bills again, then we need to address these issues that we’re talking about. We need to reach a universal healthcare system here like Medicare for all. I want to restore the ACA credits. I want to make sure that we have Medicaid funding to our hospitals in our communities. I mean I see this every day. Right now, people are impacted, people are worried about once they leave the hospital how they’re going to get their follow-up care. New Jersey has a $3 billion gap now after this Big Ugly Bill that came across because they can’t cover all the resources that we need. So, we need to get our health care fixed and then we need to start bringing money back into our communities and out of these endless wars.

So, I think this trillion dollar or the $1.1 trillion budget is completely unnecessary. We spend more on our military than the next nine countries combined. That is the source for our endless wars. They’re the only ones profiting from them. Like I said, we’re not any safer because of it. When we are running out of missiles and bombs because of this war in Iran, who benefits? It’s the companies that have to make more of them. Meanwhile, our gas and grocery prices are going up. So, we need to cut that budget and start putting that money back into our communities to fix our infrastructure and transportation system, a train system that now is falling behind not only developing countries but underdeveloped countries that are working to fix their transportation. We need to start taxing the wealthy. We have billionaires in this country that are profiting off people’s misery. They’re profiting off the advantages that we have given them as a country. And if we are able to tax the wealth, they’ll still be billionaires. They’ll still be well off. But again, we’re always asked how are we going to pay for all these programs you’re talking about. We have the resources. And so, it’s been a political decision not to move these resources into our communities. And in Congress, and I think with this wave of, you call them insurgents that are coming in, it’s a wave of candidates that are fighting for the people and we are going to fight to start bringing these resources back home.

Chris Hedges:

Well, under Eisenhower the richest Americans and corporations were taxed at 91 percent, which was courtesy of the New Deal. I want to talk about Israel. Obviously, you support a cessation of military aid to Israel in an attempt to halt the genocide. We are seeing pogroms and attacks by armed settler groups in the West Bank. I mean the West Bank has really become very dire. It’s not the situation of Gaza, of course. How do we deal with that humanitarian catastrophe that the Palestinians are undergoing?

Adam Hamawy:

We are enabling it. And so, we deal with it by stopping. We have to be consistent with how we apply our own laws. We have the Leahy Laws. We should not be providing any military aid to any country, Israel or otherwise, who are not abiding by international laws. And we seem to always have an exception for Israel that is unfounded. So, we need to stop all aid, period. And until they comply, then we could start talking again about how we could fix this system, but to blame this all on Israel without looking at ourselves and our tax dollars, is I think a little bit disingenuous. You and I are paying for that genocide.

And as you pointed out, the West Bank is like in any other situation, if you did not have what’s happening in Gaza as a baseline, you would think it’s horrible. I was in the West Bank just a few months ago and we have rogue settlers that stop people in the roads. I mean, we know what just happened to Representative Ro Khanna. I experienced the same thing, where we were stopped by some random settlers, armed, no uniform, no rule of law. American citizen wearing scrubs, wearing an American flag on my chest with a US passport, filled with a car of US citizens, and we are literally told that they don’t care if you are US citizens. I had an M16 pointed at my face with the finger on the trigger. These are supposed to be our allies, but clearly, they don’t see us the same as that we are looking at them. So, I think this time of unconditional aid, unconditional support without even questioning what actually is happening on the ground is over. And Americans are waking up to the fact. This is the reality. The information is out there despite their attempts to limit it and control what’s happening. The reality is on the ground it is an apartheid state. It is abusive and I think, if we stop, that can’t continue. We are the only ones that are sustaining this genocide. And that’s why we have to look at the corruption in our politics. Why does AIPAC have so much control over our elected officials? Why did they spend over $30 million on that race in Michigan? Why am I called the anti-AIPAC candidate the day I jumped in just because I was in Gaza and was a witness and have been truthful about my answer?

What does that mean as an anti-AIPAC candidate is that I’m coming out with the truth and I’m not ready to support unconditionally. And so, we need to come to the reality that we need to be looking at what we say we stand for as a country. What are the principles that we say that we are supposed to be supporting and what are we actually doing? And again, bring these resources back home. Over $30 billion over the last three years. I did some calculations on a napkin on what that would bring to my district. That’s over $100 million that could have come to central New Jersey to fix healthcare, fix schools, fix roads, and think about that across the country. We need that here at home and we shouldn’t be using it to kill innocent families and children overseas.

Chris Hedges:

And we should be clear Israel has killed American citizens in the West Bank and Gaza.

Adam Hamawy:

Yes. They have killed imprisoned American citizens. There are citizens right now that are detained, that no one has heard about.

Chris Hedges:

I want to ask about other countries in the region like Egypt. Sisi’s Egypt has an appalling human rights record. You talk correctly about Israel’s genocide and apartheid state. And it’s tricky, I know you’re from Egypt, how would you deal with a country like Egypt?

Adam Hamawy:

I think we have to be consistent with how we apply our laws, and that goes across the board. If you are not abiding by international human rights laws, it doesn’t matter what country you are, whether you’re Israel, UAE or Egypt, then you should not receive aid from the United States. It’s that simple. And to have these laws on the books and then just applied randomly, that’s where we get into trouble. What are our values? What are we trying to promote around the world? Are we trying to promote US hegemony or are we trying to promote democracy, like we say we are? If we are, then we need to be consistent.

Chris Hedges:

I want to ask about impeachment. This is if the Democrats regain control of the House and the Senate, how important would impeachment proceedings be for you?

Adam Hamawy:

I think it is part of accountability. And we have a responsibility to our constituents. We have a responsibility to our country. And really, if we want to have a functioning democracy, it doesn’t work without accountability. And that’s what’s been absent in our government for far too long. And we need to have impeachment hearings because that brings transparency to what’s happening. It shows that you won’t be able to get away with it, because if you allow one group to get away with it, it just opens the door for more. So, even though it might be a low chance of success, I think it still should be pursued. Just because there’s a chance of failure, it doesn’t mean that we should not uphold our obligations. And I know the presidency is obviously the most clear target here, but we have to look at the officials that have been serving. Like we have a Secretary of Health that is, really it’s an abomination what’s happening to the NIH, the Department of Health, and we need to be able to go after all these officials and see how they have failed and what crimes have been committed and try to impeach anyone that we can.

Chris Hedges:

Are you a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement?

Adam Hamawy:

Yes. I am a supporter. I think it’s very important. It worked against South Africa, again another apartheid state, and we do support Israel not just militarily, but economically. And that is again money out of our pockets that is going to support an apartheid state and genocide. So, we should use every means necessary to make sure that they comply with international laws.

Chris Hedges:

Great. All right, Adam. Hopefully you will soon be my congressperson. Thank you very much for this interview. We’re all thrilled about your campaign and salute your integrity and your courage. Thank you very much.

Adam Hamawy:

Thank you very much. Appreciate your time.

Chris Hedges:

I want to thank Thomas, Diego, and Max who produced the show. You can find me at ChrisHedges.substack.com.

This article is read by Eunice Wong. You can find her work at www.eunicewong.actor.

Text originally published August 17, 2026.

Pre-order my new book "Requiem for Gaza"

Full Text:

MECHANIC FALLS, Maine — I am standing in Maple Grove Cemetery in Mechanic Falls, Maine. In front of me, within a radius of a few feet, are three rectangular granite headstones that read “HEDGES,” “BLAIR” and “PRINCE.”

Before me lie the remains of my parents, grandparents, two uncles and my aunt. The grass is parched and yellowed. There are small American flags placed in round metal holders, slightly askew, next to each gravestone.

All of the men were World War II veterans. My father was an Army sergeant in North Africa and the Middle East. Uncle Ellsworth was in the Merchant Marine and went back and forth in the North Atlantic convoys. Uncle Morris fought on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands and Luzon in the Philippines, where he was wounded. My grandfather, Philip Prince, an Army master sergeant, trained troops in Texas.

Besides being identified as veterans, there is little information available from these plots, although my father is named as the Rev. Thomas Hedges. The women, including my mother, who was an English professor, have almost nothing to identify them. Their names. Their dates of birth and death.

Patriarchy rules, even in death.

Service to the war machine of the state confers the ultimate status, especially in small, rural towns, although my father and Uncle Morris loathed war and the military. Uncle Morris returned from the South Pacific and drank himself to death as he struggled with physical and emotional wounds. My father, unlike my other relatives, refused to have a gun in the house. He became a pacifist after the war and an anti-war activist during the war on Vietnam. He told me as a boy that if the Vietnam War was still being fought when I was 18, and if I was drafted, he would go to prison with me.

I carry that image, my father and I, in a cell.

I feel grief and loss. But I also feel something else. These individuals loom large in my consciousness. They visit me in dreams. They carry the gargantuan imprint our immediate family makes on us, for good or ill.

I can summon up their faces and voices.

Small, insignificant moments in our lives, like old-time movie reels, play in my head. Fishing in trout streams with my grandfather. Duck hunting in icy waters on the Maine coast with Uncle Ellsworth. Sitting in a hard wooden pew during my father’s sermons. Arguing with my mother — which I did frequently — about William Faulkner, who I loved and who she did not. My slight and wickedly funny grandmother in her apron, cooking French toast on the white porcelain stove. Uncle Morris, disheveled and seated at my grandparents’ small kitchen table, his breath smelling of alcohol, which no one else in our family drank. Aunt Miriam, who we called Auntie Mim, who had no children and who doted on my sister, brother and me.

I always wanted to be a writer.

My mother, even before I could read, would type up my stories and staple them together in little pamphlets. When I arrived at my grandparents’ house, which burned down shortly after my grandmother died, I would climb upstairs to find yellow legal pads and neat rows of sharpened pencils laid out on a birdseye maple sewing table.

Lunch in rural communities is the big meal. Not dinner. My grandmother, when it was time to eat, would shout up the narrow stairs, “Christafa,” in the thick Maine accent that colored the speech of my relatives.

The red wooden barn, where swings hung from the thick beams for us as children and where I hand-tied fishing flies with my grandfather, is a pile of broken timber.

My grandfather, who smoked a pack of unfiltered Camel cigarettes a day and died at 85, unsurprisingly, of emphysema, would mix batches of Prince’s Insect Repellent in the barn. He poured it into small amber-colored glass bottles to sell to gun and tackle shops.

One afternoon, he took me out to the barn and made me put my hand on a Bible.

“Swear you will never tell this formula to anyone,” he intoned.

I promised.

He then made me doubly swear not to divulge it to my mother, his daughter. They had a fraught relationship, given his domineering personality and my mother’s formidable resistance.

Love is imperfect.

I am alone in the Maple Grove Cemetery. There is nothing to stop me from speaking to the empty space. I tell them I love them. I tell them I miss them.

I carry memories of a few dramatic intervals in our lives. Mostly, I carry mundane interactions of daily existence, which death makes sacred.

Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town is set in the fictional town of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire between 1901 and 1913. In the play Emily Gibbs dies at 26 giving birth to her second child. She joins the dead in the town cemetery. She defies the advice of the departed townspeople around her and returns to earth to relive one happy day.

She goes back to the day of her 12th birthday. It is dawn.

No one from her past can see or hear her as she speaks to them.

“I can’t bear it,” Emily says as she watches her birthday celebration. “They’re so young and beautiful. Why did they ever have to get old?”

“Oh, Mama,” she implores, “just look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I’m dead. You’re a grandmother, Mama. I married George Gibbs, Mama. Wally’s dead, too. Mama, his appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about it — don’t you remember? But, just for a moment now we’re all together. Mama, just for a moment we’re happy. Let’s look at one another.”

“I can’t,” she goes on. “I can’t go on. It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another.”

Emily breaks down sobbing.

“Take me back — up the hill — to my grave,” Emily says. “But first: Wait! One more look.”

She looks left, out past the audience and then to the right.

“Good-by, Good-by, world,” she says. “Good-by, Grover’s Corners...Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking…and Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths…and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”

Emily and the other spirits watch the stars come out over Grover’s Corners. She admits she should have listened to them.

It was a mistake to return.

“Yes, now you know,” Simon Stimson, the bitter, alcoholic choirmaster, tells Emily. “Now you know! That’s what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those…of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another. Now you know — that’s the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness.”

“Simon Stimson,” Emily’s mother-in-law Mrs. Gibbs says, “that ain’t the whole truth and you know it.”

Emily’s husband George comes to the cemetery. He throws himself on her grave. He does not speak.

“They don’t understand, do they?” Emily says.

“No dear,” Mrs. Gibbs says. “They don’t understand.”

It is dusk in Maple Grove Cemetery. It is time to leave.

My generation will follow the generation before me. This is the ancient rhythm of existence.

Death comes faster than we imagine. It robs us of all that is most precious. I carry these dead with me. I will carry them until I, too, depart. They remind me of my obligation to the living. They remind me, as the poets and sages tell us, that life is sacred, that love must always be honored, that our existence is brief, that human beings are fragile, that one day the memories we carry will vanish, that we are made from dust, and to dust we will return.

Live, the dead whisper, while you can.

Photos

Anti-Vietnam War protests in Boston in 1969

Vietnam Veterans Against the War march in Anti-Vietnam War protests in Boston in 1969 October 15, 1969 (Photo by Owen Franken/Getty Images)

Vietnamese Mother And Children Flee Village Bombing

In this Pulitzer Prize winning photo, A Vietnamese mother and her children wade across a river, fleeing a bombing raid on Qui Nhon by United States aircraft, Vietnam, September 7, 1965. The raid was organized to knock out Viet Cong snipers in the village who were firing on United States Marines. Women and children were warned to leave the village before the bombs began to fall. (Photo by K. Sawada/Bettmann/Corbis via Getty Images)

Arrests At ‘Days Of Rage’

A group of young men and women are held against a car as they are detained and arrested by police at ‘Days of Rage’ protest activities, Chicago, October 11, 1969. The ‘Days of Rage’ protests were organized by the Weathermen, an offshoot of SDS, to protest the Chicago Seven trial and ‘to bring the war home.’ (Photo by David Fenton/Getty Images)

William Faulkner

(Original Caption) 5/6/1955- Oxford, MS: William Faulkner with pipe and hat. Despite all his fame and fortune (starting in 1924 with the publication of “The Marble Faun”) he lives the quiet life of a country squire at Oxford, where his printed world and his breathing world co-exist.

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MECHANIC FALLS, Maine — I am standing in Maple Grove Cemetery in Mechanic Falls, Maine. In front of me, within a radius of a few feet, are three rectangular granite headstones that read “HEDGES,” “BLAIR” and “PRINCE.”

Before me lie the remains of my parents, grandparents, two uncles and my aunt. The grass is parched and yellowed. There are small American flags placed in round metal holders, slightly askew, next to each gravestone.

All of the men were World War II veterans. My father was an Army sergeant in North Africa and the Middle East. Uncle Ellsworth was in the Merchant Marine and went back and forth in the North Atlantic convoys. Uncle Morris fought on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands and Luzon in the Philippines, where he was wounded. My grandfather, Philip Prince, an Army master sergeant, trained troops in Texas.

Besides being identified as veterans, there is little information available from these plots, although my father is named as the Rev. Thomas Hedges. The women, including my mother, who was an English professor, have almost nothing to identify them. Their names. Their dates of birth and death.

Patriarchy rules, even in death.

Service to the war machine of the state confers the ultimate status, especially in small, rural towns, although my father and Uncle Morris loathed war and the military. Uncle Morris returned from the South Pacific and drank himself to death as he struggled with physical and emotional wounds. My father, unlike my other relatives, refused to have a gun in the house. He became a pacifist after the war and an anti-war activist during the war on Vietnam. He told me as a boy that if the Vietnam War was still being fought when I was 18, and if I was drafted, he would go to prison with me.

I carry that image, my father and I, in a cell.

I feel grief and loss. But I also feel something else. These individuals loom large in my consciousness. They visit me in dreams. They carry the gargantuan imprint our immediate family makes on us, for good or ill.

I can summon up their faces and voices.

Small, insignificant moments in our lives, like old-time movie reels, play in my head. Fishing in trout streams with my grandfather. Duck hunting in icy waters on the Maine coast with Uncle Ellsworth. Sitting in a hard wooden pew during my father’s sermons. Arguing with my mother — which I did frequently — about William Faulkner, who I loved and who she did not. My slight and wickedly funny grandmother in her apron, cooking French toast on the white porcelain stove. Uncle Morris, disheveled and seated at my grandparents’ small kitchen table, his breath smelling of alcohol, which no one else in our family drank. Aunt Miriam, who we called Auntie Mim, who had no children and who doted on my sister, brother and me.

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I always wanted to be a writer.

My mother, even before I could read, would type up my stories and staple them together in little pamphlets. When I arrived at my grandparents’ house, which burned down shortly after my grandmother died, I would climb upstairs to find yellow legal pads and neat rows of sharpened pencils laid out on a birdseye maple sewing table.

Lunch in rural communities is the big meal. Not dinner. My grandmother, when it was time to eat, would shout up the narrow stairs, “Christafa,” in the thick Maine accent that colored the speech of my relatives.

The red wooden barn, where swings hung from the thick beams for us as children and where I hand-tied fishing flies with my grandfather, is a pile of broken timber.

My grandfather, who smoked a pack of unfiltered Camel cigarettes a day and died at 85, unsurprisingly, of emphysema, would mix batches of Prince’s Insect Repellent in the barn. He poured it into small amber-colored glass bottles to sell to gun and tackle shops.

One afternoon, he took me out to the barn and made me put my hand on a Bible.

“Swear you will never tell this formula to anyone,” he intoned.

I promised.

He then made me doubly swear not to divulge it to my mother, his daughter. They had a fraught relationship, given his domineering personality and my mother’s formidable resistance.

Love is imperfect.

I am alone in the Maple Grove Cemetery. There is nothing to stop me from speaking to the empty space. I tell them I love them. I tell them I miss them.

I carry memories of a few dramatic intervals in our lives. Mostly, I carry mundane interactions of daily existence, which death makes sacred.

Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town is set in the fictional town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire between 1901 and 1913. In the play Emily Gibbs dies at 26 giving birth to her second child. She joins the dead in the town cemetery. She defies the advice of the departed townspeople around her and returns to earth to relive one happy day.

She goes back to the day of her 12th birthday. It is dawn.

No one from her past can see or hear her as she speaks to them.

“I can’t bear it,” Emily says as she watches her birthday celebration. “They’re so young and beautiful. Why did they ever have to get old?”

“Oh, Mama,” she implores, “just look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I’m dead. You’re a grandmother, Mama. I married George Gibbs, Mama. Wally’s dead, too. Mama, his appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about it — don’t you remember? But, just for a moment now we’re all together. Mama, just for a moment we’re happy. Let’s look at one another.”

“I can’t,” she goes on. “I can’t go on. It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another.”

Emily breaks down sobbing.

“Take me back — up the hill — to my grave,” Emily says. “But first: Wait! One more look.”

She looks left, out past the audience and then to the right.

“Good-by, Good-by, world,” she says. “Good-by, Grover’s Corners...Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking…and Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths…and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”

Emily and the other spirits watch the stars come out over Grover’s Corners. She admits she should have listened to them.

It was a mistake to return.

“Yes, now you know,” Simon Stimson, the bitter, alcoholic choirmaster, tells Emily. “Now you know! That’s what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those…of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another. Now you know — that’s the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness.”

“Simon Stimson,” Emily’s mother-in-law Mrs. Gibbs says, “that ain’t the whole truth and you know it.”

Emily’s husband George comes to the cemetery. He throws himself on her grave. He does not speak.

“They don’t understand, do they?” Emily says.

“No dear,” Mrs. Gibbs says. “They don’t understand.”

It is dusk in Maple Grove Cemetery. It is time to leave.

My generation will follow the generation before me. This is the ancient rhythm of existence.

Death comes faster than we imagine. It robs us of all that is most precious. I carry these dead with me. I will carry them until I, too, depart. They remind me of my obligation to the living. They remind me, as the poets and sages tell us, that life is sacred, that love must always be honored, that our existence is brief, that human beings are fragile, that one day the memories we carry will vanish, that we are made from dust, and to dust we will return.

Live, the dead whisper, while you can.

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Pre-order my new book "Requiem for Gaza"

The Peace President - by Mr. Fish

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There is no ceasefire in Gaza. There is no functioning “Board of Peace.” There is no roadmap to ending the genocide or mechanism to creation of a Palestinian state. Israel has refused to implement or abide by any of the conditions of Trump’s “Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict” since its inception. It won’t begin to honor them now.

There is only genocide. It changes shape and intensity. But it does not change its essence.

Trump’s plan is a mirage, a conjuring trick, a fleeting vanity project. In October 2025, Trump gathered world leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to announce his peace deal, which he said “took 3,000 years” to achieve, before disappearing offstage. The peace plan, like the smoke-and-mirrors act that defines the Trump era, has been relegated to a dark memory hole, as our P.T. Barnum commander in chief trots out another bloody spectacle: war on Iran.

Trump announced a “historic” agreement on July 30 that entailed “the complete disarmament of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza.” He called the 15-point plan, credited to the Board of Peace, which has no Palestinian representatives and installed Trump as its chair for life, “a monumental step toward lasting peace and security.”

But Hamas swiftly qualified the demand by saying that handing over its heavy weapons was only contingent on Israel ending “all forms of” its “aggression” and withdrawing its occupying forces from Gaza. Benjamin Netanyahu blithely dismissed Trump’s proposal. Israel, he said, will not withdraw its forces until Hamas is “genuinely” disarmed.

Read this to mean never.

The peace plan — which was endorsed by the United Nations in a stunning disregard for Palestinian sovereignty and international law — was never more than a publicity stunt. It exists to provide Israel with the diplomatic cover to bring the genocide to its intended conclusion — the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza — a euphemism for ethnic cleansing.

Since the “ceasefire” went into effect on Oct. 10, 2025, two months before the Trump “peace plan” was formalised, Israel has killed 1,258 Palestinians in Gaza.

Ceasefires with these body counts are not ceasefires.

Once Gaza is emptied, the West Bank will be next.

Of the myriads of peace plans over the decades, this one is the least serious.

Aside from a demand that Hamas release the hostages within 72-hours after the ceasefire began — which took place — it lacks specifics and imposed timetables. It is filled with caveats that allow Israel to abrogate the agreement.

That is the point.

“It is not designed to be a viable path to peace, which most Israeli leaders understand,” I wrote when the plan was announced. “Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper, Israel Hayom, established by the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson to serve as a mouthpiece for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and champion messianic Zionism, instructed its readers not to be concerned about the Trump plan because it is only ‘rhetoric’”

Israel, I noted, in one example from the proposal, will “not return to areas that have been withdrawn from, as long as Hamas fully implements the agreement.”

“Who decides if Hamas has “fully implemented” the agreement?” I asked. “Israel. Does anyone believe in Israel’s good faith? Can Israel be trusted as an objective arbitrator of the agreement? If Hamas — demonized as a terrorist group — objects, will anyone listen?”

“How is it possible that a peace proposal ignores the International Court of Justice’s July 2024 Advisory Opinion, which reiterated that Israel’s occupation is illegal and must end?” I continued. “How can it fail to mention the Palestinian’s right to self-determination?”

“Who gave the U.S. the authority to send to Gaza an “International Stabilization Force,” a polite term for foreign occupation?” I wrote. “Why is Israel, which has destroyed Gaza, not required to pay reparations?”

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Ninety-two percent of Gaza’s residential buildings have been damaged or destroyed and around 81 percent of all structures are damaged, according to UN estimates. The Strip has been reduced to 61 million tons of rubble, including nine million tons of hazardous waste that includes asbestos, industrial waste, and heavy metals, in addition to unexploded ordinance and an estimated 10,000 decaying corpses. Israel has demolished some 1,500 buildings since the ceasefire went into effect.

How can anyone believe that Israel, intent on leveling Gaza, will reverse itself to allow Palestinians to rebuild what it spent so much time, money and blood to destroy?

Retired Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, a former head of Israel’s National Security Council, echoed this sentiment on Sunday on Israel’s 103FM radio station.

“Israel has no interest in Gaza being rebuilt, it is better for us that it be destroyed for generations to come,” Eiland said.

“The greater the despair in Gaza and the greater the destruction, and the greater the monument to what they did on October 7, years to come, that is good,” he added.

Israel will never permit reconstruction in Gaza. It will never restore health facilities or water treatment plants. It will never turn over authority to an International Stabilization Force (ISF), one which only exists on paper. It will never permit the creation of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza or agree to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.

Trump promises a Gaza Riviera that will function as a “special economic zone” — a territory operating outside of state law governed entirely by private investors, such as the Peter Thiel-backed charter city in Honduras. But Trump’s Gaza Riviera is nothing more than a pathetic temporary camp along the ceasefire line near Rafah. It consists of “portable cabins” under Palestinian administration and a tiny international security force, according to The Guardian.

It is touted, in desperation, as a pilot scheme.

Despite some $17 billion in pledges to the Board of Peace, as of late May 2026 not a single dollar had reached its official World Bank-administered Gaza reconstruction fund. Only about $23 million had been received through alternative channels for operating costs, with a further $100 million pledged by the United Arab Emirates that was earmarked for a future Palestinian police force, though it remains “frozen,” according to the Financial Times.

This amounts to about $0.72 for every $100 pledged.

Given the heavy economic costs incurred by Gulf and regional donor countries because of the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran — including Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and the UAE — it is very unlikely the pledged funds will be paid.

The European Union, the U.N. and the World Bank, in an assessment published in April, estimated that $71.4 billion is needed for recovery in Gaza.

The Board of Peace, for which Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov is the principal official, is desperate for funds. The U.S. attempted to pilfer $11 billion in Palestinian tax revenues and frozen bank funds withheld by Israel, which was rejected by the Palestinian Authority (PA). The Israeli withholding of tax revenues has deepened the ⁠financial crisis in the West Bank, with the PA slashing salaries in half of thousands of Palestinian civil servants.

The ISF, a multinational peacekeeping force that is supposed to be composed of troops from Albania, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Uganda and Indonesia — the latter of which has since suspended its commitment, is also nonexistent.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Settlements and National Missions Minister Orit Strook have demanded that Netanyahu reconvene the Security Cabinet so that its July 26 vote authorizing the entry of ISF troops can be reversed.

The entire Trump project is an Alice-in-Wonderland fantasy.

Anyone in Gaza who strays close to the Yellow Line — which is constantly shifting and poorly marked — is shot. Police are shot. Hamas leaders, along with their families — including Azzam Khalil al-Hayya, the son of Khalil al-Hayya who was the head of Hamas’ political bureau and the faction’s lead negotiator — are assassinated. Palestinians lining up at food kitchens and those handing out aid to them are obliterated by Israeli bombs. Israel restricts food and humanitarian aid to half of the trucks stipulated in the ceasefire agreement.

Palestinians, 90 percent of whom have been displaced, continue to live in tent cities amid rubble and open pools of raw sewage. They lack toilets or electricity. There is an 80 percent unemployment rate. Tens of thousands of children suffer acute malnutrition in Gaza. A child, on average, is killed every day.

Tacitus understood. They made a desert and call it peace.

Trump’s plan was not designed to end the conflict. It was not designed to provide an equitable settlement for the Palestinians. It was not designed to halt the ongoing mass slaughter. It was designed to allow Israel to complete its genocide and drive surviving Palestinians from their homeland — the culmination of the Zionist dream.

Trump, however obtuse, has at least figured this out.

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This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

The United States and Israel’s attacks on Iran have inflamed West Asia to the point that it has turned “into a matrix of smaller wars taking place across the region, all of which are interconnected, but all of which have quite separate agendas,” describes Alistair Crooke of Conflicts Forum, a former diplomat who served in the Middle East and who authored, “Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution”. In this episode of the Chris Hedges Report, Hedges and Crooke explore the wide-reaching geopolitical and economic ramifications of the war on Iran and what options remain for the Trump administration, which has been forced multiple times to walk back its threats of escalation.

The war on Iran has depleted a significant percentage of US munitions, costing tens of billions of dollars so far, and has lowered the US’ strategic petroleum reserves to its lowest level in over forty years. The closure of both the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab Strait have blocked oil exports from Saudi Arabia completely, as well as other products that were previously traded through these major transit routes. This has rocked the global economy, sending Japan into a debt crisis.

As countries scramble to adjust to these new realities, there is no end in sight to the crisis. The Trump administration is running out of options. Crooke describes the fall of US military hegemony in the region and how this has changed the mood in Iran, saying, “It’s triggered something much more profound, a memory of Iran as a major civilizational power, as something that has been a dominant influence in the region for thousands of years.” He states that Iran is prepared for and expects a long war as negotiations with the United States are not a reliable route to peace.

Hedges and Crooke discuss the numerous and growing wars in the region from the state of Israel, where leaders are pushing to force Palestinians out of the West Bank ahead of the October election, to the increasingly fragile situation in Iraq, to the hot war between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. No country in the region is untouched as even Egypt and Jordan are positioning troops along their borders. The fate of millions of people in West Asia is at stake as Washington scrambles to protect dollar hegemony and risks what Crooke refers to as a “slow tactical nuclear weapons strike,” the destruction of infrastructure that provides the energy and water necessary to sustain their lives.

Pre-order my new book "Requiem for Gaza"

Host

Chris Hedges

Executive Producer:

Max Jones

Intro:

Margaret Flowers

Transcript:

Margaret Flowers

Crew:

Diego Ramos and Thomas Hedges

Transcript

Chris Hedges:

Donald Trump has canceled a planned large-scale military attack on Iran. This cancellation follows reports that the U.S. has expended large quantities of critical munitions since the war began on February 28th. These depletions include tomahawk long-range missiles that are fired from sea at ground targets. Of the estimated 3,000 tomahawks in the U.S. arsenal, 1,000 have apparently been used. Some 1,100 Jassam air-launched long-range missiles out of about 4,000 have also been used in the war. Some 40 to 70 PRSM ground-launched long-range missiles, of which the U.S. only had 90 in its stockpile, have been fired on Iran, virtually exhausting the entire inventory. The ship-launched ballistic SM-3 missile, which costs $28 million, numbered around 410 before the war. The U.S. may have used as many as 250.

The SM six, also ship-launched, is used to intercept aircraft and cruise missiles. Somewhere between 190 and 370 have been used from a stockpile of 1,160. Of the some 360 THAAD anti-ballistic missile systems, as many as 290 have been fired on Iran. And finally, of the estimated 2,300 Patriot missiles, between 1,060 and 1,430 have been expended.

The depletion of vital weapons systems is not the only problem facing the Trump administration, but also the depletion of the Strategic Petroleum Oil Reserve. Bank of America Global Research shows that the level of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is at its lowest level since 1983, leaving the country with 43 days of crude oil supply. Add to these depletions the inability of the U.S. to wrest control of the Strait of Hormuz from Iran, and you have a war that by any measure the U.S. can no longer afford to prosecute.

Iran’s FARS News Agency is reporting that an Iranian parliamentary committee is reviewing a preliminary bill that would bar US, Israeli, and other ‘hostile vessels’ from transiting the Strait. Iran and Oman, which now jointly control the Strait, said they had formalized shipping routes through the waterway, whose closure has triggered, of course, the global energy crisis.

Trump’s sunny assessment of the war is not new, nor is the walking back of apocalyptic threats to obliterate Iran. For example, on April 7th, he threatened that a “whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again if Iran did not immediately open the Strait,” and then two hours later, before his imposed deadline, he backed down, instead announcing a two-week ceasefire. This pattern of threats and retreats has eroded Trump’s credibility. It has distanced an already skeptical Iran from any proposed negotiations. Iran assumes correctly it cannot trust anything the President says. And it also knows that the U.S. cannot afford to prolong the conflict without suffering tremendous military and economic costs.

Joining me to discuss the state of the current war, is Alastair Crooke, a former British diplomat who served for many years in the Middle East, working as a security advisor to the EU special envoy to the Middle East, as well as helping lead efforts to set up negotiations and truces between Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian resistance groups. He was instrumental in establishing the 2002 ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. He is also the author of “Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution”, which analyzes the ascendancy of Islamic movements in the Middle East. So, Alastair, let’s begin with where we are at this moment. As I mentioned in the introduction, Trump had threatened a massive bombing campaign. Once again, he retreated. You have this agreement between Oman and Iran. Just set the stage for us, if you can.

Alastair Crooke

Certainly. I thought, though, one of the things was quite striking, you read off this list of missiles and weapons that have been depleted during the course of the war and what is quite remarkable is how little that has achieved. It has not degraded Iran’s missile capability to any great extent. It has not brought a change in posture by Iran. It has failed utterly to change the war. And it really, I think, represents the end of a way of fighting. Over the period we’ve seen since the Second World War, the West has completely moved over to the idea of control of airspace, control of ability to carpet bomb its enemies, and believed it had complete freedom to go where it wanted, when it wanted, how it wished. And that’s come to an end. And what has brought it to an end is basically cheap electronic components that have allowed states to produce missiles. And so, Iran has actually found the answer to this. You bury your missiles. You bury the production systems. You bury the leadership. It was called a “mosaic system”, but it’s been very effective. And I think you’re reading off of that list underlines just how much it is, both Israel and the United States say that Iran has the same capacity in terms of the missiles. They don’t have an air force, but they have missile air dominance at this stage over the Gulf. And in contrast to the air dominance that the United States has not been able to fully achieve.

You ask where we are. Where we are is these talks. They’re really, just to be absolutely clear, they’re just talks, technical talks. Still at the moment, they are the technical teams discussing the Straits between Oman. America is not involved in it, although undoubtedly certain mediators will be sort of on the phone all the time to the Omanis. But my understanding is basically this. There’s no intention on the part of Iran to open Hormuz in the sense of opening it to all traffic at zero cost. There’s no intention to do that. It may be opened very cautiously, for example, to Chinese vessels and tankers, but it’s not going to be opened in the sense of as it used to be.

Secondly, the Iranians are going to charge fees. Seven percent is mooted, and they are also going to charge 20 percent fines for any vessels that do not stick to the rules set by the new administration for the Hormuz Straits. I think what we’re going to see is, and the discussions are about, the question of whether there are two corridors or one corridor, an outward corridor and an inward corridor. At the moment, there is, if you like, just one corridor because the Iranians have shut the corridor that goes along the coast of the Omani shoreline and exits that way by mining it. So, that one is effectively closed. In fact, I think just this morning, an Abu Dhabi tanker tried to use that exit and was attacked with missiles and damaged and has turned back. So, that is still not operating. The northern route is under IRGC control, I think some vessels are passing to China, but the amount of passages is very few. And so, I think that what Trump will be faced with is the proposal that Iran controls Hormuz, that it will control passage in and out, although passage may be administered by the Omanis under IRGC ultimate control. In other words, all the details of vessels will have to be passed to the IRGC before they are allowed to enter this route. And the process is still going to be completely administered, and it is going to be closed. This is not part of the negotiating team’s remit. The Majlis in Tehran seems to be saying that they are going to produce a law that would forbid in any future time after the war is over that shipping either from the United States or Israel will not be allowed passage through Hormuz.

My understanding is none of this is going to come into operation, according to the Iranians, until after an agreement, after the war is ended, after it’s been established that there really is a ceasefire, that the US blockade is lifted, after sanctions have been lifted on petroleum and oil products from Iran for export. Only at that point will these new regulations fully come into being. But this still hasn’t been, as my understanding, put to the Supreme Leader and passed by the committee that supervises the security. They’re still discussing it at the technical level. And so, it may be a little while until the talks are finished. But I think it will face Mr. Trump with the very obvious dilemma, I mean, either he accepts that this is a loss. Maybe he can accept it. We had Mr. President in just recent hours saying, “Well, Hormuz, it’s actually irrelevant. I mean, in a couple of years, we won’t need Hormuz anyway.” He didn’t mention the Red Sea, and he didn’t mention Bab-el-Mandeb, but he just said Hormuz might be irrelevant.

Is this the beginning of preparation for an exit? It’s too early to say. Who knows? But the question is, is Trump able, after his entire career, after his coaching by Roy Cohn, “Never be a loser, you always must be a winner,” and is he able to stand this or will he try another military action even though, as you rightly pointed out, that it seems there is really not much point to another military escalation because it won’t change anything in terms, it won’t change the posture of Iran, of its determination to control Hormuz and they are not about to open it. And even to start negotiations, they would require from the United States that they make commitments upfront, in advance and only then would negotiations be even possible.

But overall, as you said in the introduction, quite rightly, that Iran just doesn’t believe it’s possible to arrive at a complete settlement with Mr. Trump, with the administration. It is dismissive of the MOU. It sees that the United States is just using this pattern of threats and then talk of a deal. It’s all about the markets. It’s all about manipulation of the oil price. And the Iranians are laughing at this now. Now they’re setting out pieces of paper which show how many futures were sold just before Monday and the whole manipulation is being detailed by the Iranians. And so for them, the MOU has become much less important because they see that it’s really not intended to be a document from which negotiations could develop, could issue forth because really it is all about manipulating markets because Trump’s main concern really now is markets and the oil price and inflation and above all, the bond market.

Chris Hedges:

Well, you have all these accusations of insider trading within the Trump administration. It is possible, I suppose, that like the late Roman Empire, the emperors in the late Roman Empire would go up to Gaul and the Germanic tribes would beat back the Roman legions and then the emperors would just stage a triumphal march through the city of Rome even though they’d been shellacked. That is very much in Trump’s vein. So, reality and loss and defeat may be facts, but they’re not necessarily facts that Trump will acknowledge.

I want to talk a little bit about the agreement because the original agreement was supposed to be carried out in phases. I think it’s pretty clear that Iran will not sign something like that again. This was an unprovoked war. It was a criminal war of aggression under international law and verified by the head of the UN and others. And Iran wants reparations. It wants its frozen assets, about $100 billion released, and that’s the one side, and then of course it wants a guarantee that it will not be attacked again. And on the other side, Trump is facing the midterms, his poll numbers are very low and I think it’s clear the White House desperately wants, even if it’s an interim agreement, some kind of an agreement that they can limp through with for the next few months, certainly until November. And I wondered if you can address those two competing concerns.

Alastair Crooke:

Yes, and I think, what you described is almost a phase of the war that is now behind us in the sense that that MOU is now widely regarded, there’s a small faction that doesn’t see it in this way, but overall, the leadership regards the MOU as a deceit. It was a deceit that was deliberately done because the purpose of it was simply to get Hormuz open as quickly as possible and so it was signed up without any real serious intent of taking it to any sort of conclusion. So, I mean, there is no real sense that this is the building block towards an agreement that will be respected by Trump. It was in their view a deceit and therefore we are in a different phase.

I think that phase is to increase the pressure on Trump by, first of all in the markets, in terms of the Red Sea is now closed. The Houthis again have been attacking Saudi tankers that are trying to enter and go to the Yanbu Port in the Red Sea to load oil and stopping that. So, there’s very little traffic. It’s open to other traffic but not to Saudi tankers. So, the Saudis, I think, this is the first time that they’ve exported no oil at all during this period. Zero oil.

Chris Hedges:

And just to interrupt to interrupt, Alastair, I believe the Saudis were exporting about six million barrels a day through the Red Sea. Is that correct?

Alastair Crooke:

That’s it. And it’s now down to zero. Overall, it’s now down to zero. And the UAE has not been exporting oil during this period either. And so, the main element is that Iran sees it as leverage because you mentioned, if you like, the effects on the oil markets. But actually, what is so important is really the type of oil that is lacking. That is crucial to their thinking in the equation because what Iran and the Hormuz Strait was supplying were basically the middle distillates of oil, not light oil. America has light oil from the fracking fields and Permian and so on and Venezuela has the ultimately heaviest oil, almost like tar, sitting on the other side but the middle distillates are the ones that provide diesel and kerosene for aircraft and those are in drastically short supply. The asking price in refineries to get a barrel today of middle distillates is much higher than in the future. The markets are in backwardation. The crisis is in diesel and in kerosene. And that’s one of the reasons I’m not sure we’d see a major attack on Iran because aircraft, if you’re going to do a major air operation, it takes a lot of aviation fuel to mount that sort of operation. F-15s, F-35s consume it by the gallon, and have to be refueled after 250 miles or so.

So, I think one part of this is going to be the leverage. The second part that we’re going to see, and change, is also the idea of being shifting, and this is what we’re seeing in this phase. Iran has moved to a more proactive stance. They’re not simply going to wait till the United States attacks and then consider or have already lined up the targets that it’s going to attack in retribution. They are keeping up a quiet level of proactive attacks on the United States, on Gulf states. And, at the moment, Israel is not involved, but they are keeping up a level of military proactive force. In other words, extending the war, making it extremely difficult for Trump to say he’s won the war, to put pressure on him and at the same time, not to go so far that it explodes the whole situation into a big war but to continue to attack vessels. As I say, Abu Dhabi tanker, Adnok, the state oil company, was attacked just in the recent hours. While these talks are going on in Oman, they haven’t stopped and it’s not in response to an American attack. So, proactive attacks and the sense increasingly is that Trump is under pressure and they think that Iran feels it has the cards, as Trump calls it, that they are in a better position and that they see that if they are going into a long war with the United States, then they have the capacity and control over Hormuz is crucial because they can finance a long war if they have the fees and the passage charges for Hormuz. It’s estimated at about 100 billion a year. You can finance a war in that way. So, the thinking is changing a little bit towards putting more pressure on Trump and not looking to an agreement.

My understanding is we’ve gone back to the sense that Iran has had for some time is that this will not be settled in some sort of deal, that, ultimately, they’ve thought for long time that a war with the United States was inevitable, that that was the only way out of the predicament in which Iran has been trapped for the last 47 years, and that this war was inevitable. It was going to come. And I think that if it comes, they feel they are ready for it and in a much better position than Mr. Trump in Washington. As the pressures on the oil markets bite and also as the military realities of Washington become obvious, the inability to fire standoff weapons, the inability to really do damage to the missile cities. So, what is he going to attack? Pickaxe Mountain? It’s a granite mountain with whatever facilities it has buried a thousand meters under granite. I mean, all that would happen is he’d bounce bombs off it. It wouldn’t hit it. One of their missile cities has now been hit 45 times by American bombing during that process and still half an hour afterwards, it was firing missiles from that same site.

So, I think we’re in a different sort of atmospherics, different phase to increase the pressure on the United States because the appetite for a quick deal is not there and that is very clearly reflected on the ground in Iran. We saw this during the funeral process and others. The Iranian mood has become quite changed. It’s triggered something much more profound, sort of triggered a memory of Iran as a major civilizational power, as something that has been a dominant influence in the region for thousands of years, and is being treated with no respect and discourtesy and called scum. And this has produced a very tough mentality, I think, amongst the young. So, what you saw was not people on the streets saying, “Come on, let’s have a deal. We want to get back to a deal.” I mean, the call is, “We want revenge.” That’s what the young are shouting for. That’s what we saw in those huge gatherings that took place at the funerals, both there and in Iraq. And in Iraq, too, three cities, each one producing four to five million people on the streets to mark the funeral of the late Supreme Leader.

Chris Hedges:

I want to ask about the effects of this war within the region, but before I do, I wondered if you could address the potential consequences of a prolonged closure of both the Bab-el-Mandeb and the Strait on not just necessarily the oil markets, but on the global economy.

Alastair Crooke:

It’s difficult to give you a straight quantitative answer to that because so much is unknown. We are in the middle, or at least the United States is trying to deal with a major crisis in Japan of the Japanese Yen falling precipitously and America trying to bail out, Bessent trying to bail out Japan from its collapsing currency and having to resort to sell off euros in order to buy yen to try and support it. Why is Japan important? Well, because it has $1.2 trillion of U.S. Treasuries, but also because of its strange situation. For decades, it’s had such low interest rates that it has been a boon, of course, to Wall Street because they could borrow cheaply in Japan and lend expensively in the US and it was effortless profits that were made in this way. And suddenly interest rates are rising and they are going up. And much of Japanese economy, about 14%, are really zombie economies, by which I mean they don’t make enough profits to cover their debts. I mean, in other parts of the world you might say they’re bankrupt, but they’re calling them ‘Zombie companies’. That’s 14 % of the economy trying to keep this up without showing any signs of further weakening of the dollar. And so, we’re now doing complicated exercises of saying that we’re going to borrow the Japanese’s treasuries against ultimate repayment in due course, but we’re going to let you have the money for these things now so that you can buy more yen and try and prop it up. But in short what I’m saying is the bond market is in a state of crisis and therefore the markets are in a state of crisis.

I think in some ways Netanyahu let the cat out of the bag when he came back from Washington. Yes, he said, “Look, this was the best meeting ever. Everything was wonderful.” Netanyahu’s fighting an election campaign. That’s what that’s all about. But then he said, “Mr. Trump is trying to prevent an economic collapse.” That’s what it was. And I think he hit the nail on the head that the focus very much is now on preserving the economy, on preserving the dollar hegemony, on preserving the petrodollar, on preserving that whole structure of credit, provision of credit and finance, which underwrites the US military presence around the world, which finances wars and finances the weapons that fight the wars. And keeping that going is probably the highest priority. And Iran is threatening that very process. The petrodollar is threatening the hegemony, it’s threatening that whole Gulf construct, which is actually a sort of an element of that Wall Street financialized world plunked down in the Gulf States right next to Iran and is exactly the sort of threat that the Iranians would like to see gone. The financial threat, the financial structures there, the new economy for the Gulf states is data centers. They want the data centers and of course Iran knows why, cheap energy and also it will be able to monitor everything in the Middle East on behalf of Israel and America. They don’t want that and that’s why they destroyed the big data center, the Amazon data center, just recently.

Chris Hedges:

So, let’s talk about the region. This has shaken the foundations of US military hegemony, obviously, throughout the Gulf state. The Gulf allies were not consulted about the launching of this war, yet they’ve paid a terrific price in no small part because of the precision strikes that Iran has been able to carry out, presumably with the help of Russian and Chinese satellites and intelligence. Before going on the air, you described the region as fragile. Talk a little bit about the effects within the Gulf states.

Alastair Crooke:

OK, well, but first I would say that the key element of uncertainty is the recurrence of war between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia. This is now a hot war. In the last hours, in the last day, the Houthis have fired missiles in Mandeb and Hadhramaut province in Yemen, at the forces and the mercenaries assembled there to attack the Houthis by the southern government. And there are images, we can see that the mercenaries just fled. They’ve been completely destroyed by the Houthi missiles.

Chris Hedges:

Alastair, let me just interrupt. These mercenaries are both armed and funded by Saudi Arabia, is that correct?

Alastair Crooke:

Yes, they are proxy forces on behalf of Saudi Arabia were proxy forces on behalf of Oman, but now proxy forces on behalf of Saudi Arabia. And so, they’ve been sent running by the Houthis. It is believed that the Houthis destroyed the big Aramco refinery that lies just adjacent to the Saudi’s Red Sea port, Yanbu. This big refinery was not just any refinery. We’re used to hearing about refineries hit in Russia and so on and are repaired quickly. This was the BN, be-all and end-all of refineries, all dancing, all singing. This was the latest refinery in the world and it’s been destroyed and that was the terminal of the pipeline coming from the East to the West to the Red Sea and at the same time the Aramco facilities, the pumping element, on the East side, the Hormuz side, if you like, was destroyed too. So, the pipeline was completely destroyed that transports Saudi oil from their main fields to the Red Sea. And the Saudis said not that it was the Houthis that did it, but they said it was the Iraqi resistance, the Hashd al-Jahan, that were responsible for this. The Hashd al-Shaabi denied it completely and said, “No, it wasn’t us that did this.” And it is likely that it wasn’t because it’s the Arba’in in Iraq. This is a celebration. This is a solemn, if you like, period of 40 days that marks the anniversary of death of Imam Hussein in Karbala. And it’s a religious period, not one of conflict and war. But the Saudis and America attacked them, the Iraqi resistance, killing many and killing some Iranian forces of the IRGC. And then Iraq has begun an attempt to try and purge some of the resistance under the name of saying it’s an anti-corruption group. But there are signs that the resistance has been moving up onto the borders of Saudi Arabia, moving closer towards that, and the Iraqi government is trying to stop that and to try and contain that and threatening the groups.

You will know, and I, just for listeners to understand Iraq, approximately there are, we have no exact numbers, but is roughly 60 % Shia. 40 % of the others are split between Sunnis and Kurds. So, the Sunnis are quite a small proportion, and the Shi’i are the largest proportion. The Hashd are always referred to in Western media saying, “Oh, but these are just Iranian proxies.” And so, as if putting pressure on them would put pressure on Iran in the Hormuz dispute. They’re not that. I mean, I know them. I’ve met the Hashd. Put straightforwardly, these Iraqi nationalists. They are strongly Iraqi nationalists. Yes, they are Shi’i. And yes, Iran is the sort of mothership of Shi’ism, but these are Iraqi nationalists and they’ve been tagged. And they also, for the majority of them, accepted and followed the Supreme Leader who was assassinated on the 29th of February as their source of emulation, their Marja. And so, they are deeply angry about his death. He was their religious leader too, not Iran’s. And so, they’ve said there will be retribution. They’ve given the Iraqi government a little leeway, but from what I see is that there are, if you like, movements on both sides of the border and maybe it will be contained, but it is a very fragile state. Some Iraqi security people have said actually it wasn’t the Hashd, the Iraqi resistance, that attacked the Saudi oil facilities, it was Ukrainian groups that were doing it. I don’t think we have to attach too much importance to that, but it comes at a time at which an Iranian ship was struck and struck by Ukrainian missiles in the Caspian Sea. So, that is very much heating up between Saudi Arabia and Iraq and the United States and Iraq. The Hashd are clearly mobilizing but have not yet taken the decision.

At the same time in Iraq, the Iranians have moved into Erbil. That is the Kurdish part of Iraq, Kurdistan if you like, and attacked the Kurdish forces there, assassinating some of their leaders, attacking their supply lines, their fuel and ammunition, because there were reports that the United States was trying to sort of see if it was possible to revive a sort of plan, which has already failed, for Kurds to sort of invade into Iran and establish a sort of mini-state. We saw that in Russia, in the Kursk region, to put more pressure on Iran. And so, they are taking preemptive action there to stop that. We’ve also seen a gas tanker attacked by drones in a port in Egypt in these recent days. It’s not clear who was responsible, but the war between Saudi Arabia and Yemen is getting much more intense. And I think the reason that the Saudis blamed the Hashd in Iraq for the attacks on the Aramco facilities was probably because they didn’t want to exacerbate the war with the Houthis.

The Houthis are a formidable fighting force and, in the past, they’ve delivered a huge defeat in the army of Egypt when they ended up killing, I think, 20,000 Egyptian soldiers. This was in the past, a long time in the past, not present. But this is the sort of sense that Saudi is not anxious to get into this war, but at the same time, Saudi now has no money. I mean, it’s getting no revenue. It was anyway short of money. And it hasn’t got that far with the Abu Dhabi, but the Gulf states, too, are short of money. So, all of this is becoming very much, the hot plate is getting hotter and hotter, and there’s a misjudgment here, like the misjudgment of Ukrainians trying to attack an Iranian ship in the Caspian. Could he easily change the whole nature and the whole dynamic of this war and make it more profound?

But my main point is Trump is talking about trying to find a solution to the Iran problem. Look what’s happened. The whole thing has become a matrix of other conflicts. I haven’t even mentioned Lebanon in this process with the threats that Washington has been trying to encourage the Sharia from Syria to come and take part in the disarmament of Hezbollah or to attack the Shia villages that lie on the border between Lebanon and Syria. And Turkey, who has considerable influence over the forces in Damascus, says they’re not unopposed to Syria being involved in Lebanon. But as soon as that happened, we had more reaction from the Iraqi resistance that said to Sharia, “You go near Lebanon and we come into Syria and we’re going to attack from that side.” And so, the whole thing is getting more and more mixed, and we have the potential Black Swan flying. And I do think we need to take it seriously, which is that the far right in Israel, I hate the word far right, but the messianic right shall we say more correctly, BenGvir, Smotrich, but particularly Ben Gvir is saying that they would like to see a crisis in the West Bank, a big crisis, perhaps on Temple Mount, perhaps in a war in the West Bank. They want to have the crisis that will force an exodus of Palestinians from the West Bank, and it will help win the election for them.

It’s about the elections but it’s also a double motive to provoke another 48-type situation with Palestinians fleeing for their lives from the West Bank. So, they are preparing it. They’re making no secret of it. The election is going to be an existential election. This is due to take place in October. And it’s not clear what’s going to happen. And it’s not clear that it will not end up in violencece in Israel because the two sides are really at loggerheads at the moment and the future of Netanyahu is by no means certain. But to set fire to the West Bank at this time has been a long-standing aim. I remember Smotrich talking about this some years ago in a talk he gave to the Likud when he said, “Listen, this is our plan and the Arabs are going to go.” And he said, “But what we really need to implement this plan is a big crisis or a big war. And during that war, the plan will be finally operational.”

And so, as I say, these are some of the possibilities, all of this together. It makes it very volatile. But that’s not my point. There’s no clean binary deal available to Washington. It’s now turned into a matrix of smaller wars taking place across the region, all of which are interconnected, but all of which have quite separate agendas - the Lebanese war, the Yemen, the Syrian circumstances - all of these things have got completely different agendas. The possibility of Washington coming to a comprehensive solution now seems to me close to zero.

Chris Hedges:

The Egyptians and the Jordanians have moved their military up - the Egyptians in the Sinai, the Jordanians along the border with the West Bank - to prevent the kind of ethnic cleansing that Smotrich and others have openly advocated. I think they call it ‘voluntary transfer’ or something. So, if they try and push the Palestinians out of the West Bank or they finally decide that they want to make that kind of push in Gaza where about two million Palestinians are now huddled in fetid overcrowded tent cities, in a third, Israel’s already seized seventy percent of Gaza. How does that play out? I mean, doesn’t that create a military confrontation between Israel and either Jordan or Egypt?

Alastair Crooke:

It could break out in many different ways. I mean, this is exactly what I’m trying to say. It’s incendiary. The whole region could be one match here, another match there, another killing in Lebanon, a mass killing somewhere else. It’s very volatile and can easily be set off. But particularly the Palestinian things could erupt. There could be from the consequences that could bring Iran back into the conflict directly with Israel. It could bring Iran into directly striking into Israel in the Northern Territories. That’s the territories from the south of Lebanon down to the Galilee. All of this is possible. Iran is expecting a conflict with the United States, and one could easily be triggered. The Iranians are ready for war not only with the United States, but I think they expect that it will include Israel at some point. They are prepared for that. I just underline that because I think quite often people misunderstand and say, “Well, Israel is so strong, isn’t it?” Actually, in terms of their infrastructure, which they say they want to attack in Iran, it’s the Israelis who have won. They have two refineries, effectively, just two, and they have a small country and so their power plants are centrally located, concentrated. Whereas Iran is a big country and its power structures and all of its infrastructure is dispersed. It’s been dispersed, as I say, for 20 years, precisely in anticipation of a coming war with the United States. So, it’s not so clear.

Does Israel want a war with Iran? No, it wants Trump to wage a war with Iran and to destroy Iran, to destroy its infrastructure so that the state can no longer provide the services to the citizens. That’s a quote of what they say they would like to see. Of course, I mean, to demand that the state should be so destroyed that it is unable to provide any services to its people really amounts to a slow tactical nuclear weapons strike instead of a big one because it means without water, without electricity, at this time of year without fuel, I mean this would be impossible to survive. And if this happens, the Iranians will strike back at the water purification plants of Saudi Arabia and at the Gulf states, and they’re very vulnerable in that. Iran is less vulnerable in water purification. Only 3 % of their water comes from purification.

Chris Hedges:

And let me just throw out about seventy percent of desalination plants provide water in Saudi Arabia. I think the UAE is over eighty percent. If Iran took out these desalination plants, that would instantly - I think all of Riyadh, for instance, depends on desalination - that would create a humanitarian crisis throughout the region.

Alastair Crooke:

Absolutely. But is that in the calculus in Washington? I mean of course it’s understood in parts of Washington, but how much is this put to Trump when he’s in the right sort of state of mind to hear this and to understand it and not to go on saying, “Iran is defeated, it’s broken, we’ve won the war.” This is the uncertain part of this. What might happen anywhere in the region, but a mistaken decision taken could blow it up across the entire region because all of these things are interlinked and somehow they will be connected. Hezbollah will not stand by if Palestinians are being thrown out of Gaza or thrown out of the West Bank. It’s all interconnected and what happens in Syria, what happens with the Hashd, the Hashd might come into Syria. All of these things are in the air.

How much of this is really thought through in Washington and understood? You have to say at the end of it, I mean, this is what they brought on themselves because all of this was an attempt to find, “Okay, we can’t put military pressure on Iran, so we’ll put on pressure from Iraq and we’ll put pressure from this region. We’ll disarm, threaten to disarm the militia in Iraq. We’ll threaten to disarm Hezbollah.” And all of this is done is to make the thing ten times more complicated, ten times more complex to resolve. There’s no simple binary silver bullet that is going to be fired.

Chris Hedges:

Great, thank you, Alastair. And I want to thank Diego, Thomas, and Max who produced the show. You can find me at ChrisHedges.substack.com.

Photos

US-IRAQ-ATTACK

A Tactical “Tomahawk” Block IV cruise missile, conducts a controlled flight test over the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) western test range complex in southern California. The Tactical Tomahawk, scheduled to join the fleet in 2004, is the next generation of Tomahawk cruise missile and it adds the capability to reprogram the missile while in-flight to strike any of 15 preprogrammed alternate targets or redirect the missile to any Global Positioning System (GPS) target coordinates. (Photo by US NAVY / AFP) (Photo by -/US NAVY/AFP via Getty Images)

C-130 And Lockheed JASSM Cruise Missile

The propellers of a C-130 Hercules and a Lockheed Martin JASSM cruise missile exhibit at the Farnborough Airshow, on 16th July 2018, in Farnborough, England. The AGM-158 JASSM (Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile) is a low observable standoff air-launched cruise missile developed in the United States. It is a large, semi-stealthy long-range weapon of the 2,000 pounds (910 kg) class. (Photo by Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images Images)

U.S. Military Launches Operation Epic Fury Attacking Iran

AT SEA, UNSPECIFIED - MARCH 1: (EDITOR’S NOTE: This Handout image was provided by a third-party organization and may not adhere to Getty Images’ editorial policy.) In this U.S. Navy released handout, Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Thomas Hudner (DDG 116) fires a Tomahawk land attack missile in support of Operation Epic Fury, on March 1, 2026 at Sea. (Photo by U.S. Navy via Getty Images)

USS Fitzgerald Fires Missile

Guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) fires a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) during a joint ballistic missile defense exercise, Pacific Ocean, 2012. Image courtesy US Navy. (Photo via Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images).

US Navy Tests Missiles

KAUI, HI - NOVEMBER 6: In this handout image provided by the US Navy, a threat representative target is launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) to be intercepted as part of a Missile Defense Agency test of the sea-based capability under development, yet tactically certified and deployed with the U.S. Navy November 6, 2007 in Kaui, Hawaii. (Photo by US Navy via Getty Images)

Pentagon delays ‘’THAAD” anti-missile system

The Pentagon again postponed a key test of its troubled “THAAD’‘’‘ anti-missile defense rocket, seen this file photo, due to a commercial power failure, the Defense Department said. (photo by Lockheed Martin)

US Air Force Personnel Launch A Test Patriot Missile During An Exercise Invo

390840 02: (File Photo) Us Air Force Personnel Launch A Test Patriot Missile During An Exercise Involving The Militaries Of The Us, Canada, Germany, And The Netherlands April 30, 1997 Near El Paso, Tx. (Photo By Usaf/Getty Images)

Iran And US Remain In Stalemate Over Strait Of Hormuz

STRAIT OF HORMUZ, IRAN - MAY 16: An Iranian flag flutters in the wind as ships remain anchored on May 16, 2026 in the Strait of Hormuz near Larak Island, Iran. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)

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US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at Camp David in Maryland, on July 31, 2026. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz / AFP via Getty Images)

Bombing Campaign

October 1965: A US Air Force strategic air command (SAC) B-52 stratofortress drops a string of 750-pound bombs over a coastal target in the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Official U.S. Air Force photo released by the Department of Defense. (Photo by US Air Force/Getty Images)

TOPSHOT-UAE-DALMA-SAILING

TOPSHOT - Emirati competitors sail their dhow past a crude oil tanker Navig8 Honor during the Dalma Sailing Festival in the waters of Dalma island in the Gulf, about 40 kms off of the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi, on October 22, 2019. (Photo by KARIM SAHIB / AFP) (Photo by KARIM SAHIB/AFP via Getty Images)

Donald Trump

Donald Trump (L), owner of the New Jersey Generals, of the U.S. Football League, said 10/18 his league’s $1.32 billion antitrust suit against the national Football League will crack “one of the great monopolies in the is country.” At right is his attorney Roy Cohn.

U.S. And Israel Wage War Against Iran

TEHRAN, IRAN - MARCH 28: A large plume of smoke rises over Tehran after explosions were reported in the city during the night on March 28, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. The United States and Israel continued their joint attack on Iran that began on February 28. Iran retaliated by firing waves of missiles and drones at Israel, and targeting U.S. allies in the region. (Photo by Getty Images)

UK Hosts President Trump And First Lady Melania Trump For State Visit - Day Three

AYLESBURY, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 18: U.S. President Donald Trump attends a press conference with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer (not pictured) at Chequers at the conclusion of a state visit on September 18, 2025 in Aylesbury, England. This is the final day of President Trump’s second UK state visit, with the previous one taking place in 2019 during his first presidential term. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Oil production in Venezuela

17 March 2022, Venezuela, Anzoategui: Side view of the “Jose Antonio Anzoategui” industrial park for crude oil and petrochemicals. According to current knowledge, the South American crisis country has the largest oil reserves in the world. However, due to sanctions, mismanagement and corruption, the daily production rate had dropped to 668,000 barrels of oil per day. Photo: Stringer/dpa (Photo by Stringer/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Tunnel Construction and Spoil Pile at Nuclear Facility - November 14, 2025

PICKAXE MOUNTAIN NEAR NATANZ NUCLEAR FACILITY, IRAN -- NOVEMBER 14, 2025: 12 -- Vantor satellite image shows tunnel construction activities and a large spoil pile near the Natanz nuclear complex at Pickaxe Mountain. Please use: Satellite image (c) 2026 Vantor.

Iran Holds Dayslong Funeral For Late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

TEHRAN, IRAN - JULY 4: People raise fists at a farewell ceremony for Iran’s late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on July 4, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. Khamenei and members of his family were killed on February 28 during U.S.-Israeli strikes at the beginning of the war, bringing an end to his 36-year rule over Iran. A multi-city state funeral will be held over six days before his body is laid to rest on July 9, in his hometown of Mashhad, Iran. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)

Iran Holds Dayslong Funeral For Late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

NAJAF, IRAQ - JULY 08: Mourners gather outside the Imam Ali Shrine to attend the funeral procession of Iran’s slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on July 08, 2026 in Najaf, Iraq. Khamenei and members of his family were killed on February 28 during U.S.-Israeli strikes at the beginning of the war, bringing an end to his 36-year rule over Iran. A multi-city state funeralis being held over six days before his body is laid to rest on July 9, in his hometown of Mashhad, Iran. (Photo by Meghdad Madadi ATPImages/Getty Images)

U.S. President Trump Visits USS George Washington In Japan

YOKOSUKA, JAPAN - OCTOBER 28: Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi (L) raises her fist as U.S. President Donald Trump (R) speaks aboard USS George Washington on October 28, 2025 in Yokosuka, Japan. Trump is visiting Japan, fresh off an appearance at the ASEAN summit in Malaysia, and will next travel to South Korea for the APEC meetings. (Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)

Late Senator Lindsey Graham Memorialized In Washington DC

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 28: (L-R) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, his wife Jennifer Rauchet, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche attend the funeral for the late U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) at The Washington National Cathedral on July 28, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

UAE-ECONOMY-ENERGY

Guests look at a model of the largest data center in the UAE under construction in Abu Dhabi as the Stargate initiative, a joint venture between G42, Microsoft, and OpenAI, during the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition & Conference (ADIPEC) in Abu Dhabi on November 3, 2025. (Photo by Giuseppe CACACE / AFP via Getty Images)

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TOPSHOT - Delivery-persons ride motorcycles along a road as behind a tall smoke plume billows following an explosion in the Fujairah industrial zone on March 3, 2026. Iran’s strikes on Gulf neighbours since February 28, following the US-Israeli attack, forced the UAE to shut its airspace, blindsiding travellers who thought they were headed to one of the region’s safest holiday destinations. (Photo by Fadel SENNA / AFP via Getty Images)

Protest Supporting Iran By Houthi Loyalists In Yemen 2026

SANA’A, YEMEN - MARCH 27: A Yemen’s Houthi soldier mans a machine gun mounted on a police vehicle next to a billboard depicting Houthi launching missile and drone attacks, during a protest staged to show support to Iran against the U.S.-Israel war on March 27, 2026 in Sana’a, Yemen. (Photo by Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images)

Satellite Imagery Of The Aramco Oil Terminal At Jizan In Saudi Arabia

JIZAN, SAUDI ARABIA - 26 JULY 2026: A satellite view of smoke plumes rising from Saudi Aramco’s refinery complex and oil terminals in Jazan/Jizan, Saudi Arabia, after coordinated Houthi strikes launched from Yemen. The attacks disrupted fuel exports through the Red Sea’s Bab al‑Mandeb strait and marked a major escalation in the Iran–Saudi conflict fought through the Yemen war. Imaged 26 July 2026. (Photo by Gallo Images/Orbital Horizon/Copernicus Sentinel Data 2026)

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A fighter of Iraq’s Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) paramilitary forces stands guard next to a wall showing the group’s logo outside their headquarters in the capital Baghdad on June 13, 2021. (Photo by Ahmad AL-RUBAYE / AFP) (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP via Getty Images)

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei meets students in Tehran

TEHRAN, IRAN - OCTOBER 18: (----EDITORIAL USE ONLY MANDATORY CREDIT - “ IRANIAN LEADER’S PRESS OFFICE / HANDOUT” - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS----) Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei speaks during his meeting with students in Tehran, Iran on October 18, 2017. (Photo by Iranian Leader’s Press Office - Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

YEMEN-CONFLICT-SAUDI-ANNIVERSARY

Members of Houthi security forces stand guard while supporters of Yemen’s Huthi movement attend an event commemorating the ninth anniversary of the Saudi-led intervention in their country, in the capital Sanaa on March 26, 2026. (Photo by Mohammed HUWAIS / AFP via Getty Images)

TOPSHOT-SYRIA-CONFLICT-ANNIVERSARY

TOPSHOT - Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa waves to the crowd at the gate of Aleppo’s Citadel during celebrations marking one year since an Islamist alliance, led by Sharaa, entered the northern city and swiftly took control of it, on November 29, 2025. Sharaa visited the northern city of Aleppo on November 29 as the country marks a year since a lightning Islamist-led offensive that eventually toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad last December. (Photo by Bakr ALkasem / AFP via Getty Images)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Qatar

DOHA, QATAR - SEPTEMBER 15: (----EDITORIAL USE ONLY - MANDATORY CREDIT - ‘TURKISH PRESIDENCY / MURAT KULA / HANDOUT’ - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS -DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS----) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) meets with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa (L) as part of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation-Arab League Joint Extraordinary Summit on September 15, 2025 in Doha, Qatar. (Photo by TUR Presidency / Murat Kula/Anadolu via Getty Images)

ISRAEL-POLITICS-GOVERNMENT

Right-wing Knesset members Itamar Ben-Gvir (L) and Bezalel Smotrich, attend a special session at the Knesset Israel’s parliament, to approve and swear in a new right-wing government, in Jerusalem on December 29, 2022. - The right-wing government, formed after the fifth election in four years, has sparked fears of a further military escalation in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, amid the worst violence there for nearly 20 years. (Photo by AMIR COHEN / POOL / AFP) (Photo by AMIR COHEN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

‘Jerusalem Day’ Flag March

JERUSALEM - MAY 14: Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich takes part in the Jerusalem Day parade at the Damascus Gate in the old city of Jerusalem on May 14, 2026 in the Old City of Jerusalem. The controversial annual march sees thousands of nationalist Israelis celebrate the capture of the formerly Jordanian-held east of the city during the Six-Day War in 1967. The march has become increasingly volatile, with tensions over the war in Gaza, as well as settler violence in the West Bank, fuelling hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians. (Photo by Erik Marmor/Getty Images)

Explosions heard in Tehran as new Israeli airstrikes hit Iranian capital

TEHRAN, IRAN - MARCH 01: Smoke rises from the area after it was targeted in attacks as a series of explosions are heard in Tehran, Iran on March 01, 2026. The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) building after Iranian authorities said it was targeted in the attacks, as the Iranian army announced it had launched new strikes against U.S. and Israeli targets (Photo by Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)

TOPSHOT-SAUDI-ENVIRONMENT-WATER-ENERGY-COP28

TOPSHOT - In this picture taken on March 30, 2023, Mohamed Ali al-Qahtani (L), Phase General Manager at the Ras al-Khair water desalination plant, owned by the Saudi government’s Saline Water Conversion Corporation, speaks with an employee at the facility in Ras al-Khair along the Gulf coast in eastern Saudi Arabia. (Photo by Fayez Nureldine / AFP via Getty Images)

Israel Continues Air Strikes And Ground Offensive In Lebanon

BEKAA VALLEY, LEBANON - MARCH 23: A local man shouts slogans in support of the Lebanese resistance at the scene of an Israeli air strike on a civilian home which caused several fatalities in the village of Shaat on the edge of the town of Younine on March 23, 2026 in Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. Israel has continued its aerial and ground assault in Lebanon after Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon, launched missiles at Israel in what it said was retaliation for the joint U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. (Photo by Guy Smallman/Getty Images)

YEMEN-CONFLICT-US-ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN

Yemenis brandish rifles and chant during a demonstration called for by the rebel Huthi movement in Sanaa on March 17, 2025. Huge crowds joined protests in rebel-controlled Yemen on March 17 after deadly US strikes killed dozens and sparked fears of a new cycle of violence in the conflict-torn country. (Photo by Mohammed HUWAIS / AFP) (Photo by MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP via Getty Images)

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

Under the radar, the billionaire class is building the infrastructure and models necessary to create a dystopian future in which cities become billionaire fiefdoms - completely privatized, governed by dictatorial CEOs and financed by subservient taxpayers. The buildout of data centers is one essential part of the effort to construct a totalitarian capitalist society, which is already advancing.

In this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, Hedges interviews investigative journalist Whitney Webb, the author of “One Nation Under Blackmail,” who, in her new article, unravels the complex relationships between elected leaders, the National Security State, the state of Israel and Big Tech. Webb discusses the methods being used in the Silicon Heartland, the area around Columbus, Ohio, where Les Wexner, who has ties to organized crime and was Jeffrey Epstein’s most notable benefactor, and other powerful billionaires such as Peter Thiel of Palantir, have made significant headway in creating a privately-run city — New Albany. She describes their use of innocent-sounding front groups, such as Jobs Ohio, private development corporations and political bribery to enrich themselves and create what they are marketing as Smart Cities.

Hedges and Webb expose the connections between the billionaires behind this effort and the State of Israel. Webb argues that Israeli startups have been promoted to Big Tech “so that US technological infrastructure on multiple levels would be so intimately enmeshed with Israeli interests that they could never meaningfully boycott Israel.” The same technological infrastructure is also being fused with the National Security State – intelligence and the military – to also make it dependent on the private sector.

The ideology underlying this new model of feudalism originates from the Neo-Reactionary Movement. Beyond that, Webb explains, the billionaires involved believe fervently in a transhumanist future where “the end goal of humanity is to have humanity merge with AI in some capacity” such that there are two classes, the wealthy and a large underclass that is either exploitable or expendable, and obedience is enforced through technology. There is still time to prevent further development of this dystopian future by, among other actions, unplugging from the very technology being employed to create it.

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Host

Chris Hedges

Executive Producer:

Max Jones

Intro:

Margaret Flowers

Transcript:

Margaret Flowers

Crew:

Diego Ramos

Transcript

Chris Hedges: The proliferation of data centers built to process immense amounts of data sets and train AI models has spawned widespread grassroots backlash by a diverse coalition of Americans across the country. The people behind these industrial behemoths and the legislative infrastructure that has laid the path to their development, however, are scarcely understood. In a recent article for Unlimited Hangout, Whitney Webb investigates the Silicon Heartland or the part of the Columbus metropolitan area that is being rapidly developed into a major hub for technological development, hosting big tech campuses, semiconductor production facilities, and massive data centers. Webb reveals that at the center of this technological development drive is Jeffrey Epstein’s most prominent benefactor, Les Wexner, the billionaire founder of Bath and Body Works with ties to organized crime, who co-founded the Mega Group, a cohort of Jewish entrepreneurs who once met twice a year to discuss where to target their philanthropic investments. Birthright Israel was one of the most prominent initiatives spun out of the group.

Through a dizzying array of public-private partnerships and alleged shell companies, Wexner has gained control of key real estate that is now being utilized by military-contracting big tech companies, enriching himself and the corporations he’s lured to the Silicon Heartland along the way. But it is how Wexner has accumulated this leverage that illuminates the dark inner workings of our political system. These public-private partnerships, Webb reveals, despite the banality of their name, function as a way for oligarchs to funnel taxpayer money into privately developed business projects. These agreements also enmesh the money, objectives, and players of the private sector so deeply into the legislative process that they empower the private end of these partnerships to take de facto control of their government collaborators. In doing so, these oligarchs facilitate a quasilegal corporatization of government.

Inevitably, as data centers increasingly become a key component of the nation’s surveillance infrastructure, other centers of power enter the mix as well, with national security actors - defense executives, Israeli business interests, Vivek Ramaswamy, Peter Thiel allies, and Vice President J.D. Vance lingering on the peripheries of the public-private framework advancing this data center deluge.

Joining me to discuss the legal infrastructure and networks behind some of our modern surveillance state is investigative journalist and author of “One Nation Under Blackmail,” Whitney Webb. So, let’s begin with Wexner, who he is, and perhaps, he has close ties to Epstein, you can speak about that as well.

Whitney Webb: Sure. Thanks so much for having me back on, Chris. So yes, Leslie Wexner, probably best known for one of two things, either being the richest man in the state of Ohio or being the most well-known benefactor of Jeffrey Epstein, at least on paper. So, Leslie Wexner created what is now a large conglomerate of companies, now under the parent company L Brands, but some of the best-known companies that he has been behind are longtime staples of American malls, Bath and Body Works being one, Abercrombie and Fitch, The Limited, Limited Two, etc. etc.

Some of my reporting on him in conjunction with Epstein has focused on things like his organized crime connections, which were alleged by Columbus local police as they were investigating the death of one of his lawyers, or one of the lawyers rather, of The Limited, named Arthur Shapiro in the 1980s, who was deemed to have been murdered in what was referred to as a mob-style hit back in, I believe, 1985 or so. And he, Wexner, and his close associate, John Kessler, were named as suspects and their ties to organized crime were detailed in a report that was heavily censored by the Columbus police chief at the time and ended up being revealed inadvertently through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by local journalist Bob Fitrakis in the late 90s. And so, we have a record of that and the various organized crime connections that were alleged too, a record of that now.

Notably Kessler is the person that created with Leslie Wexner something called the New Albany Company, which is this private company that has essentially taken control of this what was once a very small suburb outside of Columbus, Ohio, called New Albany. And through a series of efforts to drastically alter not just local law, but also state law, the New Albany Company was able to become the de facto local government of the town of New Albany by entering into a public-private partnership with the local government of New Albany. But in some of these law changes they lobbied for, including at the state level, allowed the New Albany company created by Wexner and Kessler to do unprecedented things for a private company, like tax local residents and issue bonds and all sorts of things that are normally meant to be the business of local governments. And Kessler, for example, has said that basically the New Albany local government in their partnership is extremely pro-development and adheres to a master plan that was developed by the New Albany Company.

So, this is one of Wexner’s other endeavors, aside from, of course, his association with Jeffrey Epstein and longtime partnership there, and his corporate behemoth, L brands, that he runs and that made him a billionaire. But this is one of the other things that he has been developing for some time, the town of New Albany, which now obviously is part of the broader Columbus region, home to the vast majority of Ohio’s data centers. So, Ohio is currently, I believe, fourth in the United States for having the most data centers behind Virginia, Texas and California, I believe. But they have about 193 data centers currently, I believe, and 121 of those are in and around New Albany.

Chris Hedges: Your article shows that Wexner and various public-private partnerships that he’s spirited are serving as a key node in the development of this data center in Ohio, the Silicon Heartland, but there’s a much broader coalition of people and institutions that are driving the data center push, wrapping Big Tech, the US government, elements of the military-industrial complex in the mix. What’s the objective and why data centers?

Whitney Webb: Do you mean in Ohio or in general?

Chris Hedges: Nationally. Well, both, I mean, because Ohio is kind of your case study.

Whitney Webb: Right, sure. So obviously it’s fair to say that the network behind the data center push is extremely large and influential, obviously spearheaded by big tech companies that, at this point, have, for all intents and purposes, fused with the National Security State. And this has been ongoing for some time. So, a good example is to look back at the 2018 National Security Commission on AI that was chaired by Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO, and a close associate of Schmidt, who had previously held a top position at what is now the Department of War. And basically, everyone on that commission was either a major executive at one of these big tech companies that is behind the data center push or figures that had previously worked for the military to establish, basically, the US roadmap on AI and what needed to be done for “national security purposes.” And it’s fair to say that even beyond that, you can see how these two groups have become so intertwined by the fact that the intelligence community, as well as the military and other major aspects of the federal government, contract extensively with these same big tech companies and are arguably largely dependent on them. While at the same time, a lot of these big tech oligarchs are major donors to our politicians.

So, on various levels, they have much more influence than arguably any other group right now. And I think as a very visual example that people will be familiar with that’s a testament to this, is after Trump’s inauguration or during Trump’s inauguration last year, behind him was a line of Who’s Who of Big Tech CEOs like Jeff Bezos and other figures like him, a testament to their role and importance in getting him elected for a second term. And he has obviously, so far, been generously repaying their patronage.

But there’s important people to look at too in the buildout of the data center deluge, as you called it, that aren’t such public figures at this point. So, there’s a lot of AI infrastructure companies that are becoming increasingly important to this, but they largely stay out of the news. So, one good example, I think, for this would be a company called Crusoe AI, which is, for example, building the Stargate project for Open AI and Larry Ellison’s Oracle, which was announced in the early days, I think one of the first announcements actually, of Trump soon after his inauguration this time around. And they’re basically building a lot of the data centers and working as a sort of a middleman between these big tech companies and the actual creation and infrastructure that they rely on. And so, those companies are an important part of this constellation of actors as well.

And it’s also something that’s happening well beyond the US. So, one of the founders of Crusoe AI, for example, is named Cully Cavness, and he accompanied Peter Thiel, the co-founder of Palantir, on his recent trip to Argentina to meet with Javier Milei. Later, they also met with Chilean politicians, apparently including the president of Chile, though it wasn’t publicly announced, and also the president of Paraguay. And, not long after that, at least in the case of Milei, there have been these proposals of allowing companies with no human employees that are run by AI to operate in the country, an announcement of Stargate Argentina on behalf of OpenAI, run by Sam Altman, who’s closely affiliated with Peter Thiel.

So, these people are looking to build data centers really all over the world. And why are they doing it? Why data centers? It’s essential to basically their various plans for AI, which include not just their plans for AI-related businesses, but also a lot of these people subscribe to specific ideologies that see that extreme investments in AI and AI compute capability are necessary in order to further the development of what they call ‘Artificial General Intelligence’ or an AI superintelligence, and some of them hold an almost religious fervor, you could say, for having that come to fruition and are openly transhumanist and think that the end goal of humanity is to have humanity merge with AI in some capacity. So, they have not just the economic incentive, they also have this, I would call it, quasi-religious incentive as well, which may help propel this along even when the economics of it don’t necessarily make sense. And at the end of the day, I think it’s a testament to how we’re sort of living in an era of, this is the importance to them, of computing power over people. And so, people that are negatively affected by them, apparently their concerns don’t matter and there’s a coordinated effort to sort of paint any pushback as being propelled by China, for example, and various different narratives are being fielded right now to try and manage local anger at an increasing cost of living crisis, many of which have been linked to data centers, particularly their power usage and their water usage.

And some of these Thiel-linked outlets, like Pirate Wires, for example, have tried to push against those claims, but using the data on the books about water usage and some other people in some other claims, but in states like California, most data centers aren’t required to report how much water they use. So, how accurate is the data we have on it anyway? And a lot of data centers are moving into areas that have water issues or are having droughts already and so obviously local concern about that is quite reasonable but for the big tech oligarchs, they’re not really interested in hearing those concerns. They have a dedicated mission to improving AI for, as I mentioned, various purposes and moving the United States further into an AI-powered economy.

Chris Hedges: So, could you explain what people like Wexner and Thiel, what is their political and social vision? What are they trying to create and how will these data centers and AI help them achieve this vision?

Whitney Webb: So, essentially what Wexner has done in the state of Ohio, and what I detail, is that he has privatized major aspects of local and state government through first, in the example I gave earlier of New Albany and then extending beyond that to first the Columbus region and then really the state in its entirety, focusing mainly on the Department of Economic Development, and where that essentially intersects with people like Peter Thiel is his professed interest in the writings of people like Curtis Yarvin in the Neoreactionary Movement, who posit that the answer to current problems with our government is to privatize the state entirely and place in charge of it a CEO that would essentially operate as a dictator. So, both men quite clearly have an interest in privatizing major aspects, if not all, of the US government. And so, ultimately from that, what does that mean? And up until this point, the way to achieve that in a practical sense has been to expand and grow the power of public-private partnerships, where almost always the public sector is subservient to its private sector partner. And it’s used to enrich the private sector partner and the public sector, ostensibly working as a watchdog here on private sector power, does not end up functioning that way. And so ultimately, this is what we’re seeing, I think, especially with the ascendence of oligarchs like Thiel and people close to him in the halls of political power, for example. The best example, obviously, being current vice president JD Vance, is to further this so we go beyond the public-private partnership model that’s predominated for several decades now and move into this more extreme privatization, which may happen gradually or suddenly, depending on how they think it could best be implemented to suit their interests.

Chris Hedges: One of the points you make in the article is that they seize, I think, they took control of the liquor tax in Ohio, but one of the points you make is that once this public money pours into their hands, there’s no accountability. Nobody knows where it goes.

Whitney Webb: Yeah, so what I was talking about in that specific example is this organization that was created as essentially the privatized version of the State Economic Development Authority, and it’s called Jobs Ohio. And so, Jobs Ohio was allowed to purchase rights to the Ohio liquor tax for, I think, $1.4 billion, which it made back extremely quickly, and because they are a private company, they are not required to show how they use the funds they take in from the liquor tax and are essentially referred to as a ‘dark money organization’. They claim, of course, to be creating lots of jobs by offering taxpayer-funded, through the liquor tax and other means, incentives packages to a lot of these large data center companies and other corporations that are in the same sphere that have moved in like Palmer Luckey’s Anduril, which is backed by Peter Thiel.

But Jobs Ohio has been able to, supposedly, they claim that these incentive packages help attract all of these businesses to the state and if they didn’t exist, those companies would go elsewhere. But studies show that’s only true in maybe 25% of cases. And it’s unclear how many jobs Jobs Ohio has actually created since it came into existence in 2011. And if you’re looking at data centers, a lot has been said about how many jobs they’re going to create, but most of the jobs they create are temporary. They’re construction jobs, and so once the data center is built, most of them employ maybe 20 to 30 people per data center, which is not very much. And so, if you consider the amount of money, which is often millions, poured into these incentive packages, which also include in Ohio sales and property tax exemptions, is it really worth it for 20 to 30 jobs per center when the losses to the Ohio taxpayer number in the millions?

Chris Hedges: And this was money, if I remember correctly from your article, that that was used to fund education, I mean to fund basic services. Once they took it, that money is gone.

Whitney Webb: Yeah, so if you look at Governor Mike DeWine, for example, he pushed through a recent spending bill that gutted all of those services. And there was efforts at the state level to push through legislation that would curb some of these tax exemptions for data centers, and Mike DeWine vetoed that but Mike DeWine and some of the people that work under him, their political careers have been very related to the fortunes of Leslie Wexner, who count among their biggest donors. Of course, it’s fair to say also that Wexner donates to both parties, but the vast majority of his patronage in the state has gone to Ohio Republicans, Mike DeWine being no exception. And his predecessor, John Kasich, was heavily funded by Wexner as well, which seems to have resulted, in part, in the creation of Jobs Ohio, which ended up being used to scale the model that Wexner implemented in Columbus via the Columbus Partnership.

Chris Hedges: At the beginning of the article, you write about how Wexner helped create a network of public-private partnerships, and of course, as you mentioned, use billions of dollars of Ohio taxpayer money to finance a massive welfare system for corporations. Can you detail how the public-private partnerships are put together, how they work, and how Wexner used them to create this vast data center development?

Whitney Webb: Yeah, so the culmination of that effort is the company that we just discussed called Jobs Ohio, but it started off in the region of Columbus. So, as I mentioned earlier, Wexner successfully privatized the town of New Albany, which is close to Columbus and sits within the Columbus region, and in the early 2000s, Wexner and Kessler, who created the New Albany Company that took over that town, created something called the Columbus Partnership, which basically became the de facto Economic Development Authority. And the Columbus Partnership then spawned something that is now called One Columbus, that is the Columbus Region’s Economic Development Authority. And it is a public-private partnership that the private sector donors to One Columbus include Wexner’s companies but also include very large companies that have a large presence in the state, like JP Morgan, for example, and ones that have large data centers in the state and the Columbus area specifically, like Amazon. And so not surprisingly, One Columbus, as they say, is “aggressively focused on achieving the economic development goals of its private sector partners,” which includes the build out of data centers. And so, to facilitate that and subsidize that with taxpayer money, that is what these public-private partnerships are essentially doing. And as I said earlier, there’s no proof that these are necessary to bring the vast majority of these companies to the region or to the state, but it is a way to use taxpayer money to subsidize the buildout of AI infrastructure on a massive scale.

And they continue to foot the bill in other ways via higher power bills, for example, which in the Columbus region, in particular, have exploded as the data center boom in the state has continued to grow. And as I mentioned earlier, the vast majority of data centers in the state are in that area. And so, after the success of the Columbus Partnership, various other replicas, you could say, were spawned in various other parts of the state - Cleveland, Cincinnati, and so on - until it was basically, I think, in about five or six, maybe seven chunks. And then Jobs Ohio is created and then partners with every single one.

So basically, Wexner and Kessler created the model in Columbus, and then it’s replicated in every other major metropolitan area in Ohio, and then connecting all of them is the 2011-created Jobs Ohio, which John Kashich, as I mentioned earlier, the year before Jobs Ohio was created, declared receiving 35 ‘gifts’ from Wexner, but declined to disclose what the gifts were and what their monetary value was. And another interesting point there is that the venture capitalist from Sequoia Capital, Mark Kvamme, also donated, I think, several million dollars to Kasich right before he created Jobs Ohio. And then after creating it, Kasich put Kvamme in charge of Jobs Ohio.

Chris Hedges: Can you talk about the ties with Israel? I know Compass data centers, you mentioned, has Israeli ties. And I’m wondering whether the pairing between Wexner and Compass illustrate a network driving the development of Big Tech in the AI boom that has deep Israeli roots.

Whitney Webb: Well, looking at a lot of the tech companies and data center companies that have installed themselves in New Albany in particular, the vast majority of them have significant subsidiaries that operate in the state of Israel. And Wexner, of course, is intimately related to the State of Israel through his own activities. For example, I think several decades ago, he was sort of acting as a middleman in some business capacities between Israel and China and also working on establishing Israeli businesses and helping them establish themselves in the occupied Golan Heights, among other things. And that’s to say nothing of his links to the Mega Group, for example, which, as you noted in your introduction, created Birthright Israel, and also Jeffrey Epstein, who at this point is quite known for his ties to former Israeli politicians and the Israeli state.

But I think it also speaks to sort of a broader issue, to have a lot of this infrastructure of technology in the US be intimately intermingled and connected to Israel. And this was actually something that was furthered and actually developed in conjunction with Netanyahu and the so-called vulture capitalist and significant donor to neoconservative causes, Paul Singer, who explicitly created a company called Startup Nation Central with the explicit purpose of making it impossible for the US to ever significantly support the BDS movement or the Boycott Divest Sanctions movement. And the goal was to basically market Israeli startups to US big tech firms so that they would acquire a lot of those startups in unprecedented numbers and also contract with them so that US technological infrastructure on multiple levels would be so intimately enmeshed with Israeli interests that they could never meaningfully boycott Israel, no matter what happened, essentially. And a lot of these startups, of course, if you’ve ever looked into the Israeli startup scene, are intimately related to Israeli intelligence and Israeli military operations. They’re staffed by veterans of one or the other. And at the same time, coincidentally, that Startup Nations Central was created, the Israeli government developed an explicit policy where these startups would be used to conduct operations that previously had been conducted in-house by Mossad and Unit 8200 and other parts of the Israeli intelligence system. So, for lack of a better word, they have an explicit policy of using them as front companies for intelligence. And so basically by having all of these big tech companies absorb them, the goal is to have a a major economic lever of power over the tech industry in particular that would prevent US policy from ever meaningfully challenging Israel, even at this point in time when they have actively been conducting a genocidal war for years in Palestine.

Chris Hedges: So, let me ask about Anduril. Can you explain what that is and its importance?

Whitney Webb: Yeah, so Anduril is a company that was created by Palmer Luckey and Trae Stephens. Palmer Luckey was a Thiel fellow. He created Oculus Rift, and later it was sold to Facebook when Peter Thiel was on the board of Facebook. And Luckey’s subsequent venture, Anduril, was funded in large part by Thiel. And then Trey Stevens is a former veteran of the intelligence community that went to work for Palantir, which of course is a Peter Thiel-created company, and then later joined Founders Fund and decided to create Anduril with Luckey at a time when he was also more or less advising the Trump administration Pentagon, its transition team, during Trump’s first term as president. And so, they in particular specialize in autonomous weaponry, mainly drones. And so, they have moved into the Columbus area as well.

Palmer Luckey credits Jobs Ohio with their decision to establish themselves there for this factory called Arsenal One, which is due to be producing an extensive amount of autonomous lethal drones, really any day now at this point. And nearby, there’s an effort by Howard Lutnick’s company, Cantor Fitzgerald, to find the next Anduril to fill that particular space. So, Cantor Fitzgerald, of course, being Howard Lutnick, the current commerce secretary with a lot of ties to Epstein in particular. So, it’s kind of interesting to see that coalesce in the region that has essentially become Leslie Wexner’s fiefdom. And aside from that, it’s worth noting that another venture of Palmer Luckey as well, that’s also more or less linked to Peter Thiel and other figures in and around Palantir, like Joe Lonsdale, is this effort to create a Stable Coin bank called Erebor, which Luckey nominally created, but it’s going to be run by other people. But it’s going to be based in Columbus. And so, this is an effort to increase dollar hegemony through dollar Stable Coins.

And I think recently they were fielded as a choice to restructure Venezuela’s sovereign debt, or particularly the debt of their state oil company, following the kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro and during a time when Trump, at least, claims that he is “running the country.” So that’s worth keeping in mind, as is the fact that Erebor was explicitly created to replace Silicon Valley Bank, which you may remember collapsing a few years ago. And if you paid attention to reporting about the collapse, the collapse of the bank was largely created by a run on the bank that was orchestrated by none other than Peter Thiel. How interesting. So, just an example of how this this particular network operates in one sense and also the fact that they have extensively sought to include Ohio in a lot of their plans.

Chris Hedges: Just to close, I wonder if you can describe Smart Columbus and how it’s kind of functioning as a test city for other smart cities in the US. It’s clearly, I think you make the point, part of a broader nationwide trend.

Whitney Webb: Yes. So, Smart Columbus is an initiative that was created by the Columbus Partnership, which as I mentioned earlier, was created in the early 2000s by Wexner and his henchman - I don’t know what else to call him - John Kessler. And essentially, it was created to yes, make Columbus a test case for smart city technologies and the implementation of various smart city programs, one of which is aimed at eliminating the use of private cars within the city of Columbus and moving sort of to these fleets of ride-sharing vehicles, Ubers essentially, and potentially in the future, Waymo’s and things like that. And oddly enough, this directly intersects with an entity that I mentioned earlier, the US National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, which was led by Eric Schmidt, and one of the goals of that commission, though not in their final report, but in documents of theirs that were obtained by Freedom of Information Request, was their belief that in order for the US to compete with China in artificial intelligence, which of course to them was of prime national security importance, it was essential that private car ownership be phased out and replaced with these ride-sharing fleets of Ubers essentially or eventually autonomous ride-sharing vehicles as necessary to train and improve AI in order to compete with China. And so essentially Smart Columbus was a test case for that or is looking to promote those types of initiatives, which they’ve done quite gradually. It obviously hasn’t gotten to that point in Columbus, but essentially the goal of this other Columbus partnership-connected entity is to have those kinds of things happen in Columbus specifically and basically use it as a beta test for these technologies that are designed by Silicon Valley or, in the case of the US and NSCI military-related figures as well to have that essentially be beta tested in Columbus without the people of Columbus really having any input into that process at all.

Chris Hedges: What they’re building is a kind of totalitarian capitalism, isn’t it?

Whitney Webb: You could say that in a way. It’s interesting to point out that a lot of these oligarchs that swim in these same circles as Peter Thiel, take Mark Andreessen, for example, is the author of a document that he calls “The Techno-optimist Manifesto”, and one of the main influences he says for that paper is a “philosopher” by the name of Nick Land, who’s quite popular also in the Neo-Reactionary Movement.

And Nick Land argues that capitalism is a type of AI, and that capitalism is also God, and thus AI is God. And Mark Andreessen kind of reflects those ideas in his writings. And these ideas are pretty much very popular with the same people who are interested in Curtis Yarvin’s ideas of privatizing the state and having it be led by a CEO dictator, which, as I mentioned earlier, is of interest to Peter Thiel and some of his allies, which include Andreessen. So essentially, like I said earlier, I think they’re building it out of the sense that they’re essentially creating, I guess, a new model of feudalism, but enforced by technology, where basically there’s an upper class and then a large underclass and having that be enforced by technology. And one of the favorite historians of these big tech oligarchs that they’ve done interviews with, sit-downs with him, like one with Mark Zuckerberg, for example, is Yuval Noah Harari and he has argued that in this era of AI and the data center push and all of this that we’re living now, but he said this several years ago that in contrast to the industrial revolution of times past where it was the unexploited versus the exploited, now for the vast majority of people, it will be exploited versus expendable, and it’s better to be exploited than expendable. And so, as AI is taking jobs from regular people and all of this, being led by organizations that, it must be a sick joke to call it Jobs Ohio.

We are basically living in an era where these people are attempting to build a very anti-human future, and they see capital as the most important thing to support and guide and nurture. People, and humanity in general, are secondary to the progression of AI, which a lot of these people, as I mentioned earlier, see as directly connected to capital and is essentially deified by these people. And so, we certainly cannot live in a world like that. Some of them have written books about how the goal is to basically have like brains in vats and robots basically conduct economic activity and have a perpetual growth economy with no humans involved at all, that our future is essentially that.

So, this is obviously a future that people that don’t want something insanely dystopian like that should reject. And the best way to do that is to not use their products and to basically divest yourself as much as possible from big tech devices and services and the products they offer because, for example, in the data center push, in this paradigm where they say anyway that data is the new oil, data centers are sort of like the oil pipelines in previous decades. And if you look at examples like the Keystone Pipeline and how the government managed that backlash and things like that and furthered their development through things like eminent domain, we may see a lot of that happen in the future with data centers. But the best thing we can do is not use their products. It’s a little different than oil, where you have to fill up gas in your car to get by. We don’t need to use AI chatbots and ask them all these mundane things or use them if we’re really against what the data centers are doing. And as this becomes a progressively more pertinent issue for people in the United States, in particular, if you want to stop the data center push and backlash, they have a lot prepared to prevent any sort of direct action or even in-person protests so the best thing we can do is just boycott and divest ourselves from their products as much as possible because they can’t really justify a data center build out if no one is using their algorithms and in chatbots. So, we absolutely do have a way to keep this from going as far as they would like it to go and to prevent them from pumping up everyone’s water and raising electricity prices and basically doing a lot of things that are going to make regular life people’s lives increasingly harder. It’s already hard and we have time now to develop something independent of these companies that are basically taking control of our government that have very nefarious agendas not just for the United States, but for the natural world, and humanity in general. And I think really the best way forward, the nonviolent approach is best, and it is to divest, and not use their stuff as much as possible.

Chris Hedges: Great, thanks, Whitney. I want to thank Max, Thomas, Diego, and Nawell who produced the show. You can find me at ChrisHedges.substack.com.

Photos

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Peter Thiel Speaks At The Cambridge Union

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This article is read by Eunice Wong. You can find her work at www.eunicewong.actor.

Text originally published July 22, 2026.

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Full Text:

The State Department’s 100-page report on Cuba’s “campaign of subversion against the United States,” along with Donald Trump’s assertion that “Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure,” lays the groundwork for dictatorship.

Elections will be sabotaged in the name of “national security.” Left-wing dissent will be criminalized in the name of “combating terrorism.” Democracy will be snuffed out in the name of protecting “freedom.”

Trump, who has lately taken to issuing warnings about a communist plot to take over America, posits that an island of 9.6 million people — nearly 90 percent of whom live in extreme poverty amid extended blackouts due to decades of U.S. economic warfare — is an existential threat.

These accusations are not meant to be rational. They, like the charge that our elections are manipulated, are transparent excuses to go after institutions and individuals that are seen as threatening Trump and the Republican Party’s absolute grip on power. While Cuba has supposedly “carried out one of the most durable and damaging foreign intelligence penetrations in American history” Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, as well as non-state groups, “have the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure.”

Under the heading “Front Groups and Fellow Travelers,” the report assembles a disparate collection of organizations belonging to Cuba’s“ideological network.”

For example, the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), founded as an ecumenical social justice organization by the Presbyterian Church, is described as part of a Cuba “solidarity network” which “facilitates radical agitation within the United States.”

I am an ordained Presbyterian minister. I can assure you the Presbyterian Church is not facilitating “radical agitation.”

The report lists a wide variety of organizations on whose behalf IFCO has acted as an intermediary — perfectly legally — facilitating tax-exempt donations and handling grant management, compliance and reporting. These include The Jericho Movement, Equality for Flatbush, Claudia Jones School, Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, changingFrequencies, Viva Palestina US, and The People’s Forum, which the report describes as “a major activist group in Cuba’s U.S. ideological network.”

The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are castigated in the same chapter. The NLG “is one of the most persistently relevant — and insidious — organizations in Cuba’s U.S. network.”

The report continues:

The association of extreme-left lawyers and radical street activists has played a key role in a disproportionate share of the far-left terror and violence that has plagued the United States from the 1960s up to today. Throughout its history, it has maintained intimate ties to Cuba and other communist regimes and has explicitly sought to advance the causes of the international far left, including by working to defend and facilitate terrorism and extremist violence — from the Weather Underground of the 1970s to the violent BLM militants and Antifa terror cells of today.

The NLG is labeled a foreign influence operation because it provides assistance to activists, whose right to legal representation is constitutionally enshrined.

In 2025, the Trump administration conditioned federal funding to Harvard University on defunding and dissolving the law school’s chapter of the National Lawyers Guild (HLS NLG), which provided legal assistance to individuals and student groups that opposed the genocide.

A subsection in the report is dedicated to the anti-war activists at CODEPINK and their co-founders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans. It notes Evans’ marriage to the wealthy software entrepreneur Neville Roy Singham was attended by a “Who’s Who’ of progressivism” including co-host of Democracy Now! Amy Goodman; Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen and the playwright V (formerly known as Eve Ensler) who wrote “The Vagina Monologues.”

Naming guests at a wedding is one of the more bizarre passages.

The report grossly exaggerates the influence of Singham’s support for left-wing organizations — described as “far-left” — while ignoring the massive sums supplied by U.S. corporations, millionaires and billionaires, as well as the Israel lobby, to both major political parties, super PACs, think tanks and advocacy networks.

Israel has a far more insidious influence on U.S. politics and foreign policy than Cuba, Russia and China combined.

The State Department attacks the co-founders of The People’s Forum, Manolo De Los Santos and Claudia De la Cruz.

It draws on documents that are often decades old and infused with Cold War paranoia. These include a 1966 Senate report claiming there is “overwhelming evidence that the machinery of the Cuban Government has been progressively organized over the years, to carry out its number one task — the export of Communist subversion.”

It ignores more thoughtful assessments, including a 1981 CIA estimate that acknowledged “[m]uch of the turmoil around the world is rooted in regional and local disputes of a political, social, or religious nature and has nothing to do with Communism.”

In a chapter titled “Revolutionary Tourism,” the Venceremos (“We Shall Overcome”) Brigade is characterized as one of the most “extensive and dangerous infiltration operations ever undertaken by a foreign power against the United States.” This assertion libels thousands of individuals and organizations as Cuban assets, offering nothing more than innuendo.

It lists “the founder of Mother Jones,” — although there were four founders —– along with “several other [unnamed] notable magazine editors, leaders of powerful labor unions and advocacy groups, think tank executives, and a suite of professors at top U.S. universities” as Brigade “alumni.”

Transporting humanitarian goods to Cuba is not a crime. Although the Justice Department’s extradition request from Spain of philanthropist Fergie Chambers, who provided funds to humanitarian organizations in Gaza, may see the criminalization of any person or any group that assists those suffering under sanctions and a blockade.

The report attacks members of the March 2026 “Nuestra América Convoy” which transported goods to Cuba “in defiance of U.S. sanctions.” It notes that 120 organizations “from across 33 countries joined the caravan” with “a suite of influential progressives,” including Isra Hirsi — daughter of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, video game live streamer and commentator Hasan Piker — with whom I discussed my book “A Genocide Foretold” last year — former U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and “several other current and former members of European Parliament.” Even the Gaza flotilla activist Thiago Avila — who I interviewed last month after he was tortured by Israeli soldiers — gets a mention.

Those listed in the report did not become “radicals” because of Cuban indoctrination. Their politics are homegrown, formed in opposition to racism, genocide, police violence, the terrorizing and killing of immigrants and U.S. citizens by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) thugs and neoliberalism, along with the crimes of U.S. imperialism and militarism.

The report makes passing reference to a wide range of people on grounds so tenuous that it has to be read to be believed.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is mentioned for refusing “to denounce” a “tribute to [Assata] Shakur,” who was almost certainly framed for murder and who fled to Cuba after escaping from a U.S. prison in 1979.

It dedicates two paragraphs to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for her “friendliness towards the communist regime.” The evidence provided is her participation in a congressional delegation that joined then President Barack Obama on a visit to the island.

Cuban agents, it charges, “maintain a foothold in hundreds of front groups, activist organizations, solidarity centers, and ideological NGO and nonprofit networks. These groups collectively represent one of the single largest, most sophisticated and dangerous vectors for hostile foreign influence in modern American history.” Cuba has allegedly “infiltrated the highest reaches of the U.S. government, recruited and cultivated generations of American activists [and] backed an unprecedented wave of leftwing terrorism [my emphasis] on American soil.”

Note the word terrorism. Note that it makes these individuals and organizations terrorists. Note that it makes them subject to draconian terrorism laws. And note that the Trump administration has committed itself to hunting down and rooting out the “radical left.”

The report charges that Cuba and its allies are mounting “a revolution against western civilization itself — waged, in part, via the novel and insidious method of persuading the children of the West to turn against their own inheritance.” It accuses Havana of “gleeful support of the George Floyd uprisings.” It asserts that “the rise of antifa” and “the explosion of pro-terrorist activism on American college campuses,” can be “linked, in some way, shape, or form, to Cuban influence.”

It characterizes the DSA as serving “as a particularly potent illustration of the ideological victory of Cuba’s effort to position itself as the spiritual capital of Third Worldist radicalism.” It claims the organization maintains a “fierce, almost religious commitment to the cause of the Cuban regime.” It alleges Cuba has built a “sprawling revolutionary network” that has “shaped America’s most famous and influential extremist movements” including the Black Panthers, the Weather Underground and antifa. These networks include “powerful leftist nonprofits, anti-ICE collectives, socialist groups, and Marxist militant organizations” in the U.S.

Cuba, the report concludes, “has sought to undermine, degrade and destabilize America with spies and soldiers, but also with students and intellectuals; with terrorist cells, but also with solidarity committees and nonprofit networks with intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover.”

The broadside is chilling. It is worse than McCarthyism. It presages a savage purging of American society.

Those named in the report are condemned without evidence. They are denied due process. That the assertions in the report are distorted at best, and often fictitious, is irrelevant. Fascist propaganda is not rooted in truth. It is rooted in a hatred for liberal values, democracy and the left. It is rooted in the belief that once those condemned as human contaminants are removed, there will be a moral, spiritual and economic renaissance.

We have seen this fascist dance before. We know what comes next. It is not good.

Photos

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V20: The Red Party - 20th Anniversary Celebration Of V-Day And The Vagina Monologues Featuring A Performance By Eve Ensler Of In The Body Of The World And After Party At Carnegie Hall

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The Don - by Mr. Fish

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I visited Donald Trump’s Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City the day before it closed, in October, 2016. The casino had two huge white gates flanked by 2-ton white, cast-stone elephants. Its entrance was topped by an array of 70 turquoise and teal fiberglass minarets and a dozen gold-tipped domes. A neon sign with red and gold lettering read: “Trump Taj Mahal Casino and Resort.” A lighted fountain in front of the glass casino doors was decorated with two rows of six white-and-gold urns.

The Trump Taj Mahal, New Jersey’s tallest building and the world’s largest casino, cost $1.2 billion to build. The opulent suites, when they opened, were named after historical personalities — Alexander the Great, Michelangelo, Napoleon and Cleopatra. The suites cost around $10,000 per day. Trump, whose name and image were plastered throughout the casino, employed his familiar hyperbole to call it the “eighth wonder of the world.” The casino operators were instructed to answer incoming calls with the words: “Thank you for calling the Trump Taj Mahal, where wonders never cease.” The waitresses wore “harem girl” outfits.

The casino went through bankruptcy five times.

Trump is doing to the country what he did to the Taj Mahal. His administration is operating well beyond its means with a budget of $7.4 trillion for fiscal year 2026, against projected revenue of just $5.6 trillion. Trump’s idiocy has embroiled the United States in an endless and unwinnable war with Iran, which may tank the global economy. He is set to cut health coverage for 15 million people, along with food assistance and other basic needs programs. He has terminated the jobs of thousands of government employees. He has shut down USAID, the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Kennedy Center. He gutted Voice of America and vows to close the Department of Education. He withdrew from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement (twice). He continued the suspension of funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which had begun under the Biden administration. He canceled thousands of U.S.-funded international development projects. He erased government datasets and climate-related web pages. He slashed the budgets for renewable energy initiatives while revoking federal carbon and pollution regulations.

His scorched earth policies, which are dynamiting the foundations of the republic, are accompanied by a culture of corruption and deceit that is unmatched in American history.

Trump, whose officials face accusations of insider trading and whose family has made more than $1.4 billion from crypto-related ventures since taking office, shamelessly profits from the fusion of unregulated cryptocurrency-based prediction markets and politics pioneered by gambling apps, such as Polymarket.

Donald Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, is a major investor in Polymarket, where he sits on the advisory board. He has an estimated net worth of $400 million. He also serves as a strategic advisor at Kalshi, which gave him equity in the company worth some $300,000 — now estimated to be worth millions. Kalshi recently announced it will allow users to bet on whether the FDA will approve individual drugs as “safe and effective.”

Trump’s Truth Social is developing a prediction market called Truth Predict. His administration sued Connecticut, Arizona and Illinois in an attempt to block these states from regulating prediction markets. Truth Social also launched a $100,000 per month service offering quicker access to Trump’s market manipulating posts — a thinly disguised version of insider trading.

The White House, replicating the mob-style shakedowns of Atlantic City’s casino culture, demands huge payouts from corporations and billionaires in exchange for political favors and deregulation. The Wall Street Journal writes that Trump has amassed a slush fund of $800 million for pet projects, including his ballroom, presidential library, super PACs and political issue committees.

Trump’s chief fundraiser, Meredith O’Rourke, nicknamed “The princess of darkness,” collects the payoffs with the blunt pitch “The boss wants this money.”

The nonnegotiable demand is lifted from the playbook of Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo, the head of the Bruno-Scarfo crime family, whose extortion racket collected millions from Atlantic City construction firms, businesses, bars, restaurants, unions – which saw their health and welfare funds looted – and casinos. And, just like the mob, once is never enough for the Trump crime syndicate.

It always comes back for more.

Trump, who like most mobsters is accompanied by a much younger goomah — his latest being his executive assistant Natalie Harp — has a long history of mob-like retribution. He issued executive orders targeting law firms that previously employed attorneys who investigated him. The firms lost security clearances and access to federal courthouses. Scrambling to placate Trump, they sheepishly succumbed to his demands.

When I arrived at Trump’s casino, the 22-space tour bus terminal was empty. Most of the 12 restaurants in the casino were closed. The casino’s arena, seating 5,500 people, had shut its doors.

The Trump Taj Mahal, like our republic, was about to die.

“When I walked inside the Taj, glittering Austrian crystal chandeliers, which cost $14 million each, dangled over the softly lit interior,” I wrote in America: The Farewell Tour. “Many were missing strings of beads. The walls were covered with mirrors. I looked out at rows of gaming tables, blackjack tables, roulette wheels, and three thousand slot machines that twinkled with colored lights. The slot machines emitted beeps, hums, and dings of various pitches. They stretched over an area the size of three football fields. The gambling floor was almost empty. The dealers stood in front of vacant, felt-covered tables. Most of the gamblers who slumped in the cushioned chairs in front of the slot machines were elderly and haggard. They robotically pulled down levers or pushed square buttons. They stared blankly at the spinning screens in front of them. One slot machine generates between $200 and $300 a day for the casino. The dedicated gamblers are given courtesy drinks. Housekeepers occasionally enter rooms to discover the corpses of elderly men or women who spent hours drinking more alcohol than their bodies could absorb. It is not uncommon for slot players to wet and soil themselves.”

“The seventeen computerized check-in desks near the entrance were empty,” I continued. “A lone clerk stood behind the long counter facing empty rope lines. Toilets in the bathrooms, adorned with Carrera marble, were covered with plastic bags and had signs reading ‘Out of Order.’ I walked along the soiled and worn carpet through long, deserted, and poorly lit corridors on the upper floors. Semicircular beige wall sconces, some of which enclosed burned-out bulbs, were placed every few feet on either side of the hall. The sconces were dirty and cracked. The ceiling had brown water spots. The air smelled of mold. Three quarters of the 1,250 rooms had been mothballed. The casino felt like a ghost ship.”

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Gambling, like Trump’s sham university and his $TRUMP memecoin, is about selling escapist fantasies. It is about preying on people’s despair. The spinning reels on the slot machines, for example, are an illusion. They do not slowly run out of momentum. They are programmed to appear that way. Computer chips determine the outcome the moment the button is pushed or the lever pulled. Virtual reel mapping ensures that a jackpot symbol appears above or below the payline. The player has the impression of almost winning, spurring the gambler to bet more money.

Trump from his earliest days as a real estate developer was enmeshed with the mob, including his cutthroat lawyer Roy Cohn. Cohn represented Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, the boss of the Genovese crime family, and Carmine Galante from the Bananno crime family. Trump was schooled by Cohn and others in the art of extortion, blackmail, threats and graft. He has, throughout his career, surrounded himself with mobsters, grifters and sycophants.

Joseph Weichselbaum, a three-time-convicted felon who was eventually imprisoned for trafficking marijuana and cocaine, managed Trump’s helicopter fleet. The helicopters ferried high rollers to and from Trump casinos. These high rollers could get anything they desired, from sex with escorts to cocaine. Weichselbaum’s easy access to drugs was probably an asset. When Weichselbaum was awaiting sentencing, Trump wrote to the judge that he was “a credit to the community.” The trafficker received a three-year sentence, although he served only 18 months. The couriers who physically delivered the drugs for Weichselbaum got up to 20 years. When he was released from prison, Weichselbaum moved into Trump Tower with his girlfriend.

Trump’s casino opened in 1990 with a concert by Michael Jackson. It was an extravaganza built with $820 million of unsustainable debt, including the issuing of $675 million in junk bonds at a 14 percent interest rate.

Marvin B. Roffman, a casino analyst at the Philadelphia investment firm Janney Montgomery Scott, told The Wall Street Journal that the Taj Mahal would need to make $1.3 million per day to meet its interest payments. No casino had ever brought in that much money.

“The Taj was doomed from the start,” I wrote. “Trump soon had to service interest rates of $95 million a year. He was able to get new loans for a while and then went bust. It was a brief and giddy moment of insane excess. But it was good for his outsized brand, even if it showed an atrocious lack of business sense. Trump had borrowed money at high interest rates and lied about the rates to regulators. Trump dumped the losses on stock and bondholders, who were fleeced for more than $1.5 billion. Numerous local contractors and suppliers, never paid by Trump, went bankrupt.”

Trump made out like a bandit. He put up little of his own money. He shifted personal debts to the casino and collected millions of dollars in salary, bonuses and other payments. His casino employees collectively lost millions of dollars in retirement savings, along with their jobs. His business debts were off-loaded on his investors.

Trump owned three casinos in Atlantic City and one in Gary, Indiana. The Trump Plaza and the Trump Taj Mahal casinos were shut down. The Trump Marina, his third casino, was sold to Texas billionaire Tilman Fertitta. Fertitta, currently Trump’s ambassador to Italy, renamed it The Golden Nugget. Trump’s casino in Indiana, a 340-foot vessel called the Trump Princess, declared bankruptcy in 2004.

All failed because of Trump’s insatiable greed and mismanagement.

Trump is doing to the nation what he did to the Taj Mahal. He is harvesting and extorting the organizations he oversees for personal profit, while the rest of us are left bereft amid the ruins.

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This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

In their most recent documentary, “Earth’s Greatest Enemy”, Abby Martin and Mike Prysner examine the US military as not only the world’s biggest consumer of fossil fuels, but also the world’s biggest perpetrator of ecological devastation and a driver of both increasing carbon emissions and militarization in other countries. Chris Hedges speaks about the new film and why it is an important tool in the global struggle against imperialism with Abby Martin in this episode of The Chris Hedges Report.

On top of the US military’s direct carbon emissions from powering warships, bombers, tanks, the vast web of foreign bases and more, in the feature length film, Martin exposes the amount of indirect carbon emissions generated by the military industrial supply chain, from the extraction of raw materials in Global South countries to the factories that manufacture weapons and equipment. Martin also discusses the toxic footprint of the US military both at home and abroad, which poisons the land and water leaving a legacy of disease and death, and the Pentagon’s efforts to deny responsibility and prevent compensation for the suffering it causes. She states, “Every base is a story of toxic dumping with the soldiers as the lab rats.”

Hedges and Martin speak about the US military as the enforcement arm for global capital, especially for fossil fuel corporations and Big Agriculture, which “imposes the dictates of global capitalism around the world at the barrel of a nuclear armed gun.” They describe the ‘collective suicide’ of an unsustainable system that uses fossil fuels to protect the interests of and expand the fossil fuel industry. And they explain the imperial boomerang effect of “a global military empire that acts as a for-profit corporation,” which supplies surplus weapons “to entities like ISIS or the Taliban or to local police forces here in the US, which in turn brutalizes and subjugates its respective population.”

The interview concludes with a discussion of what can be done to change course. Hedges and Martin agree that a major obstacle is the lack of an opposition party in power. Even the most progressive Democrats are unwilling to take on the Military Industrial Complex. But Martin finds hope in the rising support for socialism and growing realization that “Gaza is actually the connective tissue to our liberation all over the world.” She adds, “I do have revolutionary optimism in the fact that people are putting their careers on the line…. We need to be militant. We need to be proud and confident about our anti-imperialism.”

Pre-order my new book "Requiem for Gaza"

Host

Chris Hedges

Executive Producer:

Max Jones

Intro:

Margaret Flowers

Transcript:

Margaret Flowers

Crew:

Diego Ramos

Transcript

Chris Hedges: Earth’s Greatest Enemy, the second feature film project by Abby Martin, documents how the Pentagon, the world’s single largest institutional polluter, spews carbon, contaminates water and spreads toxins across vast landscapes while being exempt from climate agreements. The film focuses on an often unexamined aspect of the war industry, which not only eliminates human lives through violence, but also through ecological devastation. The US military is the single largest consumer of fossil fuels on the planet at 270,000 barrels of oil a day. This amounts to 55 million metric tons of CO2 annually, more than 150 countries. The United States is the only country which has some 1,000 installations and bases dotted throughout the globe. Russia has nine, China has one.

These military outposts are equipped with thousands of vehicles and aircraft. The US Air Force alone is larger than the next five biggest air powers combined. It would take the average American driver over 40 years to burn as much fuel as a single flight of a Boeing Pegasus. The US flies more than 600 of these tankers, triple the rest of the world combined. The direct emissions from warships, vehicles, warplanes, tanks, and military bases do not include the indirect emissions emitted by weapons manufacturers, suppliers for the military, and the machinery that extracts raw materials in countries such as the Congo that are vital to the military machine. If these indirect emissions are factored into the carbon footprint, the pentagon’s CO2 output is at least three times higher, over 165 million metric tons a year.

Joining me to discuss her film, “Earth’s Greatest Enemy”, is Abby Martin. It’s a great film and we’ve got to make sure we tell viewers how to link to it, but what is it that propelled you to look at the military from this angle?

Abby Martin: I think for a lot of us who have been witnessing the ecocidal nature of U.S. imperialism and the destruction that it brings around the world, it’s been so obvious for so long that when you destroy landscapes, when you mass murder people, those toxins, the carcinogens that are unleashed from the constant bombing, the pulverization of concrete, this carbon-dense material that we’ve seen in Gaza, it’s so obvious, Chris. You know, I’ve always been an environmentalist and so as an anti-imperialist journalist, it’s always just been such an obvious link. And I was always so curious why no one had synthesized this material and not just the emissions, but the totality of this gargantuan subject, because it’s not just emissions. It’s really everything. Every base is a story of not only legacy contamination, but ongoing contamination with the waves of militarization that we see today. So, I was really upset that this wasn’t a mainstream issue, that this wasn’t incorporated in the narratives with mainstream environmentalism. And instead, you saw people like Elizabeth Warren talking about greening a global military empire, which we know is completely unsustainable and uninhabitable with the viability of a planet that sustains human life.

Chris Hedges: Well, and they don’t just poison those abroad. I remember the bombing in Bosnia when I covered the war and, in those craters, nothing ever grew because there was uranium. Those were uranium depleted munitions. I drove on my way to Basra, where I was eventually captured by the Iraqi Republican Guard, up the highway of death. It was coated in white dust from Iranian depleted munitions that of course sickened and killed many of the service members who had to go clean it up. But you also talk about Camp Lejeune, that these poisons are, in that sense, the military’s non-discriminatory. They’re quite happy to poison their own as well. We didn’t even talk about the trash dumps in places like Iraq.

Abby Martin: Exactly, I mean you look at something as cynically exploited as the 9-11 first responders. I mean these were lauded as the heroes of 9-11, slapped over all the propaganda to activate that reptile brain after 9-11 and what was done to them? Basically, left to die, denied health care at every step of the way. These are the 9-11 first responders that were digging through the asbestos-laden toxic dust. So of course, the service members are completely expendable in the eyes of the ruling class and the military brass.

I mean, every base is a story of toxic dumping with the soldiers as the lab rats. We saw this during the waves of radiation with nuclear, the extractivism with the Cold War, literal US soldiers as lab rats with the nuclear testing and, today, the burn pits and, of course, you mentioned Camp Lejeune. This was the worst water contamination event in American history and for years the military command was dumping intentionally toxic chemicals and lying about it. And then, of course, this is their modus operandi. They deny claims. They deny the existence of the toxic dumping until it’s undeniable and then they’ll just basically dole out these claims with such an extreme delay that a judge today said it will take 100 years to basically look at every claim because they’re trying to deny the class action lump sum lawsuit.

So, it’s insane. I mean this is a 50 plus year old story and there’s still people that are sick and dying because of this cover-up. And they’ve never been held accountable and they’ve never properly remediated any of these areas. Chris, most of the superfund sites in the US have either housed military installations or been used for military use and they completely do not clean these sites up. They are left to rot and kill the people who live there, and this includes American citizens and servicemen members.

Chris Hedges: Well, Camp Lejeune, the Marine Corps camp, it of course not only sickened and poisoned the Marines, but their families. As you said, it was incredibly prolonged because the military denied it. You do explore it in the film, but give us the kind of details of just how callous that abuse was.

Abby Martin: Yeah, this is a thing that people can look at and say, “They didn’t know any better”, right? “It was a long time ago. They certainly didn’t know the toxicity. They didn’t have any safe alternatives.” Of course they did. Similarly to PFAS today, they have safe alternatives. They don’t need to use PFAS. They choose to, Chris, they choose to. There’s always safe alternatives. There’s always other things that they could be doing other than open burning, open detonation on all of these indigenous lands and desecrating these places. But when it comes to Camp Lejeune, this was a story that was happening for decades. I mean, they were dumping so much toxic waste because you look at just the maintenance of the military arsenal alone, the amount of toxic chemicals that are dumped into the ground and the open atmosphere just to clean these engine parts to make these engines mission ready to fly around in pointless patrols.

So, the amount of toxic waste that that’s accumulating every day, it’s really unquantifiable. So, the military was doing this, dumping the toxic waste into water wells at this Marine Corps base for years and years and years. So, when the tests were done and they knew the wells were poisonous, instead of stopping the dumping, Chris, they continued. They continued for years and covered it up while Marines were drinking the water, bathing in the water. I mean, it was just like Red Hill where they were literally bathing, cooking, cleaning in toxic water. And who died as a result of that? Of course, countless people. I mean, we’re talking about a million people that were impacted by this. But the people who really were affected by this were the babies. The babies who didn’t have the ability to deflect the carcinogens in their body. They didn’t have the ability to do that. So, we saw over a thousand babies that were killed. Stillborn, newborn infants, Chris.

One of the women who goes back to these graves sees three born and died gravestones of children. Every two years, this woman would have a stillborn baby and probably thought it’s her. She didn’t know to blame the military brass. They didn’t know. There was no accountability. There was no information given. Still to this day, you have people, activists, are going out with cards saying, “Did you know about Camp Lejeune? Hey, you might be affected by this.” I mean, it’s absolutely insane to think of the lives lost, the destruction wrought on the families there, and actually no knowledge of what happened. Think about how many lives were ruined thinking that’s you, and there was no answers for these people.

Chris Hedges: Let’s talk about the nexus between our addiction to fossil fuels and imperialism, which I think is also a theme of the film.

Abby Martin: Yeah, I mean, you look back at the existence of the US military as an institution. It’s always been to extract, I mean, basically as the enforcement arm of extractivism. You look at the first extraterritorial bases, and they were always to protect coal, the infrastructure of coal. And then it became oil, right? When oil was discovered that became cemented as the national security priority. It’s always been there. It’s just that we adopted the pretense of national security being human rights, democracy, freedom. It’s always been explicitly about oil. But the military has always been the enforcement arm for global capital.

So, today, the military basically is pointed as this arch nemesis in the film. But really, it is just the consequence of an imperialist system that imposes the dictates of global capitalism around the world at the barrel of a nuclear armed gun. And the consequences are dire if you don’t bow to the dictates of the system, Chris. So, I always look at the perpetrators that have been rightly pointed at in terms of the global pollution that we are experiencing today, Big Oil, Big Ag. But who enforces these mechanisms? Who props up this system? Who does it? It’s the U.S. military. The oil companies have a military and that’s the U.S. military.

Now you mentioned the fact that if you look at just the institutional level of pollution in terms of the consumption of oil, that amounts to 150 countries, right? But it doesn’t even scratch the surface of the emissions because we’re talking about U.S.-led military emissions, which includes NATO. It includes the Great Power Competition. When the U.S. continues to build up its armaments and withdraws from all these treaties, well, of course, Russia and China will respond with their own military buildup. It all goes back to the impetus, to the imperial core and the belligerence and arrogance by the US.

And then you see this reaction, this wave around the world reacting to the US belligerence. But you talk about the necessity of maintaining this arsenal and kind of the self-fulfilling prophecy, and that’s, I think, really the key here is the actual infrastructure of the fossil fuel domination and that cyclical need to get the natural resources to pillage and plunder, to extract the last vestiges of natural gas and oil, to justify feeding the arsenal. To feed the oil dragon, you need to continue to grow and expand just to feed it.

So, it really is a self-fulfilling prophecy in the worst way possible. It’s collective suicide because the military itself is the main driver of this system. It is driving this unsustainable world that’s dominated by fossil fuel. And then it uses the expanse to justify its own growth and expansion. And then you have people like Nancy Pelosi and these liberal politicians saying the military is the solution for the problem that it caused. So, we’re in the worst way possible where there’s no imagination or ingenuity outside of the system itself that has caused the very problem that we’re facing. And they want it to be the solution for it.

Chris Hedges: Well, as the climate breaks down, as you have increasing numbers of climate refugees fleeing from the Global South, as you have naval bases, and the military is planning for this, essentially buried underwater because of sea level rises, the very problem they create becomes the excuse not only for their existence, but their expansion where Trump is now talking about a military budget of a trillion and a half dollars. I mean it is this kind of very bizarre feedback loop.

Abby Martin: Yeah, it is. People talk about the notion of the imperial boomerang. Of course, for marginalized brown and black people, they’ve always felt the brunt of our colonial, the consequences of colonialism and imperialism. But I think for people who look like me in this country, they’re seeing that this is inseparable. This boomerang effect of the consequences of having a global military empire that acts as a for-profit corporation. That when you have surplus weaponry that you need to continue to justify the next generation of these pointless vehicles, it either is handed off to entities like ISIS or the Taliban or to local police forces here in the US, which in turn brutalizes and subjugates its respective populations like in Minneapolis. So, it’s a feedback loop in the worst way in every possible way that you need to continue to grow on a finite planet. You need to continue to justify the growth and the expanse. And so, one fascinating thing about Trump that I’ve heard you articulate many times is the fact that he’s completely dropped the mask. I mean, all of this is just very explicit. It’s about the oil. Iran’s the third largest oil producer in the world and Venezuela’s the first. I mean, this is insane. It’s an overlap of just the law of the jungle, complete lawlessness, harkening back to the days of Christopher Columbus, where it’s just openly colonial, like Operation Total Extermination of Latin America.

Any country that doesn’t bow to this global system will be punished, will be destroyed unapologetically from the ruling class. So, when we did this film, what’s amazing about it, it was kind of the incubation period to get us somewhere like Trump. I mean, this was the neoliberal doctrine. This is the neoliberal order. This is what was deemed normal, right? This was the status quo. And this is a death spiral, Chris.

So, the film’s really instructive because it shows us how we got here. It gives us answers to how things have gotten so bad, how it is possible that someone like Trump can get in and ratchet things up to this extent, because he’s not a king. He’s not an anomaly. He’s exactly the perfect encapsulation of the system that we have today.

Chris Hedges: Let’s talk about the opposition. Those who are attempting to confront the now naked imperialism that backs genocide in Gaza, that carries out unprovoked attacks against countries like Iran. Where is it coming from? And what are the strategies that are effective to combat this monster that we’ve created?

Abby Martin: I mean, as uncertain and dystopian as the time that we’re living through is, Chris, I find it simultaneously very exciting because of the uncertainty, because of where it could go. We both know that 10 years ago, talking about socialism was considered completely controversial in this country. We are living in a country that its unofficial religion is anti-communism. And so, to live in a time where all of this is exposed, the bankrupt, hollowed out nature of this feckless opposition that has done nothing but lay down as the doormats for empire, for genocide, I mean, it’s a very important time because there’s no toeing the line. There’s no middle ground. It’s really socialism or barbarism.

We have to abandon this notion that this is the end of history. This is the finality of our economic system. This is unacceptable. This is barbarism in its purest sense. This is where it’s gone. It’s gone on the ruins of all these institutions that have basically just been fronts for U.S. power this whole time. It’s all been exposed as sacrificial, like we are all sacrificial lambs, all of the human beings on this planet and also the environment, all of us are expendable basically in the eyes of the ruling class. It’s all about short-term profit. It’s not even about tactics or strategy.

I mean, you look at the Strait of Hormuz, you look at even the Iraq War. When has the US even won a war, right? I mean, we stole the glory from the Soviet Union with World War II, but when has the US, in terms of asserting its imperial dominance and US hegemony, when has it actually resulted in a victory, like a military victory? It’s all about profit and that’s what’s so dystopian about it. They are willing to create apocalyptic moonscapes all over the planet. Dead zones still existing from small armaments during World War I. I mean, this is the result. This is the legacy of these wars, but they’re not stopping. In fact, you saw it getting worse with Iran - the intentional targeting of oil infrastructure, oil depots, natural gas pipelines. The casual warning of committing war crimes – today is ‘Bridge Day’, tomorrow is ‘Power Plant Day’ with the world’s media just being like, “Is he gonna do it? Like, let’s find out. We have a 48-hour timeline.”

So, I think this is how we got here is the wanton impunity for war criminals, not holding people accountable for the Iraq war crimes. I mean, this is how we get Gaza This is how we get the new lawlessness and the law of the jungle. And so, the resistance that we’re seeing to it is incredible, the sustained actions around the world, people’s understanding that Gaza is actually the connective tissue to our liberation all over the world. How Gaza fits into everything because five years ago no one understood that and it was always considered too controversial. It was a third rail and now it’s understood as everything. It is intrinsically tied to humanity’s liberation, and so to understand that and to see that foundation of understanding ripple throughout the world is something that is incredibly motivating and inspiring to me. And I do have revolutionary optimism in the fact that people are putting their careers on the line, their bodies on the line, their lives on the line just for the chance to move the needle, Chris, because that’s what we’re up against. We’re up against a completely insane global system. But it’s comprised of a bunch of dumb people. And that’s also what gives me hope. It’s not just the banality of evil, it’s the stupidity of evil. These people are so compartmentalized in their self-preservation that they can’t even see what’s right in front of them. They can’t even see that they’re destroying the planet for their kin. So, this is the opening that we have. We have a chance to change the world, to insert the truth, to reclaim our narratives and uplift those. And this movie is one tool in the arsenal to push that forward.

Chris Hedges: And yet when capitalists feel threatened, they reach for fascism. And we are rapidly consolidating a fascistic system within the United States. Fascists are not particularly smart. They’re often very buffoonish, but they’re very deadly.

Abby Martin: Indeed. And to see the US waning its power in terms of the consciousness of the public. I mean this is the least popular war ever. Trump has the lowest approval rating but still, the fact that they don’t even need to try I think says a lot, right? The fact they didn’t even need to placate the public. They didn’t need to put out a propaganda campaign like in the wake of 9-11, What does that say? They don’t even care to try.

And that really exposes the state that we’re in, the detachment from the ruling class to the public, the fact that they don’t care. That should show us everything, that there is no connection whatsoever. There’s no representation. There has to be something that we do that’s outside of this electoral arena because it has completely failed us. There’s no material gains whatsoever from the Democratic Party. They are going to continue to basically push this system as we all fly off a cliff.

Chris Hedges: Abby, it’s always, the Pentagon is really not only unaccountable, but unassailable. It often submits budgets and then Congress will give them more than they even ask for. In many ways, it’s a state within a state. I remember the historian Arnold Toynbee highlighted unchecked, unregulated militarism as the death blow of the empire. You’re right that, of course, this is at once suicidal in terms of the imperialist policies and yet the power of the war industry, I mean even Bernie Sanders isn’t going to go after it. The power of the war industry is such within the American political system that it’s virtually sacrosanct.

Abby Martin: Indeed, this is the problem, isn’t it? Even with the case like Bernie Sanders or AOC as president, they’re still imperialists. I mean, at the end of the day, they are going to sustain the bipartisan consensus of US empire. They have never questioned the notion, the existence of a global military dictatorship, holding the world under its boot, subjugating billions of people.

This is unacceptable. You cannot call yourself an environmentalist if you are not anti-imperialist. Similarly to how Zionism is incompatible with progressivism. These concepts are contradictory. So, the real problem is that one of the only politicians that I ever heard even talking about closing down the bases around the world was Ron Paul, right? This is why he was so popular, but people tried to basically castigate him and lump all of his supporters in as racists. And that’s a really, really problematic premise because you have to have an opposition that is calling into question this imperial machinery of death.

And when you have Bernie Sanders, the most progressive wing of the Democratic Party, not even questioning that, not even talking about roping in these bases, decommissioning any aspect of the military empire. And instead, it’s just the liberal wing of it, right? I mean, defending the use of sanctions as diplomacy. Sanctions killed 1,800 babies in Cuba since 2019. This is mass murder by policy, right? You have AOC, I mean, basically just defending Liberal interventionism. This is a huge, huge problem.

We need to be militant. We need to be proud and confident about our anti-imperialism. We need to not throw the Global South under the bus when times get tough and castigate Cuba and Venezuela. We need to full-throatedly defend the Global South and their sovereignty and independence. And we need to call into question the entire premise that we have the ordained right to arbitrate anything around the world. That’s the problem, Chris. This is chauvinism. This is insane. So, we need to start basically pressing our politicians at the bare minimum that they need to be anti-imperialist. And it’s unacceptable that you have people posing as progressives that are not anti-imperialist at all.

Chris Hedges: Well, all the great socialists, Rosa Luxemburg and others, reminded us that you can’t be a socialist unless you’re also an anti-imperialist. You can’t.

Abby Martin: No, and sadly you’re not seeing any of that. Where is anyone in power talking about this stuff? There’s cursory kind of attempts to just admonish Trump like on these mealy mouth statements from people like Hakeem Jeffries, “Oh, the process. Well, Maduro had to go, but the process had to be better. We should have had the process involved better when it came to a war of aggression and eco-side unleashed against Iran.” I mean, it is disgusting. It is disgusting to have Chuck Schumer out there talking about his undying support for Israel as he tries to hawk books about anti-Semitism while there’s a goddamn genocide going on. This is the opposition party? This is the opposition party that you want to browbeat Leftists and is saying, “Vote blue”? If you’re not going to stand up against genocide, how the hell are you going to fight for democracy? Jesus Christ.

Chris Hedges: Tell us how people can see the film and, also, follow your work.

Abby Martin: You can see the film. It’s up now on Vimeo. It’s for streaming for international audiences and domestic audiences. Check it out, Vimeo. You can check out EarthsGreatestEnemy.com and it’s embedded right on the home screen. You can also get me to do Q and A’s, show the film all around the world if you want to. It’s also available for patrons on our Patreon and YouTube members only. Soon in a couple of weeks, we’re releasing with Watermelon Pictures out on Amazon and Apple, so it’ll be widely available on streaming then.

I encourage everyone to reach everyone you know who’s still reachable with the film. It’s an incredible tool in the arsenal to try to activate and motivate people and agitate them into becoming anti-imperialist and give us a fighting chance against the parasites robbing us blind, Chris.

Chris Hedges: You did a wonderful job, Abby. Thanks. And I want to thank Max and Diego, who produced the show. You can find me at ChrisHedges.subtack.com.

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This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

Compared to other wealthy Western nations, the United States stands out for its high incarceration rates and military spending and declining standard of living. In her new book, “Crime and No Punishment: Wealth, Power and Violence, in America”, which just won the Robert F. Kennedy book award, Professor Marie Gottschalk connects the dots between the “twin evils of state violence at home and imperial violence abroad.” She chronicles the rise of President Trump as a manifestation of the failures of the Democrats to stem police violence and address economic insecurity when they had opportunities to do so, and illustrates how the tendrils of US Empire permeate the current crises.

Chris Hedges explores this history with University of Pennsylvania Professor Gottschalk in this episode of The Chris Hedges Report. They begin with Frederick Engel’s concept of ‘social murder’ in which the state creates conditions of social decline that shorten the lifespans of the general population. Hedges and Gottschalk point to deindustrialization during the mid-twentieth century and the oligarchic class’s fears of popular backlash as precursors to mass incarceration. They also discuss the growing militarization of policing as returning veterans were hired into the force and equipped with excess military equipment.

The Great Recession of 2008 was another critical turning point as millions of people lost their pensions and homes. Gottschalk refers to the Obama administration paving the way for the election of Donald Trump by refusing to prosecute those responsible for crashing the economy and then giving the banks billions of dollars in bailouts while people struggled financially. The public’s awareness of this disparity, plus the fact that corporations and law enforcement are permitted to commit crimes with impunity, has fueled growing mistrust in Congress.

Rural communities, which represent President Trump’s political base, have been hit particularly hard by the unequal recovery. Gottschalk describes the shift in police violence and incarceration from urban to rural communities where there are white majorities. Rural communities feel abandoned by the Democrats. Hedges explains, “We have a figure like Trump, a con artist, demagogue because the one thing he did was tap into that very legitimate sense of betrayal, by both parties, a sense of anger and in some ways the mask has been ripped off and we’re seeing all of the poisons that you document in the book being turbocharged by the Trump administration.”

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Host

Chris Hedges

Executive Producer:

Max Jones

Intro:

Margaret Flowers

Transcript:

Margaret Flowers

Crew:

Diego Ramos and Sofia Menemenlis

Transcript:

Chris Hedges: In the opening chapter of Marie Gottschalk’s book, “Crime and No Punishment: Wealth, Power, and Violence in America”, a chapter titled “Social Murder”, she writes, “The United States is an exceptionally militarized, lethal, and violent country. The growing concentration of economic, political, and military power is draining America of vital resources to sustain healthy and peaceful communities. It is pushing more people to the margins where a police officer, a prison cell, a tent, a military recruiter, or a deadly dose of fentanyl-laced heroin is waiting for them. Rates of homicide, gun violence, suicide, drug overdoses, incarceration, traffic deaths, poverty, and police use of force are exceptionally high in the United States compared to those of other Western countries.” She continues, “In a historic reversal, U.S. life expectancy has fallen below that of much poorer countries as a growing number of people in this country are at risk of losing their homes, health, livelihoods and savings. Tens of millions of U.S. gun owners are locked and loaded, ready to take the law into their own hands or turn their guns on themselves. And escalating political violence has put the electoral system and democracy in America in mortal danger.”

She warns that the United States is increasingly unable or unwilling to stem violence in its many forms. Powerful economic and political interests are rendering less powerful groups and individuals in the United States more susceptible to premature death and other harms, or what Frederick Engels calls ‘social murder’.

Joining me to discuss her new book, “Crime and No Punishment: Wealth, Power and Violence, in America”, is Professor Marie Gottschalk. She is the Edmund Cain Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as the author of “Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics”.

So, Marie, I said before we went on the air, I thought your book was just a compendium of all of the political and historical missteps that have resulted in the rise of the cult-like figure of Trump. You open the book by looking at the twin evils of state violence at home and imperial violence abroad. I’m just going to read, I thought it was a really prescient little section, you say, “The country’s deep investment in its overseas empire, including the massive military budget, and the unassailable assumption that the United States is the indispensable nation destined to police the world, has compounded the problem of violence in America.” Can you talk about that inner link between imperial violence and violence at home?

Marie Gottschalk: Yeah, there’s so many links. I studied mass incarceration for many years, and we focused on how we can shift money from policing to social welfare issues and defund the police. But we ignore the fact that defunding the police is not going to solve the fundamental issues in the United States and that for all the talk about polarization, the giant military budget goes through every year almost without any significant opposition. And that as a society, those resources are not available to be tapped. So, the first thing is just where the money is going.

The second thing is that there’s blowback from the Empire that we see that the policing that is done overseas and what we learn about policing overseas, how policing developed since the early 20th century, was very much intertwined with what the American military was doing and also of recruiting veterans to go into our police forces to use high-level military training in our police forces, use military equipment. And so, this kind of blowback from the Empire, and after 9-11 we talked about blowback whether it was going to increase threats of terrorism at home, but we’ve ignored the blowback from policing, and also the disparate impact of the Empire on certain parts of the country. It’s very easy today to disparage rural areas and to say that this is the heartland the support of MAGA, but in many ways rural areas have carried some of the heaviest burdens of the Empire. Many people from rural areas have gone for two, three, four trips overseas, served in the military and they’ve come back. Deaths have been lower than other wars, but casualties, injuries, PTSD, mental health problems, opioid problems related to overseas service are astronomical in many of these communities.

Chris Hedges: You make the link between the law and order agenda pushed through in large part by the Clinton administration, and at the same time, the deregulation and lack of oversight of corporate crime, corporate malfeasance. Those two issues for you are also interrelated.

Marie Gottschalk: It was fascinating to me, and I have to admit it was a major blind spot of myself teaching mass incarceration. I just focused on crime in the streets and didn’t really focus on, I sort of knew there was crime in the suites, but I didn’t intensely focus on it, and I didn’t see these as two important twins that go together. And so, while we’re all focusing on mass incarceration and increasing number of people for crime in the streets or in US prisons putting the US really to be the world’s warden, almost the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. And yes, you’re right to finger the Clinton administration. At the same time, we have these crime waves from corporate America, and we have this phenomenal decriminalization of crime in the suites. So, we have an evisceration of our regulatory units. We have the financialization, not only of the Treasury of the Secretary, the SEC, taking people from the financial industry but increasingly during the Obama administration, to some extent Clinton administration, you have people from the financial sector who are staffing key positions in the Department of Justice. And so, what we’ve seen is a lightening up on corporate crime, both in investigating it and prosecuting it, and we had this intensification of punishing people for street crimes.

Chris Hedges: Well, because all they do is slap fines on them. Nobody’s ever really sent to jail unless they’re Bernie Madoff, and that’s because he stole from the rich. But there’s a quote in the book, I think it’s from Jamie Dimon, he says, “Go ahead, fine me. I don’t care.” What’s $15 million, whatever it is, he doesn’t care.

Marie Gottschalk: Right, and it was a quote directed at Elizabeth Warren when he was testifying, right? And if you see some of these fines from the financial crisis, they look like a lot of money, billions and billions of dollars, right? But often they don’t even equal the quarterly profits of these corporations. The corporations are able to often deduct these from their taxes. And many times, the government doesn’t even follow up whether they’ve paid these fines or not.

I think the other thing important to focus on is these so-called ‘deferred prosecution agreements’. This was a mechanism, dates back to the early 20th century, and it was to help young juveniles who got in trouble with the law to say, “Look, you stay clean. You don’t get in more trouble. We’ll just not charge you. We’ll not prosecute you.” Well, beginning toward the tail end of the Clinton administration and then really taking off in the Bush administration and Obama administration, these became the mechanism of choice to deal with corporate America. And these are basically negotiated agreements between corporate law firms and the Justice Department. If you break the deferred prosecution agreement, you’re supposed to be prosecuted. That’s what it is, a deferred prosecution. But it’s often like Britney Spears’ “Oops, I did it again.” I break the agreement and I’m given another deferred prosecution agreement. These agreements are often not monitored in any close way.

And so, with crime in the streets, we obsess about people who commit robbery or people who commit burglary, are they going to recidivate again? But we have major corporations who are repeat recidivators, and they get deferred prosecution agreements. The other thing about these agreements is you have a shift towards prosecuting the corporation rather than the corporate executives, right? And so that even if you have these, it’s still not directed at the individuals, but rather it’s directed at the corporation, which is a big change in the United States.

Chris Hedges: Talk about the political effects as these huge corporate entities accrued more and more wealth and more and more power. You also write about the rise of the American oligarchic class. How did that affect our political system?

Marie Gottschalk: I think we have not fully reconciled with the enormous impact of the Great Recession and that we said the Great Recession was over, Obama campaigned in 2012, “The economy is back, we’re back.” But for many parts of the country, we were not back. And many parts of the country understood that this traumatic economic event happened. Millions of people lost their homes. We had the biggest mass migration of people since the Great Depression. People lost their pensions. People lost their healthcare. And it was a rebound from the Great Recession that was very unequal and that the coastal areas, the high-tech parts of the country, rebounded while many other parts of the country were mired in this economic distress. Tax bases were eroded, public spending didn’t come back, spending on public health didn’t bounce back. And I think that was for many people a crystallizing event of experiencing this economic trauma and nobody was to blame for it.

And many of the elite – the head of the Fed, the heads of corporations - treated it like it’s an act of nature, it’s an act of God. And yet we knew that there were many reports coming and that something had to be done and it wasn’t done. And many people in the United States understood that nobody went to jail for that, nobody was charged for that. And I think that that has been a very powerful undermining of trust in government, and also that there was no reckoning with the banks. The largest banks came out stronger than before. People understood that hundreds of billions of dollars went to save the banks, but the Obama administration supported a very shoddy foreclosure plan that as Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, we now understand said, “Well, the only reason for that was to foam the runway for the banks”, so to slow down the foreclosures a little bit so they could process them. It wasn’t really to help the people who were in threat of losing their homes.

And I think we focus on lack of trust in Congress, but there’s a fundamental lack of trust in corporations right now. And the public opinion polls are very interesting in that increasingly people don’t trust corporations. They don’t have trust in capitalism. They have increased favorable views of socialism. If we look at the current president, 45, running in 2016 and then coming back again in in 2024, and we all want to blame this on this kind of misogynist racist deplorables that he’s appealing to. And I think there are much more complicated reasons that yes, he’s got this rage that he appeals to from certain parts of the country, but there’s also a powerful economic rage that then has been directed towards immigrants, towards women, et cetera, et cetera. But I also think it’s directed towards increasingly the economic elite.

Chris Hedges: It was a little interesting for me, a footnote in the book, which I didn’t know until I read it, and I’d like you to address it, and that is the spiraling mass incarceration rates in rural areas.

Marie Gottschalk: Yeah, so we often think of mass incarceration as an urban phenomenon and one that primarily affects African American men. And what we’ve seen over the last decade is a kind of shift in that your chances of being incarcerated actually are higher in rural areas and suburban areas than they are in urban areas right now. And so even though we’re overall, in some states, seeing the incarceration rate go down, it’s often driven because the incarceration rate in urban areas is going down. And meanwhile, in rural areas, it’s going up. And so, it’s misleading to say we finally are going to have a downward trend in incarceration rates. There’s actually great variation across the country in this.

Chris Hedges: And this is also accompanied by, which I didn’t know until I read your book, “A rise of police violence in rural and suburban communities,” you write, “which have accounted for about three quarters of such fatalities. In 2020, the fact is not widely known for several reasons, research on police homicides overwhelmingly focuses on large cities, even though most of these fatalities occur in communities with fewer than 100,000 people. Furthermore, major cities tend to have more political networks, organizational resources, and media outlets, so, police killings in urban areas are more likely to attract public attention. Indigenous people are the most at risk of being killed by the police, but their deaths, which typically occur in rural underpopulated areas without witnesses to record the deadly encounters on smartphones, do not garner wider public attention.”

Marie Gottschalk: Yeah, you know what I’m trying to do here is to talk about police as state violence and to see that it’s not just an urban phenomenon, and also to understand some of the deeper structural roots and causes of that. And it’s remarkable to me that really we have very good data on how many police get killed each year, but we don’t…

Chris Hedges: I just want to interrupt you. I know from your book, almost none are charged or they’re charged with very minor offenses. I mean, it’s staggering.

Marie Gottschalk: Right. Very few get charged. Very few get convicted and then even if they get convicted, the sentences are pretty nominal. Even in departments that have banned chokeholds, you can have police who use chokeholds and sometimes they won’t get charged and the internal punishment might be taking some of their vacation days. But trying to look at rural deaths and to see state violence as something that spans the United States, right, is a very important way to try to think about the coalitions to challenge state violence and that certainly African Americans are disproportionately killed by the police. But in many parts of the country, being a white person in a rural area will put you at high risk for being killed by the police. And it’s often how we think about racial disparities. White people are less likely to be killed by police than African American people are. But white people in the United States, compared to white people in the United Kingdom or Germany, are very high at risk for being killed by the police because we have such high rates of police violence. And the police violence is probably even higher than what we know because we don’t collect good data on police killings of civilians.

Chris Hedges: So, I just want to read this passage and have you comment. You said, “More white people are killed by U.S. police officers each year than people from any other racial or ethnic group. Eight of the 10 states with the highest rates of fatal police shootings are in the West, where black people constitute barely 3 % of state populations on average. As for the other leading states, one is West Virginia, which is one of the whitest and least diverse states. The other is Louisiana, one of the most racially and ethnically diverse states. White people make up the majority of people in rural areas in nearly every state and also constitute two thirds of the people killed by the police in rural communities.” Those statistics were completely unknown to me.

Marie Gottschalk: Yeah, it’s not known to a lot of people, right? Because we think that if we just fix our urban police departments, we’re going to fix this problem. I think the other piece that I don’t emphasize enough in the book, though I do mention, is many of these rural areas are run by sheriffs. And sheriffs are a whole force onto their own. They’re elected. They are above the law in many ways. And they are a prime recruiting ground now for this constitutional sheriff’s movement, which is that we can interpret the law the way we see fit because we are elected and we are, they argue, the prime representation of the public will.

Chris Hedges: Or you compare it to police systems in Europe, not only in terms of training, which is much more extensive, but also the vast variety of law enforcement entities that exist throughout the United States, which are disparate, which are not connected.

Marie Gottschalk: Right, and some places you have a police force that’s one person, right? And the average police force is 10 or 12 people. How do you get high quality training? In many states, we have more extensive training required for a hairstylist or manicurist than we require for someone who’s going to carry a gun and be able to shoot and kill someone.

Chris Hedges: It’s a matter of weeks, isn’t it? What’d you say, it’s like 11 weeks or something?

Marie Gottschalk: Right, yeah, 11 weeks is the average. In Europe, in some countries it’s three years of training, and in some of the Scandinavian countries, getting into a police training program is as hard as getting into an elite university in the United States.

Chris Hedges: I want you to talk about what you call the ‘fetish of secrecy’.

Marie Gottschalk: The fetish of secrecy is we don’t know what the police are doing, right? We don’t collect good data on civilian deaths. And we often focus on civilian deaths, and we forget that there are many more times shootings, sexual assault, beatings, all other kinds of abuse by the police. Much of the data that we have on police abuse is collected by enterprising journalists, citizens. It’s no national database on what the police are doing. The 1994 Crime Bill said that police departments should collect this data, but there have been no real strong incentives like we’ll take away federal funding if you don’t collect this data. So, we don’t have even good databases to track this information.

Chris Hedges: You also write about non-fatal police violence and abuse. You say, “While killings by the police have become a major issue in recent years, other types of police violence and abuse have received comparatively little national attention. Sexual assault and sexual misconduct are among the most frequently reported forms of police misconduct, second only to excessive use of force. Low income, LGBTQ people, black women, and members of other historically disadvantaged groups are most likely to be victims of sexual assault and sexual misconduct by law enforcement. Police officers across the country conduct roadside digital anal and vaginal exams on the thinnest of pretext. Furthermore, school officials and police nationwide persist in strip searching students, from preschoolers to high schoolers, in violation of the Constitution because courts cannot bring themselves to impose a penalty upon them for doing so.”

Marie Gottschalk: Yeah, it’s pretty remarkable, isn’t it?

Chris Hedges: Yeah, but again it’s this culture of impunity.

Marie Gottschalk: It is a culture of impunity and the reasons why: first, we don’t prosecute. And then the second reason is if you want to bring a civil lawsuit, we have this thing called qualified immunity, which essentially has immunized most of the police from really ever facing serious civil lawsuits. And even if you’re able to get your lawsuit into court, and even if you win, the police themselves usually don’t even pay the penalties or the cost of the civil lawsuit, the fine.

Chris Hedges: You also write about police unions. Of course, you have a notorious police union in Philadelphia, where you teach, which can often resemble a white hate group. These police unions bestow, you write, political endorsements. They run their own candidates. It goes far beyond the traditional role of enforcing established policies. Talk about the role of police unions.

Marie Gottschalk: Police unions are a very powerful force, and some police commissioners say, “We don’t even have control over our unions,” right? And so, if there’s a shooting, often police have the right, for example, if there’s video of that shooting, to see the video ahead of time before they’re interviewed, right? So, they can make their stories align with what the video is there. They often aren’t interviewed right away when there’s a shooting of a civilian. Many of these things go to arbitration and the arbitration is very heavily tilted towards the police. So, it’s very difficult to discipline police, fire police, to impose new strictures on the police.

Chris Hedges: When did this begin? I mean, you had Rizzo in Philadelphia. It was the 1960s, right? And I think at one point Philadelphia had the most, in terms of per capita, was killing more people. Of course, the whole Mumia Abu Jamal case. But what is it, in your view, that triggered this culture of impunity, this ability of the police to carry out lethal violence and non-lethal abuse?

Marie Gottschalk: I have to go back to the 20th century and really going back again to the Empire actually and bringing military back into the United States at a time when there’s more attention on developing police forces. Because at that time, Capital didn’t really want to pay for police forces. They had their own private police forces. But increasingly with labor unrest, rising concerns about income inequality, political mobilization with the populace, Capital began to think maybe we need professional police forces, maybe we need to pay for those police forces. That was the same time that the United States was going out as an empire and then bringing back veterans, who had developed policing tactics overseas. And there was this idea that we should make professional police and professional police should be autonomous and they should behave like the military. And so, these roots of this militarization of the police and its autonomy are intertwined with the development of the Empire.

Chris Hedges: But there was a backlash, I mean, certainly in the 60s. Wasn’t there a certain period of an attempt at a corrective or not?

Marie Gottschalk: Yeah, it’s really, really interesting. We think about Lyndon Johnson and the Big Crime Bill and the Kerner Commission and saying that we need to invest more in jobs and health care and the social safety net and things like that. But the other thing that came out of the Crime Bill of 1968 was actually that we need to have more professional police. And here, professional police was defined by more equipment, more training and more autonomy for local police because one of the ways that local police bought into “okay, we might get this infusion of money from the federal government” was that we’ll take that, but we need to have autonomy. And so, you give a lot of this military equipment but you’re also having rising autonomy of the local police.

And again, you also see the blowback from the Empire because this was a period of “let’s develop nonlethal weapons”, but many of these so-called ‘non-lethal weapons’ that were used overseas during that period, obviously Vietnam, many of them were actually quite lethal. Tear gas that was used in Vietnam that was imported back here was very, very lethal. Rubber bullets, things like that. But we began to use the language of non-lethal weapons, even though these actually could kill you and if they didn’t kill you, they could seriously harm you. So, we talked about this new professional policing with non-lethal weapons, but it was highly militarized policing.

Chris Hedges: Can you talk about the parallels between deindustrialization and the militarization and excessive force by police and, of course, the huge expansion in the carcel state?

Marie Gottschalk: So, one of the reasons that we got the carceral state - I served on the National Academy of Sciences Commission on the Causes and Consequences of Mass Incarceration - and one of the causes we came to as a committee to agree upon was that you had deindustrialization in the cities in the 1950s and 60s. And there were rising fears that people didn’t have jobs and that that might be a threat in some ways to the stability of cities and with the decline of jobs, decline of social services, things like that in the cities. And so, there was a sense that you needed to assert more control over cities.

There’s a common thing that if unemployment goes up, then disorder will follow. That isn’t always true, but it’s a really common belief. And so, there’s an idea about cracking down. If you think that that’s one of the things that fueled increased police and increased incarceration, then we can think that something like that is happening at a delay in rural America. As you got NAFTA, as you got more industry that was in rural areas and in the heartland moving overseas, you had this wave of deindustrialization. In the 50s and 60s, many companies moved out of the cities, moved to greenfield sites where they didn’t have to deal with labor unions, fewer environmental protections, cheaper labor, all that kind of stuff. Then they started moving to Vietnam, to China, to Mexico. And with this deindustrialization in these areas, you have some of the same fears that you had in urban areas that helped to fuel mass incarceration in urban America.

Chris Hedges: I just want to read a passage you wrote about the Obama administration because it seems to me that this passage explains how the Obama administration really paved the way for the arrival of Trump. “The Obama administration failed to reverse the remarkable inversion in the criminal legal system of the last five decades. That is, the vast expansion of the carcel state to punish street crimes, drug offenses, and immigration violations since the 1970s and the accelerating de facto decriminalization of high-level crime in the suites since the 1990s. As non-prosecution agreements, and deferred prosecution agreements proliferated to settle cases stemming from the financial and foreclosure crises, these get out of jail free cards became even more deeply legitimized and institutionalized to deal with all kinds of corporate crime under Obama and his successors. Furthermore, Obama’s mortgage relief program ended up being a boondoggle for leading banks and mortgage servicers, who turbocharged the foreclosure crisis turning millions of people out of their homes and illegally repossessing many properties. An estimated nine to 10 million families would end up losing their homes, about two thirds of them to foreclosures. Many people simply walked away from their devalued properties,” as you said earlier, “returning the keys to the banks, an action that would destroy families’ credit for years.” I think that you make this point in the book. I mean, people who turned to Trump had at one point supported Obama.

Marie Gottschalk: At one point, had supported Bernie Sanders too, after Obama, right? And so, you know, there’s a common argument that, the support for Trump is largely racially driven, but there were millions of whites who voted twice for Obama. Obama won states like Indiana, which we can’t imagine the Democrats right now winning, right? But he won Indiana, and a good proportion of the Sanders voters, we understand, then moved over to Trump. And if you listen to Trump’s final commercial, his main commercial in the 2016 election, it could be a commercial by Bernie Sanders except that the voice is unmistakably Trump’s. But it’s pictures of Bill and Hillary Clinton, the so-called global elite, the oligarchy, and it’s interspersed with this multicultural, working-class people of seemingly all different races, ethnic backgrounds, etc. And it’s a very, very powerful commercial about this perception that these people have been abandoned in the United States.

I want to add one other thing about Obama. What I don’t want people to come away with is thinking corporations have always had all this power. There is no choice. There’s nothing we can do about it. And what I try to do in the book is say, “Yes, corporations throughout American history have disproportionately had power, but it’s waxed and it’s waned.” And I try to identify moments when it was possible to do something else. So, after the Savings and Loan Crisis, George H.W. Bush was forced to put some regulations in. The Clinton administration stripped down those guardrails and let the economy rip and be deregulated, crashed and burned with the Great Recession. Obama comes in and we read back now and say it was always polarized with Obama. Yes, it was very polarized about the Affordable Care Act, but there was remarkable support ranging pretty broadly across the political spectrum to restructure the banks, to do not just window dressing about economic reform, but something much more penetrating so that you wouldn’t have these banks become too big to fail, that you would make them pay in some certain way, that you would make them keep high reserves compared to previously. And the Obama administration blinked on that. And Obama’s justification, he said, “If we sent these corporate executives to jail and we use the criminal system,” he says in his memoir, “that would have been violence to the social order.”

I think about that and think about the violence to so many Americans who lost their homes, who lost their pensions, right? But this would be violence to the social order. So, what Obama sort of argues is, okay, we’re going to do regulation, right? We’re going to let our Department of Justice close its eyes to what’s going on and instead we’re going to do regulation. And then he supported a very weak economic reform, regulation of the banking industry. He delayed in what side he was going to come out on that. By that time, Capital had regrouped. They were back on a roll. The largest banks had consolidated. They used the hundreds of billions of dollars in the TARP money to come back, to buy up smaller banks. Then at that point, Obama had missed the moment, and yet there were opportunities, legislation in Congress to take a much stricter position with the financial industry and it didn’t happen. And Obama justified it, “Okay, we’re going to do regulation, we’re not going to do criminal,” but he didn’t really do either.

Chris Hedges: Let’s talk, before we talk about Trump, the media a little bit and the fact that you have this handful of oligarchs buying up - Larry Ellison, Bezos and others - and what that has done that kind of corrosive effect on our political life?

Marie Gottschalk: You know, I’m a professor today in part because I used to be a journalist and I sort of saw some of what was happening. I worked for an independent newspaper. It got bought up by Gannett. We tried to organize a union. I watched what happened when an independent was…

Chris Hedges: Which paper was it? I have to ask.

Marie Gottschalk: It was the Burlington Free Press. It was a really fine newspaper that then shrunk its news, didn’t do as much investigative journalism, et cetera, et cetera.

But the problems with the press predate Jeff Bezos, right? That in fact, we’ve had this consolidation of the media for several decades now. We have not had administrations willing to use antitrust law, the FCC, to prevent those consolidations that are going on. We’ve also not had a good push to support local journalism like you have in other countries where people pay a tax and they see it as a public service that you should have good local journalism, right? That’s what you have in Norway, and you pay for it like you pay for roads, you pay for good local journalism. What we’ve seen now is this all happening on steroids. And the other piece of it, and again, goes back to Clinton administration, the Clinton administration let private equity rip after the 1980s and the crisis that we had with some of the corporate raiders, private equity recoiled a bit, but then some deregulation that happened during the Clinton administration allowed private equity to blossom again, and private equity has been very corrosive to journalism. And one of the things I’m trying to do with the book is to say that we need to think of all these aspects, right, of what is corroding our society and not just look at Trump, either Trump 45 or 47, and one of them being journalism.

Chris Hedges: Well, Trump is the symptom. He’s not the disease. And I think by the end of your book, I think you do a good job of explaining why we have a figure like Trump, a con artist, demagogue because the one thing he did was tap into that very legitimate sense of betrayal, by both parties, a sense of anger and in some ways the mask that has been ripped off and we’re seeing all of the poisons that you document in the book being turbocharged by the Trump administration.

Marie Gottschalk: We are and people say to me, “How could all these Americans have voted for Trump in 2016?” And I said to many Americans, “Hillary Clinton looked like a shill for Wall Street.”

Chris Hedges: Which she was.

Marie Gottschalk: Right. And when it came to her $100,000 speeches that she was getting…

Chris Hedges: Goldman Sachs.

Marie Gottschalk: Goldman Sachs. You know, her fancy home in the Hamptons, etc, etc. And her saying, “When Bill and I left the White House, we were penniless,” and then their net wealth was being in the tens of millions of dollars. And so, people saw that and I don’t think we should underestimate what, hey may not know every in and out of the Great Recession and the financial crisis, but they can pick up on some of that. And especially when Trump came down his elevator and made his announcement and he stoked some of those concerns.

Chris Hedges: So now, the deregulation, the destruction of watchdog agencies, just the entire edifice that provided ineffective, at least largely ineffective, but at least some protection, are just being ripped apart. Of course, the Trump administration has no respect for the system. I mean, they tried to overturn when he lost the first presidential race. When he ran this time, he said that if he lost in 2024, he wouldn’t acknowledge the results. He’s talking about a third term. Where are we?

Marie Gottschalk: Where are we? I guess it’s who’s ‘we’, right? I think the elite in the Democratic Party are, “There were good days, we need to go back.” And Obama looks better when you compare him to Trump. Biden looks better when you compare him to Trump. George W. Bush looks better when you compare him to Trump, right? Until the elite finally reconcile with what their responsibility was for where we are, we can’t start rebuilding. And it’s not about going back. And in some ways, it’s about a reckoning with what the wrecking ball was from both parties and the elite of both parties. And then it becomes, this is not just going to come by putting somebody else in the White House. And the takeover of the Republican Party was not just about Donald Trump. This has been a decades-long project to figure out how to shift the polity in the United States, and this didn’t come out of nowhere. And if we think we’re just going to let somebody new in 2028 to clean it up, it’s not going to happen. And there isn’t, I don’t sense, that energy in the elite levels of the Democratic Party to really reckon with this. I think there are the grassroots that they’ve been trying to trash in the Democratic Party for a long time, or trying to contain it, those forces. But there does seem to be this kind of, bring back the good old days without recognizing that the good old days were the Clinton years of deregulation, were Obama having this phenomenal moment, this political moment, got himself to for a short time, a veto proof Senate. And what did he do with it? Right? He squandered that moment.

Chris Hedges: Yeah, that’s the tragedy of it. It’s kind of like the sterility of the late Weimar Republic. It’s extremely worrying. I think you’d probably agree the Democratic Party’s sabotaging of the Bernie Sanders campaign was one of the greatest political sins because he was speaking to those issues and his commitment to the working class, unlike Trump’s, of course is real. And as you mention, even on university campuses, there’s a paragraph in your book about shutting down the encampments, the closure of free speech on university campuses.

Marie Gottschalk: Well, this is something that’s very near and dear to me because, and even at my own university, the narrative is, “Well, we just have to weather what’s going on in Washington, and it’s all just happening down in Washington.” And we forget the really tragic year we had in universities in 2023, 2024 and really that we’re living in right now of a complete chill and lockdown for open expression on universities. And we’re right now going to impose possibly some very permanent draconian open expression rules at my university that I can’t believe might actually pass and be imposed here. And these are pre-Trump. These are things that happened under Obama and even at my own university, I talk about in the book, we called out, my public security people, a SWAT team, looking for a student who allegedly threw paint on the statue of Benjamin Franklin. Like, how did that happen? And how do we allow, like, the outrage, right, that we’re calling out SWAT teams on our students for something so minor like that. And that again is also a public reckoning.

Likewise, at my own university, we essentially had an attempt for a hostile takeover of our board that ended up losing our president at our university. And that was not all about just what happened in Washington, but it is the tentacles of these larger political forces that many people just think, including many administrators at my university, that we can just get below the radar, wait this out, maybe things will be better in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 election and not really see that democracy is in peril and that we’re all of fault and we all have to save it rather than kind of cowering, which is what I see with many of the elite universities, including my own.

Chris Hedges: Yeah, it’s really quite tragic. I spent 20 years overseas and universities are always the last readout of free expression in a real political debate. Once they shut those down, it’s almost unfortunately terminal. I was at Harvard and the Dartmouth students would always come and dump green paint all over John Harvard every year. So, I can just imagine the SWAT teams coming for them. Thank you very much, Marie.

And I want to thank Sophia, Max, and Malena who produced the show. You can find me at ChrisHedges.substack.com.