Democracy Now! Tuesday, March 24, 2026

0:00From New York, this is Democracy Now. With Iran, we've been negotiating for a long time, and this time they've been business. And it's only because of the great job that our military did is the reason they mean business. They want to settle and we're going to get it done. I hope. As the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran enters its 25th day, President Trump claims Iran's begun negotiations with the United States. But the Iranian government has dismissed the claim as fake news accusing Trump of trying to manipulate financial and oil markets. Trump will speak to former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy about Iran and the latest from

1:00Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. Then hours, long waits at airports are drawing attention to the plight of TSA workers who've been without pay for over a month due to a partial government shutdown. Trump has deployed ICE agents to more than a dozen airports nationwide. He will speak to a lead TSA officer and union chop steward in Boise, Idaho. Plus, we are highlights from Democracy Now's 30th anniversary celebration Monday night. We'll hear the Pulitzer Prize winning Palestinian poet, Masab Abutoha, as well as a surprise guest, Bruce Springsteen, who performed and talked about his new song, The Streets of Minneapolis. I swear, the federal troops brought death and terror into the streets of Minneapolis. They did the wrong thing. With the power and the solidarity of the people of Minneapolis with an inspiration

2:00of the entire country, their strength and commitment told us that this is still America. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, democracynow.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Iranian officials are denying President Trump's claims as on-boys have had very good and productive conversations with Iranian counterparts. On Monday, Iran's foreign ministry said there had been no dialogue between the U.S. and Iran with the top official stating Trump, quote, retreated after hearing that our targets would be all power plants in West Asia, unquote. Iran's denials Monday came as President Trump continued to insist Iran had reached out to him and that talks are going, quote, perfectly. So they called, I didn't call, they called, they want to make a deal.

3:00And we are very willing to make a deal. It's got to be a good deal. And it's got to be no more wars, no more nuclear weapons. Trump insisted he'd been in contact with the top and respected Iranian official, but refused to name the person, saying only it wasn't Iran's new supreme leader, most about comedy. Trump also said he would jointly control the straight up hormones personally, along with, quote, whoever the next diatola is, unquote. Meanwhile, the U.S. and Israel are continuing air strikes across Iran, where the government says more than 1500 civilians have been killed since February 28th. Huge explosions were reported overnight in Iran, while other air strikes targeted the cities of Tabriz, Isfahan and Karaj, as well as two gas facilities in a pipeline. In Israel, Iranian missiles struck several areas of Tel Aviv, injuring several people and setting buildings and cars on fire. Elsewhere, Iranian missiles and drones targeted Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait,

4:00and the United Arab Emirates will have more on the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran after headlines, with the former Israeli negotiator, Daniel Levy. In Lebanon, Israeli defense minister Israel Kant says his forces will establish a so-called security zone stretching to the Latani river, cutting off Lebanon's south from the rest of Lebanon, while indefinitely displacing hundreds of thousands of residents who've been ordered to evacuate their homes. On Monday, Israel's far right finance minister, Bezal al-Smotric, said Israel should annex southern Lebanon, with the Latani river as Israel's new northern border. Meanwhile, there's been no let-up in Israeli air strikes. Earlier today, Israel bombed a residential apartment in the capital Beirut, killing at least three people, including a three-year-old girl. Israel also blew up a bridge in the western Bekha Valley. This is Ali Atar, a local official who survived an Israeli strike on the town of Chatt. After fasting, we were having dinner.

5:05All we heard was a strike, a huge boom in the roar of aircraft. It left. We went outside to see what had happened. When we got here, we found people collecting body parts from the building. The building had nothing in it, nothing at all, except civilians living there. Lebanon's health ministry reports Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon since early March. More than a million are displaced. In Gaza, local and international media outlets report Israeli forces tortured a Palestinian toddler to coerce a confession from his father. According to reports, the child's father, Osama Abu Nasr, was detained near the Amagazi refugee camps Saturday after he came under fire from Israeli soldiers. He was forced to approach an Israeli checkpoint where he was separated from his 18-month-old son, stripped naked and forced to watch his soldiers use this cigarette to burn one of the toddler's legs while using a nail puncture to the other. This comes as a new report published by a UN

6:09expert on Palestine warns Israel systematically torturing Palestinians on a scale that, quote, suggest collective vengeance and destructive intent, unquote. This is Francesca Abanesi, UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory. Since October 2023, torture has effectively become state policy, sustained by a torture esculture that is socially produced, politically defended and publicly normalized. The proposed bill on the death penalty for Palestinian detainees marks yet another dangerous escalation. Have therefore recommended that those responsible, including senior officials, such as Itamar Bangvir, Bezalel Smotrik and Israel Katz, be investigated and were warranted, that arrest warrants be issued. In Cuba, an estimate of 11,000 children are awaiting surgery as a US fuel blockade is pushing hospitals to the brink amidst worsening blackouts and supply shortages. Cuba's deputy foreign minister Carlos Fernández de Casio said in an interview with

7:12NBC's Meet the Press Sunday, more than 96,000 Cubans are in need of surgery, but hospitals have been forced to suspend some medical procedures due to limited electricity and as they run out of supplies like syringes and antibiotics. Cuban officials have condemned Trump's intensifying siege on Cuba as energy asphyxiation, as the island has not received any oil imports in more than three months reducing its fuel supply by about 90 percent. UN experts have condemned the US blockade on Cuba's violation of international law. In Washington DC, Oklahoma Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullen has been confirmed as Homeland Security Secretary installing another Trump loyalist to oversee mass immigration raids and deportations. Mullen was Trump's pick to replace Christy Noem, who was fired earlier this month. Mullen was confirmed in a 54-45 Senate vote. Republican Senator Rand Paul broke from his party to vote against Mullen. The two clashed Mullen's

8:15confirmation hearing last week with Paul referring to Mullen as a freaking snake. Unquote. Meanwhile, two Democrats join Republicans in backing Mullen, Senators John Federman of Pennsylvania and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. Mullen's confirmation comes as lawmakers worn a DHS partial shutdown could drag into April. Immigration and customs enforcement agents, ICE agents deployed to more than a dozen airports across the US on Monday amid its persistent staffing shortages within the Transportation Security Administration, the TSA, caused by the prolonged partial government shutdown. TSA workers have gone without pay for more than a month, leading many to call in sick or resigned. That's led to wait times of up to six hours at some airport security lines. This is Pascual Contreras, a union member and TSA worker in Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport. I don't think we need them here. We need to be paid. Why would you bring

9:21another agency to BTSA when you already have TSA? What I'm getting from some of the officers is that they're just in the way. Now we're on top of having the heavy burden. Now we have to train them in how we do our job. Later in the broadcast, we'll speak with ICE, we'll speak with TSA worker union steward in Boise, Idaho. Meanwhile, videos have emerged of ICE agents in plain clothes violently detaining a woman on Sunday. Inside San Francisco International Airport in front of her daughter. The woman who's from Guatemala is seen crying as agents pinner down before dragging and restraining her in a wheelchair. Her daughter was also reportedly in custody, as the ICE agents were enforcing a removal order by stenders or heard asking the agents to identify themselves with the officers refusing to say their names or show their badges. The Supreme Court

10:22appears poised to overturn a Mississippi law allowing mail and ballots to be counted as long as their postmarked by election day. On Monday, the Court's right wing majority appeared to reject arguments that mail and ballots are consistent with federal election laws because voters make their final choices by election day. More than two dozen states have similar laws, meaning the Supreme Court's ruling expected by June or July could have a big impact on November's midterm elections. Meanwhile, postmaster general David Steiner is warning the U.S. Postal Services running at a money and might stop delivering mail by next February unless Congress changes a federal law that caps the agency's borrowing limit at $15 billion. U.S. PS is operated with a deficit almost every fiscal year since 2007. Hawaii's governor has asked the White House for a presidential major disaster declaration after heavy rains and floodwaters for thousands of people to evacuate their homes on the north shore of Oahu. It's the worst flooding Hawaii has seen in more than 20 years.

11:26In North America, rapid analysis of this month's early spring heat wave by world weather attribution has found record-shattering triple-digit march temperatures across the southwestern U.S. would have been virtually impossible if not for climate change. On Monday, the United Nations warned in a new report that concentrations of greenhouse gases have reached all-time highs with the climate, quote, more at a balance than at any time in observed history, unquote. Co-barrett of the world meteorological organization said the report confirms 2025 was at least the third hottest year on record. It was about 1.43 degrees C above the 1850 to 1900 baseline. Between 2015 and 2025, we experienced the hottest 11 years on record. In 2025, our glaciers continued to retreat and ice continued to melt. The warming

12:27ocean and melting land-based ice are driving the long-term rise in global mean sea level rise. And here in New York, nearly 1,000 unionized folk-time faculty members at New York University of Gunn on strike, calling for higher wages, jobs stability, and for the school to address heavy workloads. The non-tenured faculty members are represented by the contract faculty United UAW union, which had been negotiating with NYU's administration for a fair contract that would address pay inequities between non-tenured and tenured staff. The CFU UAW said on social media, quote, where dismay that the administration prefers the disruption of a strike to settling a fair contract, unquote, classes have not been canceled. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, democracynow.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman in New York, joined by for the first time in six years, except for yesterday, one Gonzalez also in New York.

13:31It's great to be with you again. Thanks, Amy, and welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. As the U.S. and Israel's unprovoked war on Iran enters its 25th day, President Trump is claiming that Iran has begun negotiations with the United States. But the Iranian government has dismissed the claim as fake news, accusing Trump of trying to manipulate financial and oil markets. Over the weekend, Trump threatened to, quote, obliterate, Iranian power plants if Iran did not fully reopen the state of Hormuz by Monday night. But on Monday, Trump reverse course extended his deadline to five days and repeatedly claimed the U.S. was now in productive conversations with Iran. With Iran, we've been negotiating for a long time, and this time they mean business. And it's only because of the great job that our military did is the reason they mean business. They want to settle and we're going to get it done, and I hope.

14:33Earlier in the day, President Trump claimed he might personally take joint control of the state of Hormuz with Iran's next Ayatollah. Be jointly controlled. Maybe me. Maybe me. Me and the Ayatollah, whoever the Ayatollah is, whoever the next Ayatollah, and they'll also be a form of a very serious form of regime change. Now, in all fairness, everybody's been killed from the regime. They're really starting off. There's automatically a regime change, but we're dealing with some people that I find to be very reasonable, very solid. The people within know who they are, they're very respected, and maybe one of them will be exactly what we're looking for. Look at Venezuela, how well that's working. We are doing so well in Venezuela with oil, and with the relationship between the President-elect and us. And maybe we find somebody like that around.

15:37Despite Trump's claims of U.S. Iran negotiations, U.S. Central Command says U.S. forces quote, continue to aggressively strike, unquote, Iran. Meanwhile, Iran's retaliated by striking other Gulf nations and Israel. Israeli officials said Iran has launched seven missile barrages since midnight, targeting Tel Aviv and other cities. The Israeli military said one of the missiles that hit Tel Aviv carried a 220-pound warhead. Israel's health ministry said nearly 4,800 people have been injured by Iran's attacks on Israel since the war began. We go now to London, where we're joined by Daniel Levy. President of the U.S. Middle East Project, former Israeli peace negotiator under Israeli prime ministers Eru Barak and Yitzhak Rabin. His recent piece for Zateo is headlined, why Netanyahu duped Trump into the illegal war

16:37with Iran. Well, Daniel Levy, thanks so much for being with us again. Why don't you explain that headline? Well, good to be with you, Amy and Juan. Netanyahu himself and other Israeli leaders, although he's been at the helm for much of the last three decades, have during an awfully long period told us Iran is at the precipice of becoming a nuclear power. By the way, we should always remind ourselves, Israel is the only nuclear arm state in the region. But they've been telling us it's imminent, we have to act now. And they've been trying to pull successive American presidents into that war to launch such a military campaign. They've never succeeded. You have had American presidents across the decades from whichever party has been in power, who have created an extremely indulgent, permissive environment for Israel in the region and in

17:38particular when it comes to Israel's consistent war crimes against the Palestinians. What you have not had is a president who could be led into this kind of a military operation. And we're seeing right now in almost the last month of this war precisely why. But this president is made of different stuff, less serious stuff, apparently, and Netanyahu's story's opportunity. But the reason, I think, why this was of such significance for Netanyahu is we are in a new era. It's not an era of a Pax Americana with alongside all that indulgence of Israel, there were still certain break mechanisms. This time Israel sees us in an era of what I would call a Pax greater Israel. This is about how far Israel can extend its dominion. How much of a hard power dominant Hegemon, it can be in the region, seizing parts of Syria of Lebanon,

18:42trying to finish an eradicationist approach to the Palestinians and crucially. To do that, you have to weaken Iran militarily to remove some kind of deterrent. You can only do that with the U.S. So you need to pull the U.S. into this war. If that means further accelerating American decline and even accelerating Israel's loss of support in America, then it's a price to pay. It's kind of use it or lose it because those things are happening anyway. In saying all of this, I don't want to suggest that America has no agency in this. There are things to do with the Trump administration, the neocons of people who still have positions of influence in the U.S. that have brought them into this. But that's what Netanyahu is trying to achieve. To achieve greater Israel, domination in the region, including the weakening of the Gulf, which is intentional, at the expense of America bleeding further reputational political economic assets in this war.

19:47And Daniel Levy, you've also written that quote, the idea that this is a war to serve American rather than Israeli interests resonates primarily in three spaces. The gullible, the true believers, especially of end of times, religious thinking, or those who are paid up members of Israel's echo chamber. Could you elaborate? Yes, I think there is a lot of attention being paid to this question of who does this serve. Now, you can make the case that you also have a U.S. government that is locked into its own kind of logic of war. You have, if I may suggest, a decline anxiety in the U.S. You have an attempt to reassert primacy and preponderance. I don't think that is or can go well. You have Marco Rubio, for instance, telling the Europeans,

20:51join us in the next western century of imperial domination. That can perhaps play out in the western hemisphere. The crime committed with the kidnapping of a leader in Venezuela, the illegal blockade on Cuba. But if you travel too far afield, to find monsters too slay, and if you have an incoherent strategy and an incompetent administration implementing that strategy, then things are going to go very badly wrong, which was entirely predictable in this illegal war of choice launched by the U.S. and Israel. And therefore, if you look at this, and even if you factor in the attempt to assert American interest, this war would not have happened. If Israel's leader had not been there, whispering in the presidents here, making the case seven bilateral meetings in

21:52the first 13 months of the second Trump term between Trump and Netanyahu. Two meetings in the eight weeks leading up to the launching of this illegal war. Daily phone calls we are told, now information coming out in the New York Times that the Mossad apparently bamboozled Americans with idea that if you could decapitate some of the regime leadership, the Mossad could ferment a coup on the streets that you could arm Kurdish groups from the outside to take geographical parts of Iran to talk, start dismantling the central state. You really have to be there for either extremely gullible as I suggested, or a true believer that, well, this is high risk, but it's worth it, because maybe you're ideologically committed to the greater Israel cause, maybe that comes from a place of evangelical dispensation list belief in the end times, or you simply are part of an echo

22:52chamber whose wheels are greased very consistently, and we see that play out over so many years in American politics. That's what I'm suggesting, and I do think that the attempt to suggest this is more than Israel first, that somehow this serves America's interest are not going to go well, and Israel will pay a tremendous price for that over time. I wanted to ask you also, there appears to have been a shift in the last few days in how the Israeli government permits damage within Israel from Iranian attacks to be publicized to buy the press, because clearly during the first two weeks of the war Israel essentially prevented any kind of images from the US media, especially going out to the world. Now, in the last few days, it's almost as if Netanyahu and the government want their own people and the rest of the world to see some of this damage. What are your thoughts

23:53about this? Has there been a change in approach or tactics by the Israeli government? So I'm not so sure, I think it's an interesting question to dwell upon, but what might be seeing is an inability and therefore a degradation of credibility if Israel tries to claim that none of this destruction is happening. In other words, an inability to prevent those images from coming out. When those strikes are now causing very significant damage, I don't want to exaggerate that either. I don't think that is what causes this unnecessary war to come to an end. But what what one perhaps has to look to is if you if you remember early on in the war, one of the real questions as this became a war of endurance, almost a war of attrition, was could the US and Israeli side sufficiently deplete Iran's missile launching capacity

24:58before Iran both sufficiently degraded the interception capacity on the Israeli and US side. So they have to be a bit more selective in terms of what they use the interceptors for because they can't take everything out and they are going to run out. And also Iran apparently holding back some of its heavier kit because in its strategy, it assumed this could go on for a long time and it had to have a plan for week one, week two, week three. And so I think to the extent which we're seeing more images, it is likely because that equation hasn't played well for the US and Israel and because we're seeing more damage being done. I think you have a war where Israel has a strategy. It's an extremely ambitious overreach strategy in terms of not regime change but regime collapse, state collapse, implosion, the dismantling of the Iranian state, where Iran has a strategy

25:59of escalating horizontally, testing American endurance and holding out and winning that way. But I think you'd be really hard pushed to find a coherent strategy on the US side. I wanted to play a clip of President Trump speaking to reporters about US aims in negotiations. No nuclear bomb, no nuclear weapon, not even close to it, low key in the missiles. We want to see peace in the Middle East. We want the nuclear dust. We're going to want that. And I think we're going to get that. We've agreed to that. If this happens, it's a great start for Iran to build itself back. And it's everything that we want. And it's also great for Israel and it's great for the other Middle Eastern countries. So, and Daniel Levy, you are a former Israeli negotiator under two Israeli prime ministers. If you're going to respond to what he's saying and also to what Iran is saying that the idea that

27:03there's any negotiation going on is fake news intended to manipulate financial and oil markets and to escape the quagmire in which American Israel are trapped. Said the Speaker of Iran's parliament. So, there are a couple of things going on here. And I want to try and disentangle those. First of all, the question of our negotiations taking place. And what I think is very clear is that there are channels of communication via third countries. Those have been available all the time. Partly one has to understand that countries in the region who were not a party to launching this war, nor to the decision to go to war, who in fact cautioned against this war in the Gulf and elsewhere, they are feeling tremendous blowback and taking hits from this war and they are keen to bring it to an end.

28:09There may be some who for some reason still believe America can do the job and that they should trust America's competence and coherence in attempting to do so. I think most are not in that camp. They know that the cost is too high and they are experiencing daily what it means to rely on America for your security and the answer is not good. So, there are a number of states also beyond that. Turkey has been super active. Pakistan, for instance, Egypt. Who are maintaining open channels with both parties and obviously sending messages because, by the way, the whole world is suffering from this. Higher fuel, food, fertilizer prices, etc. So, there are active channels. Are they talking directly? I don't know. I doubt it, but I also think it doesn't matter very much. What matters is the question you kind of raised there, Amy, which is, are these talks, first of all, intended to

29:09produce an outcome? Was this another American deployment of diplomacy as a ruse? We saw in the lead up to this war that America played with negotiations, attempted that as a distraction, but actually intended to go for the military option. So, is this trying to buy some time while the US waits for a third aircraft carrier, more of your taxpayer dollars to be deployed in the West Asia Middle East region? Was this a Monday morning pre-stock market intervention on the part of the president? Because if there's one thing he does pay attention to, it's that. So, was he trying to calm the markets, give himself a few more days? Or, is this a serious attempt to chart a path to de-escalation? If it is the latter, then that would have to include an acknowledgement that in negotiations you have to listen to the other side. You have to take into account their interests.

30:10If you go in with maximalist positions often designed by the worst elements of maximalism in your administration and by the Israelis intentionally trying to make sure that talks cannot succeed, then guess what? The talks won't succeed. So, if you think you can impose on Iran in these talks, things that you couldn't achieve in your military assault, or things that they weren't willing to accept beforehand, then the talks are doomed to fail. The one thing that may be working to our benefit is not who might host these talks. It's certainly not the fact that Jared Khrushchev and Steve Wickoff might be involved because that would be very bad news, indeed, given their record of failure if they're the only people. But the one piece of good news is that the loose and perhaps non-existent relationship between what Trump says and the realities out there in the real world, that relationship means that Trump can claim what he likes because what we're

31:12probably looking for is three victory speeches given in Tehran, Jerusalem, and Washington, DC. They won't align, they won't match up, but they might allow for a cessation and then for some of these issues but to be addressed afterwards. But as long as that doesn't happen, we still have to contend with the fact that Israel has been driving a lot of the escalatory logic in this war, it will continue to attempt to prevent a ceasefire. It's not alone. There are certainly American sources trying to do that as well. Israel is still on the impunity high from its Gaza genocide, which has led us here. And we have to contend with the fact that each time you try and get a mission accomplished victory image, you might escalate leading to a further cycle of escalation, and then that can collapse any putative path out of this. Daniel, we don't have about a minute left, but I wanted to ask you, while the war is continuing in Iran and Israeli forces are in

32:16Lebanon, the settlers in the West Bank continue to perpetuate violence against Palestinians, and the IDF continues to attack Palestinians in Gaza. I'm wondering your sense of how this has basically faded from the international view while the war against Iran continues. Well, I wish I could say that it needed the war in Iran in order to shift attention away from this, in order for Israel to be able to continue to not be held accountable and to get away with these daily violations of international law and with these appalling atrocities against the Palestinians, but it didn't take the war. Israel is doing that, and it will continue to do that, and lessen until it is held to account, it is contained and deterred, and of course you also see one million displaced in Lebanon, and the attempt to apparently to reestablish a zone of Israeli domination still in control of territory in Syria as well. But I also want to challenge this notion that the

33:22problem in the West Bank is the settlers. There is no armed settler militia without the IDF. The settlers roam the West Bank with the active backing of Israel's military. Occasionally they make all a handful of people take out and say no, stop, but most of the occupation and the entrenchment of a matrix of control and an apartheid regime, that is run not by lone settlers. That is run by the Israeli state. That is run by the IDF. It is the IDF and the Israeli state that run that regime of control that also, as you mentioned, despite the so-called ceasefire are in control of about 60% directly of Gaza are carrying out daily military assaults, daily killings of Palestinians in Gaza, still not allowing the necessary humanitarian assistance or shelter into Gaza and in parallel conducting the largest military intervention in the West Bank. The largest displacement and

34:27destruction often focused on refugee camps like Janine Tulkham, Noral Shams, that we have seen since 1967, I think this will ultimately end very badly for Israel and generate tremendous blowback, but in the meantime, it is again the Palestinians bearing the brunt. Leave these writings on his sub-stack. Coming up, we air highlights from Democracy Now's 30th anniversary celebration last night, including our surprise guests, Bruce Springsteen, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Palestinian poet Masab Abutoha, back in 20 seconds.

35:34Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Masab Abutoha singing last night at Democracy Now's 30th anniversary celebration. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Wondon Zalas. Well, on Monday night, over 2,000 people packed into the historic Riverside Church in New York to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Democracy Now. Speakers and performers included Angela Davis, Patty Smith, Michael Stuype, V formerly eventsler, Array for the Riff Raff, and a surprise appearance by Bruce Springsteen. We will be airing excerpts over the coming days. We begin with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Palestinian writer and poet Masab Abutoha. He fled

36:35Gaza with his family in December 2023 after he was detained by Israeli forces for two days. He was close friends with the Palestinian poet Rafat Al-Aliad, who was killed in Israeli air strike in 2023. This is Masab Abutoha speaking last night at Riverside Church. Thank you so much, Democracy Now. Thank you, Amy, Hermune, and Juan. I mean, these are very hard to broken moments. There is no language that can describe my feelings, listening to my dear friend, Riff Hat. He is somewhere else better than this ugly world that we are trying all of us to survive. It was October 12th, 2023. When I had my interview with Amy, I was still in our house in Gaza. This house has been a heap of rubble since October 30th, 2023. Just two days after the interview I did with Amy on October 12th, Israel killed 30 members of

37:41my extended family, including my great uncle Khadr Abutoha, his wife, his children, the wives of his children. The grand children, the youngest was four years old. That same Khadr was one, the only one in my family who was interested in doing the family tree. And I ended up doing his family tree after he was killed. And that's something that I kept doing, unfortunately, to document the genocide that Israel perpetrated not only against Palestinians, but the Palestinian families. Israel has erased thousands, hundreds of families in Gaza, including some of my relatives, some of whom remain under rubble even now. Under the rubble. She slept on her bed, never woke up again. Her bed has become her grave,

38:44attuned beneath the ceiling of her room, the ceiling, asinotaph, nonean, noir of birth, noir of death, no epitaph, only blood and a smashed picture of Raymond ruin next to her. In Jabalya camp, a mother collects her daughters a flesh in a piggy bank hoping to buy her a plot on a river in a faraway land. A group of mute people were talking sign when a bum fell, they fell silent. It rained again last night, the new plant looked for an umbrella in the garage. The bumming got intense and our house looked for a shelter in the neighborhood. I leave the door to my room open, so the words in my books, the titles and names of authors and publishers could flee when they hear the bombs. I became homeless once, the street, the rubble of my city covered the streets.

39:46They could not find a stretcher to carry your body. They put you on a wooden door, they found under the rubble, your nibbles, a moving wall. The scars on our children's faces will look for you. Our children's amputated legs will run after you. He left the house to buy some bread for his kids, news of his death made at home but not the bread, no bread. Death sits to eat whoever remains with the kids. No need for a table, no need for bread. A father wakes up at night, at night sees the random colors on the walls drawn by his four-year-old daughter. The colors are about four feet high next year, they would be five, but the painter has died in an air strike. There are no colors anymore. There are no walls. I changed the order of my books and the shelves two days later,

40:47the war broke out, beware of changing the order of your books. What are you thinking? What thinking? What you? You? Is there still you? You there? Where should people go? Should they build a big ladder and go up? At the heaven has been blocked by the drones and ifsixteens and the smoke of death. My son asks me whether when we return to Gaza I could get him a puppy. I say I promise if we can find any. I ask my son if he wishes to become a pilot when he grows up. He says he won't wish to drop bombs on people and houses. When we die, our souls leave our bodies, take with them everything they love in our bedrooms, the perfume bottles, the makeup, the necklaces, and the pens. In Gaza, our bodies and rooms get crushed. Nothing remains for the soul. Even our souls, they remain stuck

41:53under the rubble for weeks, now for years. For Gaza, for Rifat al-Arair, for all our loved ones, those who were killed, those who are surviving in the streets and tents, for my three sisters who are in Gaza right now, for my beloved ones who remain under the rubble while we are speaking for a free Palestine. That was the Pulitzer Prize winning Palestinian writer and poet Mossab Abutoha on Monday night

42:56at Democracy Now's 30th anniversary celebration. To hear the whole celebration, you can go to democracynow.org. This is democracynow, democracynow.org. I made me goodman with Juan Gonzales. We turn now to the boss. And that's right, Bruce Springsteen. A Monday night he made a surprise appearance at Democracy Now's 30th anniversary celebration at the Stark Riverside Church to sing his new song, The Streets of Minneapolis. They picked the wrong city. There's the power and the solidarity of the people of Minneapolis with an inspiration

44:00in the entire country. Their strength and their commitment told us that this is still America. In the reactionary nightmare, the invasion of an American city will not stand. Their strength gave his hope, and gave his courage, and for those who gave their lives, we're in a good mother of three brutally murdered, Alex Prety, the A nurse, executed, shot in the back by ice in the street, left to die. Their bravery, their sacrifice, and their names will not be forgotten. This is Streets of Minneapolis.

45:08On the ages, guns piled up to their coast. Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law, their soldiers stole war and goods. Against smoke and blood, where bad dawns early alive, systems stood for justice, their voices ringing through the night, and there were bloody footprints. Where mercy should have stood, to never have to die on snow-filled streets, Alex Prety never made good. Oh, at the end, as I hear your voice, singing through the bloody mist,

46:16we'll take our stand, for this land, and the stranger in our midst, hear their hall, they kill that in wrong, and the winner of the one that says, Lord, remember the name to those who died on the streets of Minneapolis. Trump's federal folks beat up one more, his face and his chase, then we heard the gunshots, Alex Prety leading the snow-dead, their claim was self-defense, sir. Just don't believe your eyes, it's our blood and bones, and these whistles and phones against the middle of your heart.

47:26Oh, Minneapolis, I hear your voice, crimes through the bloody mist, remember the names of those who died on the streets of Minneapolis. Now they say they're here to uphold the law, but they trample on our rights. If your skin is black, oh brown, my friend, you'll be questioned, poor, don't say. In an air chance of ice out now, our city's hard and so buses,

48:35through broken glass, in the bloody tears, on the streets of Minneapolis. Oh, Minneapolis, I hear your voice, singing through the bloody mist. Here in our home, they killed in wrong, and the winner of the one that says, will take our stand for this land, and the stranger in our midst. We'll remember the names of those who died on the streets of Minneapolis. We'll remember the names of those who died on the streets of Minneapolis. Oh, Minneapolis.

50:05Bruce. Bruce. Bruce, you're taking this on the road across the country, beginning in Minneapolis. Tell us about the tour. How much of it's else starting in Minneapolis and going on to Portland and Los Angeles, of course, to other cities where they had to deal with ISIS and then we're going to end up in Washington, D.C. And with a few words to say, if I'm in my house. And you're saying where ISIS presents, does that mean you're taking it to airports now? I've been in plenty. I'm probably so, you know. One other question. I mean, 41 bullets, the streets of Minneapolis. Now you just made news again this morning. The ACLU launching a national ad campaign featuring your born in the USA, highlighting the landmark birthright citizenship Supreme Court case that they're going to be arguing on April 1st.

51:19All right. Well, it's our pleasure to be working with ACLU and they finally put born in USA to some good and righteous youth, so I'm glad about that. That's Bruce Springsteen, performing at Democracy Now's 30th Anniversary Celebration Monday night at Riverside Church to watch the full event. Go to democracynow.org. This weekend, Bruce will be performing on Saturday at a No Kings protest in St. Paul, Minnesota. Coming up, Trump's deployed ICE agents to more than a dozen airports nationwide. We'll speak to a lead TSA officer and union shop stewards. Stay with us. Thank you.

52:27Pulitzer Prize-winning Pope Massab Abutoha singing last night at Democracy Now's 30th Anniversary. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Wongan Zalas. Well, immigration and customs enforcement agents have been deployed to more than a dozen airports nationwide amid the severe staffing shortages within the Transportation Security Administration TSA. Caused by the prolonged partial government shutdown, TSA workers have gone without pay for more than a month, at least 400 TSA officers have quit and absences are as high as 40% at some airports leading to hours long wait times. ICE agents deployed to airports are supposed to assist TSA workers, but President Trump said they could also conduct arrests. For more, we're joined by Cameron Coachins, a lead TSA officer in Boise, Idaho Vice President of AFG, the AFGE TSA local 1127 union representing over 4,000 workers Cameron.

53:27Thanks so much for being with us and these last few minutes first respond to Trump deploying ICE agents. What are they going to be doing? You're a TSA worker. That's a great question. Thanks for having me, Amy. We don't really know what they're going to be doing as of right now, as of yesterday. And this morning, what they've been doing is they've been standing around just like pulling security, which isn't really what we need. We need people manning the checkpoints. And so it really feels like they're a bandaid over a gaping wound, you know, our officers. They're not getting paid and having people that come in that are getting paid just feels like an insult to a lot of us. And Cameron, how's your union managing the potential punishment of workers choosing to find other means of sustenance? So that's that's a big thing, you know, during the shutdown all ways of them, discipline us are paused, but when this is over, they're going to try to get all these people who have been calling out because they can't afford rent and they can't afford gas and they can't afford child care.

54:33And so we're just preparing for grievances to be filed against them because we need to protect our officers. And that's just where we're at right now. Cameron, supposedly if you didn't take time off, if you didn't call and say you get some extra money, is that right? Who does this penalize? Who are the people who are taking off during this time they're not paid? Yeah, so as of right now, there hasn't been any talk of a bonus or an incentive like there was last time, but even the last one that that that came out after the fact. So same thing if that happened this time, you know, the people who get rewarded are the ones that are able to weather this storm. So the people who can afford child care, the people who can't figure out how to get to work because they can't pay for gas. Those are the ones that are going to get affected and those are the ones that are going to be heard the most by not being able to get the bonuses.

55:33That's why the union is advocating for and across the board bonus, like what has happened before the past. And what's your message to people who are dealing with long lines at the airports across the country and will be frustrated with what's going on? Yeah, I mean, if you have to wait in line, don't blame the TSA officers. They're just trying to live their lives, try to work as best as they can. You know, what I recommend them doing since they have a lot of free time when they're waiting in line is they should be calling their Congress member and telling them to fund the TSA so we can get our paychecks and we can get back to work. Can you talk about what TSA workers do, what you're trained to do, and the fact that ICE agents are going to be there and what they are also arresting people at the airports? Yeah, so when TSA officers are hired, you know, we go through about six months at minimum of rigorous training to become certified in the positions we do.

56:37You know, we were trained in how to detect fake IDs. We're trained on how to run X-rays. We're trained on how to run the body scanners, which are called AITs. We're trained in detection of people acting suspiciously and stuff like that. And so we're trained in patdowns. So all those different things. You have to be recertified on every year. We have a rigorous training program. Like I said, we have training instructors that are constantly watching us to make sure that we're constantly up to date on all of our stuff. And so as the union, you know, we don't think any person should come in untrained. And so anyone who is going to be helping us in those positions should be trained to the same standards as TSA officers. I wanted to ask you also, back a year ago, March of 2025, the former Homeland Security Secretary Christy Nome, she basically terminated the collective bargaining rights of the 50,000 TSA agents.

57:41Could you talk about how this was actually part of the notorious Project 2025 in this long-term strategy of the Republicans? Yeah, absolutely. Project 2025, their intended goal for the TSA is step one, get rid of the union, step two, privatize the TSA. And they cannot privatize the TSA without getting rid of us. And so if they can get rid of us, which they're trying to encort and we're fighting back on it, then they can privatize TSA. And then their millionaire buddies can make more money by having contracts and everything like that, which would lead to not better security, not better screening for anyone, but just more possibilities for gaps in the system that terrorists can get through. We want to thank you so much for being with us, Cameron Kochens, vice president of AFGE, that's American Federation of Government Employees, TSA Local 1127, union representing over 4,000 workers, lead TSA officer in Boise, Idaho.

58:43Thanks, Cameron. That does it for our show. Democracy now currently accepting applications for our development associate position. Learn more at democracynow.org. Juan, it's been wonderful doing this show with you here in New York. Can't wait to have your back Friday. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan González.