Democracy Now

We speak with journalists Steven Thrasher and Afeef Nessouli about their new report for The Intercept, which examines how queer, HIV-positive Palestinians are struggling to survive in Gaza with limited access to medication due to Israel’s siege and ongoing attacks on the territory. The report centers on E.S., a young Palestinian man who is HIV-positive and who has been in “a race against time,” says Nessouli. “The genocide is making it impossible to get medication to people like E.S.,” adds Thrasher.

The Senate confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s pick to be defense secretary, was repeatedly disrupted Tuesday by protesters who denounced the nominee’s history of hateful remarks against women, LGBTQ people and others, as well as to demand an end to U.S. support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. We speak with two of those protesters, military veterans Josephine Guilbeau and Greg Stoker, who say they were motivated to speak out against the “war machine” that hurts people who serve in the military as well as people around the world who are victims of U.S. militarism. “They use us as pawns to go to these wars and ultimately kill innocent people,” says Guilbeau.

Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s pick to become defense secretary, appears to be moving toward confirmation after a contentious Senate hearing on Tuesday. He was grilled over his alleged history of sexual misconduct, reports of frequent public drunkenness at work, financial mismanagement at veterans’ organizations he led, and statements he has made disparaging women, LGBTQ people and others in the military. Hegseth’s confirmation can only be blocked if three or more Republicans join Democrats in opposing the former Fox News host, but so far the party appears aligned behind Trump’s nominee. Watch the highlights from Tuesday’s Senate confirmation hearing.

• Israel Steps Up Attacks on Gaza, Bombing Homes and School-Turned-Shelter Despite Talk of Ceasefire
• Six Palestinians, Including Teen and Three Brothers, Killed in Israeli Airstrike on Jenin
• Death Toll from L.A. Fires Rises to 25 as Forecasters Warn of 70 Mile-Per-Hour Winds
• Billionaires Zuckerberg, Bezos and Musk to Share Platform at Trump's Inauguration
• Pete Hegseth Wins Backing of GOP Sen. Ernst, Nearing Confirmation
• Senate Judiciary Opens Confirmation Hearings for Trump Loyalist Pam Bondi
• "Bloody Blinken, Secretary of Genocide": Blinken Confronted over Gaza at Farewell Keynote
• Biden Lifts "State Sponsor of Terrorism" Designation for Cuba
• House Approves Ban on Transgender Women and Girls in Public School Sports
• South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol Arrested After Armed Standoff over Martial Law Decree

Around Los Angeles, firefighting crews continue to battle the Palisades and Eaton fires and other smaller blazes. Nearly a thousand of the firefighters deployed to help contain the devastating fires are incarcerated. They have been working around the clock while earning as little as between $5.80 to $10.24 a day. For more on how California’s incarcerated firefighting program works, we speak to investigative journalist Keri Blakinger, who is herself formerly incarcerated, and who recently had to evacuate her home in Los Angeles.

Human rights advocates and healthcare professionals around the world are demanding the release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the largest major hospital in northern Gaza, Kamal Adwan Hospital. Abu Safiya disappeared in December after Israeli forces raided and shut down Kamal Adwan. Released Palestinians say they saw him at Sde Teiman Israeli prison, which has been plagued by reports of gruesome abuses including torture and sexual violence against Palestinians in custody. It is now believed he is held at the Ofer Prison. Abu Safiya’s friend and former colleague, Dr. John Kahler, a co-founder of the medical humanitarian aid group MedGlobal, speaks to Democracy Now! about Abu Safiya’s tireless commitment to his medical work while suffering the pain, trauma and tragedy of Israel’s war on Gaza. “His bravery is a supreme act of resistance,” says Kahler. “What no oppressor will tolerate is that level of resistance.”

After Biden’s major foreign policy address Monday at the State Department, we go to Jerusalem and get an analysis of Biden’s foreign policy decisions in Israel and Palestine from Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders. “There’s simply no question at this point that the laws of war have been egregiously violated,” he says of the Israeli military’s genocidal conduct against Palestinians in Gaza. “When it comes to America’s friends and allies, he has a different standard.”

The confirmation hearing for President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, former Fox News host and military veteran Pete Hegseth, begins today amid backlash over his history of sexual assault, misusing funds in his previous positions, and various violations committed while under the influence of alcohol. Hegseth was also one of 12 National Guard members removed as guards for President Biden’s 2021 inauguration over possible extremist ties. He has tattoos associated with the white supremacist and neo-Nazi movements, including what’s known as a Jerusalem cross, a symbol used by Christian nationalists. If Hegseth is confirmed, “the Trump administration would stand to gain a loyalist,” says reporter Alice Herman, who is covering Hegseth in The Guardian.

• Ceasefire Mediators Say Deal Is Closer Than Ever as Israel Continues Its Genocidal Campaign in Gaza
• Reporter Ahlam Al Nafed, Who Reported from Gaza's Besieged Indonesian Hospital, Is Killed by Israel
• ICJ President Nawaf Salam Named New Lebanese Prime Minister
• L.A. Could See "Explosive Fire Growth" as High Winds Return
• Jack Smith: Enough Evidence to Convict Trump for Election Subversion If He Weren't Reelected
• Senate Committee Holds Hearing for Trump Defense Nom, Accused Rapist Pete Hegseth
• Steve Bannon Brands Elon Musk an "Evil Guy" as NYT Reports Trump Will Give Musk a White House Office
• Judge Orders Patriot Front to Pay Black Musician $2.8 Million After Racist Attack in Boston
• Climate Activists Spray-Paint Darwin's Grave in London to Draw Attention to Climate Disaster
• Biden Cancels More Student Debt as Activists Urge Outgoing President to Do More in Final Days
• Charles Person, Youngest of the Original Freedom Riders, Has Died at 82

Belgian Lebanese activist Dyab Abou Jahjah, the founder of the Hind Rajab Foundation, discusses how the organization seeks to hold Israeli soldiers accountable for war crimes committed in Gaza. Named after a 6-year-old girl who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza almost a year ago, the Hind Rajab Foundation uses evidence gathered from soldiers’ own social media to build cases against them. The group recently filed a complaint against a soldier in Brazil, leading a local judge to issue an arrest warrant for him that he only avoided by fleeing to Argentina. “Unfortunately, the Israeli government smuggled the soldier out of Brazil, which is, of course, obstructing justice,” Abou Jahjah tells Democracy Now! “We are relentless in seeking justice, and we are very convinced that one day justice also will be served in a court of law.”

As negotiators from Israel and Hamas continue discussions in Qatar about a possible Gaza ceasefire, we speak with Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed, who spoke at a press conference of Gaza media workers last week urging the international press to speak up for their Palestinian colleagues. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate says nearly 200 journalists have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 2023. “The world just keeps turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to what is happening,” says Abed from outside the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. “It’s completely enraging and unacceptable.” His recent article for Drop Site News is headlined “What It’s Truly Like to Sleep in a Damp, Frigid Tent: A Report From Gaza.”

We speak with Leah Stokes, a researcher on climate and energy policy, who says the scale of the Los Angeles wildfires is a result of burning fossil fuels and destabilizing the planet’s equilibrium. “The ultimate driver here is climate change,” says Stokes. She says that as people begin to consider rebuilding their communities, they should think about how to build more resilient homes or whether the risk is simply too great in some areas. “Are these places where people really want to be building back at that same density, with that same risk?” she asks. “We do have to be asking tough questions because of the climate crisis, because we have not stopped burning fossil fuels, about where it is safer and less safe to be building back.”

We continue our coverage of the devastating wildfires in Southern California, which have killed at least 24 people as of Monday. Some 150,000 more have been forced to evacuate their homes and over 40,000 acres have burned up as firefighters struggle to contain the multiple fires still raging in the Los Angeles area.

Journalist and activist Sonali Kolhatkar, who recently returned to her home in Pasadena, describes community mutual aid efforts underway and how they stand in stark contrast to the militarized response from police and National Guard forces who are seemingly more interested in protecting property than helping residents. She warns that predatory real estate actors are also looking to profit from the devastation, particularly in the historically Black neighborhood of Altadena. “The embers haven’t even gone cold. The smoke is still rising, and the developers are circling,” she says.

• L.A. Wildfires Death Toll Rises to 24 as Health Officials Declare Emergency over Air Quality
• Mexico Sends Firefighters to Help L.A. Wildfire Effort; 1,000 Incarcerated Firefighters Battling Blazes
• Israel Killed Over 5,000 Palestinians in North Gaza Since Start of Siege
• Another Palestinian Journalist, Saed Abu Nabhan, Killed by Israeli Forces in Gaza
• Poland Paves Way for Netanyahu to Attend Auschwitz Commemoration Without Risking Arrest
• Trump Sentenced to Unconditional Discharge, Avoiding Prison in 2016 NY Hush Money Case
• Senate Begins Confirmation Hearing for Trump Noms Incl. Defense Pick Pete Hegseth, Accused of Rape
• SCOTUS Likely to Allow TikTok Ban as Justices Hear Arguments Ahead of Jan. 19 Deadline
• Sudan Says It's Retaken Key City of Wad Madani from RSF as Brutal War Nears 2-Year Mark
• "Greenland Will Decide Its Future": Greenland PM Shuts Down Trump's Threats to Take Arctic Territory
• Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro Sworn In for Third Presidential Term After Contested Election
• Biden Admin Extends TPS for Recipients from Venezuela, El Salvador, Ukraine and Sudan
• Check-in for Ravi Ragbir, Immigration Activist Fighting Deportation, Postponed Until March
• DOJ Finds 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Was a Systematic, Military-Style Attack
• Longtime Columbia Law Professor Terminated After Defending Student Gaza Protests, Free Speech
• José "Cha Cha" Jiménez, Founder of the Young Lords, Dies at 76

Former President Jimmy Carter died Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia, at 100 years old. The 39th president served a single, tumultuous term in the White House from 1977 to 1981. As we begin our look at his life and legacy, we hear Carter’s own words in a Democracy Now! interview discussing his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Carter criticized Israel’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza, and argued Israel’s settlements in the Occupied Territories were the main barrier to peace. “Americans don’t want to know and many Israelis don’t want to know what is going on inside Palestine. It’s a terrible human rights persecution that far transcends what any outsider would imagine,” said Carter in 2007. “And there are powerful political forces in America that prevent any objective analysis of the problem in the Holy Land.”

Since October 7, 2023, Israel’s onslaught in Gaza has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians and injured more than 108,000. At the same time, Gaza officials continue to accuse Israel of deliberately blocking aid deliveries. Human rights organizations are condemning Israel for attacking Palestinian lifesaving infrastructure, including Gaza’s water supply and medical system. All of this has led to the world’s leading specialist on the subject of genocide to declare Israel is carrying out a combination of “genocidal actions, ethnic cleansing and annexation of the Gaza Strip.” Omer Bartov, an Israeli American professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, describes why he believes Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza right now. “There was actually a systematic attempt to make Gaza uninhabitable, as well as to destroy all institutions that make it possible for a group to sustain itself, not only physically but also culturally,” says Bartov, who warns impunity for Israel would endanger the entire edifice of international law. “This is a total moral, ethical failure by the very countries that claim to be the main protectors of civil rights, democracy, human rights around the world.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry has confirmed that close to 46,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s ongoing assault, but Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah estimates the true number is closer to 300,000. “This is literally and mathematically a genocidal project,” says Abu-Sittah, a British Palestinian reconstructive surgeon who worked in Gaza for over a month treating patients at both Al-Shifa and Al-Ahli Baptist hospitals. Israel continues to attack what remains of the besieged territory’s medical infrastructure. On Sunday, an Israeli attack on the upper floor of al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza City killed at least seven people and wounded several others. On Friday, Israeli troops stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, northern Gaza’s last major functioning hospital, and set the facility on fire. Many staff and patients were reportedly forced to go outside and strip in winter weather. The director of Kamal Adwan, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, was arrested, and his whereabouts remain unknown. “It’s been obvious from the beginning that Israel has been wiping out a whole generation of health professionals in Gaza as a way of increasing the genocidal death toll but also of permanently making Gaza uninhabitable,” says Abu-Sittah. “On the 7th of October, the Israelis crossed that genocidal Rubicon that settler-colonial projects cross.”

• Sixth Palestinian Child Dies of Hypothermia in Gaza as Israel Continues Unrelenting Attacks 
• Family Blames Palestinian Security Forces for Killing of West Bank Journalist Shatha al-Sabbagh
• Syria's De Facto Leader Says It Could Take Four Years to Organize Elections
• Israelis Hold Nationwide Rallies to Demand Gaza Ceasefire Deal and Netanyahu Resignation
• South Korean Airliner Crash Kills All But Two of 181 People Aboard
• Azerbaijan's Leader Calls on Putin to Admit Russia Shot Down Airliner
• Georgia's Outgoing President Refuses to Quit as Mikheil Kavelashvili Is Inaugurated
• Former President Jimmy Carter Dies at 100
• Rare December Tornadoes Claim 4 Lives in Southern U.S. States
• Video Reveals NY Prison Guards Beat Prisoner Robert Brooks to Death While Handcuffed

Silicon Valley and tech billionaires are lining up to support the incoming Trump administration. With the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, as one of Trump’s closest advisers, Trump has hosted Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg for dinners at Mar-a-Lago. Amazon, Meta and OpenAI’s Sam Altman have all announced donations of $1 million each to Trump’s inaugural committee. Trump has placed tech executives all over his new administration, including PayPal co-founder Ken Howery, venture capitalists Scott Kupor and Sriram Krishnan, and tech boss David Sacks, whom Trump has picked to be “czar” of crypto and artificial intelligence. “The core things come down to displacing workers with artificial intelligence, displacing the currency with crypto, and getting rid of any kind of taxation on wealth that might come up,” says author and former tech investor Roger McNamee, who encourages people to consider using less Silicon Valley tech products. “We have been accepting all kinds of invasions of privacy, all kinds of surveillance, all kinds of manipulation in exchange for convenience. … Could we do with less convenience for a while in exchange for regaining human autonomy?”

Donald Trump has set his sights on the Americas, threatening to retake the Panama Canal if Panama doesn’t lower fees for U.S. ships. The United States controlled the waterway until 1977, when President Jimmy Carter signed a landmark treaty to give Panama control of the canal. Trump has also recently floated the idea of annexing Canada, and even a possible “soft invasion” of Mexico. Pulitzer Prize-winning Yale historian Greg Grandin explains the practical impossibilities of such plans but analyzes the political impacts of Trump’s statements. “There’s no way the United States is going to fill out greater America. This is red meat for the Trump base,” says Grandin. “It’s classic Trump.”