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The Intercept
14 hours ago
- Politics
- The Intercept
Who's the Real Bully of the Middle East?
A tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Iran announced Monday appears to be holding. President Donald Trump made the announcement after unilaterally dragging the U.S. into the conflict and authorizing strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites using 30,000-pound bunker busters. Israel attacked Iran on June 13, just days before Iran and the U.S. were set to resume talks in Oman over the country's nuclear enrichment program. ' You don't have to be anti-war to understand that diplomacy in this case would've been better,' said Hooman Majd, an Iranian American writer and the author of three books on Iran. Majd is a contributor to NBC News and covered the 2015 Iran deal for the network. This week on The Intercept Briefing, Majd joins host Akela Lacy to discuss what's left of the path to diplomacy after years of sabotage, from Israel's aggressive military posture to Trump's withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal. The deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, aimed to stop Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons development. Majd says that the incentive structure of the deal included increasing transparency, access, and inspections of Iran's nuclear sites and reintegrating the country back into the global economy: What 'Obama recognized was, 'Look, if you guys make this deal with us, your incentive to not build a bomb is very clear. … Inflation will go down. Your people will be happier. The economy won't be suffering the way it is. Sanctions will be lifted. You'll make money from oil sales. We'll have international companies coming and investing in Iran.' In 2018, during his first term, Trump pulled out of the agreement and now, after authorizing military strikes, has obliterated what little trust remained. 'The problem here is that with the Trump administration having once withdrawn from the nuclear deal that was working, and having now agreed to Israel attacking Iran, and then attacking Iran itself — there's no trust in diplomacy anymore on the Iranian side, and that's understandable,' says Hooman. Trump is reportedly set to resume talks with Iran next week. But will the ceasefire hold — given that Israel has repeatedly broken its own truces with other countries, and Trump's own volatility? Is a diplomatic solution still possible? Majd says it may take leaning more into Trump's personal ambitions, 'The only way it could be over, and this is unlikely, is that the U.S. under President Trump makes a deal that makes Mr. Trump, very happy, puts him along the path to his Nobel Peace Prize. And he, who's the only one right now, can prevent Israel from attacking Iran again.' You can hear the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
The Intercept
20-06-2025
- Politics
- The Intercept
The Disinformation Machine After a Murder
In the wake of the political assassination of Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, prominent right-wing figures moved quickly to assign blame. Utah Sen. Mike Lee pinned the killings on 'Marxism.' Elon Musk pointed to the 'far left.' Donald Trump Jr., the president's son, said it 'seems to be a leftist.' But the facts quickly told a different story: The suspect, 57-year-old Vance Boelter is a Trump supporter who held radical anti-abortion views. 'There's an entire right-wing media machine aimed at pushing disinformation around breaking news events and specifically attributing violence to the left,' says Taylor Lorenz, independent journalist and author of 'Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet.' 'You see this over and over and over again, no matter who is perpetrating the violence.' 'The reality is that the vast overwhelming majority of political violence in recent years has come from the right,' adds Akela Lacy, The Intercept's senior politics reporter. 'It basically treats that fact as if it's not real, as if it doesn't exist,' she says — a dynamic that then fails to address the root causes. This week on The Intercept Briefing, host Jordan Uhl talks with Lorenz and Lacy about how online disinformation is distorting public understanding of major events — from political violence to immigration to potential war with Iran. In this chaos-driven ecosystem, the right — and Trump especially — know how to thrive. 'There are these right-wing influencer networks that exist to amplify misinformation and shape narratives online,' says Lorenz. 'A lot of them coordinate, literally directly coordinate through group chats,' she explains. 'They receive messaging directly from leaders in the Republican Party that they immediately disseminate.' That messaging loop reinforces itself — seeping into mainstream culture, dominating social media, and driving Trump's policies. Lacy points to a striking example: Democratic Sen. Tina Smith from Minnesota confronting Lee over his false claim that the shooter was a Marxist, and his apparent surprise at being held accountable. ' There's no reason that a sitting U.S. senator is spreading these lies, should not expect to be confronted by his colleagues over something like this. And that says volumes about the environment on the Hill,' says Lacy. But this right-wing narrative war doesn't work without help to boost their legitimacy. 'These manufactured outrage campaigns are not successful unless they're laundered by the traditional media,' says Lorenz. 'If the New York Times or the BBC or NPR — which is one of the worst — don't launder those campaigns and pick those campaigns up, they kind of don't go anywhere.' You can hear the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
The Intercept
13-06-2025
- Politics
- The Intercept
Trump's GI Joe-Cosplaying 'Goon Squads' Sow Terror — and Solidarity
Across the country, demonstrators are preparing for a weekend of protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, Donald Trump's planned June 14 military parade, and Trump himself. Ground zero for these demonstrations is likely to be Los Angeles, where heavily armed ICE agents have carried out raids at churches, graduations, parking lots, and scores of other gathering spots recently. ' The level of armament that these guys are wearing is out of a GI Joe movie,' said Salvador G. Sarmiento, the campaign director and lawyer for the 70-member National Day Laborer Organizing Network. 'It seems like the federal police is just driving around willy-nilly — dressed up as a goon squad — picking up people that they see on a street corner.' 'The federal government [is] violently taking people from their work sites in military fashion,' added Jonah Valdez, reporter for The Intercept. This week on The Intercept Briefing, Sarmiento and Valdez joined host Jordan Uhl to discuss the wave of ICE operations sweeping Los Angeles that have sparked a week of protests and the militarized response from law enforcement. Several weeks ago, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller went on Fox News to tout the Trump administration's goal of 3,000 ICE arrests per day. Shortly after that, federal agents targeted day laborers outside several Los Angeles-area Home Depots and raided Ambiance Apparel, a clothing manufacturer in the heart of downtown. Sarmiento hypothesized that LA's reputation as 'a multicultural, multiracial, working-class city,' bothers Trump administration officials like Miller and Tom Homan, Trump's border czar. 'If anything triggers Stephen Miller more than the city of Los Angeles itself, it's undocumented workers that are visible on a street corner,' Sarimento said. 'Day laborers are often a target.' As videos of agents clad in tactical gear and armored vehicles spread online, so did fear and resistance. Protests erupted against the federal government's aggressive and militaristic push into communities. The law enforcement response against protesters escalated quickly with so-called 'less-lethal' munitions being fired at the crowd on Sunday. 'I spoke with five people total who were hit and injured by LAPD mostly, but also [California Highway Patrol],' said Valdez. 'One of them has a pretty bad injury on his arm where the ER doctor told him he's worried about long-term nerve damage and mobility.' Sarmiento, Valdez, and Uhl also discussed how the protests have been misrepresented by right-wing and mainstream media outlets — and the importance of community solidarity. ' People [have to] continue showing up because there's no politician, no elected official, no foundation, nobody in D.C. or Sacramento that's going to come save the day,' Sarmiento said. 'It's the people, it's our neighbors, it's our loved ones, it's our family, it's our friends, our co-workers that we're all counting on.' As people head to the streets again this weekend, protesters should be informed about their constitutional rights and safety options. The episode also features practical advice from attorney Isabella Salomão Nascimento. You can hear the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
The Intercept
30-05-2025
- Politics
- The Intercept
How Student Protesters and Immigrants Became Targets of Trump's Surveillance Tech
'Catch and revoke' — the phrase sounds like something from a dystopian thriller, but it's Secretary of State Marco Rubio's very real characterization of the Trump administration's new one-strike visa cancellation policy targeting foreign students. A State Department spokesperson said that 'full social media vetting' will be used for visa interviews and will be ongoing while the student remains in the U.S. for studies. On this week's episode of The Intercept Briefing, host Akela Lacy speaks to anthropologist Sophia Goodfriend and Chris Gelardi, a reporter for New York Focus investigating surveillance and the criminal legal system. They unpack how AI and surveillance technology are being weaponized to silence dissent on American campuses and fuel the deportations of immigrants nationwide. 'In the past few months, as we see the expansion of government surveillance, the crackdown of ICE on both legal residents and undocumented people in this country, we see these technologies lending a veneer of algorithmic efficiency to increasingly draconian policies,' says Goodfriend. The effort is powered by more companies than most people realize. 'To enforce all of that and to bolster those efforts are a host of different kinds of both small AI startups, of data brokers, of large tech conglomerates like Meta, OpenAI, Palantir, and the like. So it is really this kind of enormous dragnet of surveillance that's bolstered by the tech industry that's increasingly aligned with the Trump administration,' she says. But this surveillance machine extends well beyond university campuses. The same technologies are being deployed against immigrant communities across the country. This means every digital footprint becomes potential evidence for deportation proceedings. Social media posts, location data, facial recognition from community events, and even routine traffic stops feed into massive databases. Gelardi explains that one of the more concerning sources of information comes from state police gang databases, which are rife with mistakes. 'I think all evidence suggests that these are very under-regulated and that they operate in a way where they're really ripe for garbage data and inaccuracies,' he says. He cites some gang databases that had children under 5 listed. Gelardi explains that local law enforcement enters names into state databases that feed to the national crime information center run by the FBI. Law enforcement at all levels — local, state, and federal — can access it on their phones. 'Anything that the state police funnels to the feds is immediately available to pretty much any ICE agent,' he says. To understand more about the tech infrastructure powering deportations and what this digital crackdown means for everyone, listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
The Intercept
23-05-2025
- Politics
- The Intercept
She Exposed Government Abuse. Now She's Locked up in an El Salvador Prison.
LATE SUNDAY NIGHT, police in El Salvador arrested one of President Nayib Bukele's sharpest critics, Ruth Eleonora López, an anti-corruption attorney who has spent years exposing government abuses. '[She] is one of the strongest voices in defense of democracy,' says Noah Bullock, her colleague and the executive director of Cristosal, a human rights group operating in northern Central America, including El Salvador. López, a university professor and former elections official, heads Cristosal's anti-corruption unit. She has also been an outspoken critic of Bukele's crackdown on gang violence that has resulted in 'arbitrary detentions, human rights violations,' and the imprisonment of people not connected to gangs, according to Cristosal. The organization has documented widespread abuses in the country's prison system. 'There's a clear pattern of physical abuse, and on top of that, a clear pattern of systematic denial of basic necessities like food, water, bathrooms, medicine — medical care in general,' says Bullock. 'Those two factors have combined to cause the deaths of at least 380 people' in custody in recent years. That's a prison system 'that's been contracted by the U.S. government,' Bullock adds. This week on The Intercept Briefing, Bullock speaks to host Jessica Washington about López's continued imprisonment and what her work and detention reveals about the Trump administration's interest in El Salvador's prison system. Facing vague corruption charges, López has seen her family and lawyer but not yet a judge. The U.S. is paying El Salvador $6 million to detain immigrants, including about 250 Venezuelan and Salvadoran men mainly at the infamous megaprison CECOT. 'The type of jails and the prison system that the United States has contracted is one of a dictatorship — one that operates outside of the rule of law,' says Bullock. But El Salvador isn't the only country the U.S. is looking to partner with to outsource immigration detention. 'Now in addition to El Salvador, the U.S. has reportedly explored, sought, or struck deals with at least 19 other countries,' says Nick Turse, national security fellow for The Intercept. The countries include: Angola, Benin, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Eswatini, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Kosovo, Libya, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Panama, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security sent eight immigrants to South Sudan, in defiance of a federal judge's order, according to court filings. 'Many of these countries,' says Turse, 'have been excoriated by not only human rights groups and NGOs, but also the U.S. State Department.' He continues, 'Places like Equatorial Guinea, which is a notorious, kleptocratic dictatorship in West Africa — one of the most corrupt countries on the planet; and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is another human rights pariah.' ' These policies did not leap fully formed from the head of Donald Trump,' says Turse. They have a legacy largely stemming from the post-9/11 counterterrorism policies of the George W. Bush administration. 'The Bush administration created this worldwide network of secret prisons and torture sites as part of its global war on terror.' These are places outside of the jurisdiction of international law — legal black holes. 'The Trump administration has expanded the Bush and Obama-era terrorism paradigm to cast immigrants and refugees as terrorists and as gang members,' says Turse. 'It's reconceptualized this idea from the post-9/11 era of extraordinary rendition to seek to disappear people to sites … even further beyond the reach of U.S. law.' Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
