Contributing Writers

As President Trump pushes House Republicans to support a sweeping budget bill that gives massive tax breaks to the rich while slashing spending for Medicaid, food stamps and subsidies for clean energy, we look at a new series for The Lever’s podcast Lever Time, which covers the history of the Republican anti-tax movement and how their anti-government influence is impacting Trump’s attempts to build power.

Over two dozen disability rights activists were arrested on Capitol Hill last week when they protested the Trump-backed Republican budget bill and its cuts to Medicaid, affordable housing and more. “We’re putting our bodies on the line [because] our bodies are on the line,” says Julie Farrar, an activist with ADAPT, which organized the protest.

As a Republican-sponsored budget bill advances through Congress, we hear from Bishop William Barber about how the bill hurts low-income people. “It is about death-dealing and destruction to the poor and the elderly and the youth of our country,” says Barber, citing the bill’s cuts to essential social services like Medicaid and paralleling those cuts to the government’s funding of defense and deportation initiatives.

On the 100th birthday of Malcolm X, we speak with one of his daughters, Ilyasah Shabazz, and civil rights attorney Ben Crump as they continue to press the U.S. government for answers about his assassination. The iconic Black revolutionary was just 39 years old when he was gunned down on February 21, 1965, in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom.

Columbia University activist and student Mohsen Mahdawi graduated on Monday — after he was released from ICE jail late last month. As he crossed the stage, students erupted in thunderous applause. Democracy Now! spoke with Mahdawi after the ceremony. “I am coming here to be in the middle of this fire because I am a peacemaker, because I am a firefighter,” says Mahdawi, who plans to attend Columbia University’s graduate School of International and Public Affairs in the fall.

A damning new report reveals how Israel is systematically making Gaza unlivable. The independent news outlet +972 Magazine has spoken to Israeli soldiers who describe how they have been using bulldozers and explosives to intentionally flatten Gaza.
In the southern city of Rafah, 73% of buildings are completely destroyed, with only about 4% of the infrastructure remaining undamaged.

The U.N.’s humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher warned Tuesday that 14,000 babies could die in Gaza over the next 48 hours if more aid does not enter the besieged territory. The warning comes as Israel expands its military assault, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing to take control of the entire Gaza Strip.

On the 100th birthday of Malcolm X, we speak with one of his daughters, Ilyasah Shabazz, and civil rights attorney Ben Crump as they continue to press the U.S. government for answers about his assassination. The iconic Black revolutionary was just 39 years old when he was gunned down on February 21, 1965, in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom.

Sunday in New York, Dr. Noor Abdalla accepted a diploma on behalf of her husband, Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil, at an alternative graduation ceremony held by the People’s University for Palestine. Abdalla gave birth to the couple’s first child Deen last month, while Khalil remained imprisoned at a Louisiana ICE detention center over a thousand miles away after he was abducted by ICE from university housing in March. ICE denied Khalil’s request to be present at the birth.

A new report in The New York Times takes a deep dive into Project Esther, a policy blueprint to crush the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States from the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank best known for spearheading Project 2025. Project Esther was formed during the Biden administration and lays out plans for surveilling, silencing and punishing pro-Palestinian activists, including deporting non-U.S. citizens and withholding funds from universities.

Palestinians in Gaza are fleeing Khan Younis after the Israeli military issued expulsion orders for the besieged territory’s second-largest city. This comes as Israel’s bombardment of Gaza intensifies, killing hundreds of Palestinians over the weekend, including at least five journalists. Health facilities have been under constant attack. Israel on Sunday announced the start of a renewed ground invasion it calls Operation Gideon’s Chariots.

House Republicans have successfully pushed forward President Trump’s budget proposals to slash Medicaid and food stamps, putting millions of low-income Americans at risk. Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA, a healthcare consumer advocacy organization, says the $715 billion reduction is “literally the biggest cut to the Medicaid program in history.

In his first live interview since his release from ICE detention, Columbia University student and Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi recounts the traumatic experience of his arrest and incarceration. Mahdawi, a green card holder who was born and raised in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, was arrested in Vermont on April 14 when he appeared for what he was told would be a citizenship interview, and spent more than two weeks in U.S.

Israel has imposed a complete block on humanitarian aid into Gaza since March 2, with hundreds of trucks with lifesaving aid waiting at the border. Now many of Gaza’s kitchens have closed, and Palestinians face mass starvation as rations run low. We speak with Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University, author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine.

House Republicans have successfully pushed forward President Trump’s budget proposals to slash Medicaid and food stamps, putting millions of low-income Americans at risk. Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA, a healthcare consumer advocacy organization, says the $715 billion reduction is “literally the biggest cut to the Medicaid program in history.

In his first live interview since his release from ICE detention, Columbia University student and Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi recounts the traumatic experience of his arrest and incarceration. Mahdawi, a green card holder who was born and raised in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, was arrested in Vermont on April 14 when he appeared for what he was told would be a citizenship interview, and spent more than two weeks in U.S.

Israel has imposed a complete block on humanitarian aid into Gaza since March 2, with hundreds of trucks with lifesaving aid waiting at the border. Now many of Gaza’s kitchens have closed, and Palestinians face mass starvation as rations run low. We speak with Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University, author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine.

Israel has imposed a complete block on humanitarian aid into Gaza since March 2, with hundreds of trucks with lifesaving aid waiting at the border. Now many of Gaza’s kitchens have closed, and Palestinians face mass starvation as rations run low. We speak with Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University, author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine.

House Republicans have successfully pushed forward President Trump’s budget proposals to slash Medicaid and food stamps, putting millions of low-income Americans at risk. Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA, a healthcare consumer advocacy organization, says the $715 billion reduction is “literally the biggest cut to the Medicaid program in history.

In his first live interview since his release from ICE detention, Columbia University student and Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi recounts the traumatic experience of his arrest and incarceration. Mahdawi, a green card holder who was born and raised in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, was arrested in Vermont on April 14 when he appeared for what he was told would be a citizenship interview, and spent more than two weeks in U.S.

We speak with a Salvadoran journalist who fled El Salvador along with others from the acclaimed news outlet El Faro after Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele threatened to arrest them for exposing how Bukele had made secret deals with Salvadoran gangs. Bukele has run the country under a so-called state of exception since 2022, detaining nearly 80,000 people accused of being in gangs, largely without access to due process.

Israel has imposed a complete block on humanitarian aid into Gaza since March 2, with hundreds of trucks with lifesaving aid waiting at the border. Now many of Gaza’s kitchens have closed, and Palestinians face mass starvation as rations run low. We speak with Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University, author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine.

A major new report by U.S. academics analyzes Israel’s occupation of Palestine under the legal framework of the crime of apartheid. The report was intentionally released on Nakba Day — the day that marks the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes during Israel’s violent founding in 1948. Citing dozens of experts, human rights organizations and judicial decisions, it concludes that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians “meets the legal threshold of apartheid.