Editor’s Note: Washington Week With The Atlantic is a partnership between NewsHour Productions, WETA, and The Atlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Check your local listings or watch full episodes here.
With Election Day just over two weeks away, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are looking to motivate their bases—while also persuading any remaining voters in key battleground states.
We look at Israel’s threats to launch retaliatory strikes against Iran as fears grow of a broader regional war. We speak to analyst Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, about the Biden administration sending U.S. troops and the top-of-the-line THAAD missile defense system to Israel. “There are no direct and clear U.S. interests at stake here,” says Parsi.
Tributes have poured in from across the globe for 19-year-old Sha’ban al-Dalou, a software engineering student who burned to death after Israel bombed Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Deir al-Balah on Monday. Photographs and footage of his final moments shocked millions around the world as Sha’ban laid in a hospital bed with an IV attached to his arm as the flames engulfed him.
Israel announced Thursday it had killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza, releasing a video allegedly showing Sinwar’s final moments before his death after Israeli forces in Rafah attacked the building he was in. After the announcement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared “this is not the end of the war in Gaza.” In Tel Aviv, Israeli families called for Netanyahu to refocus efforts on negotiating a deal to free the hostages.
Hamas has confirmed Israel killed the organization’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, marking what could be a turning point in its yearlong war. Sinwar was apparently not killed as part of a targeted strike, but in the course of Israel’s indiscriminate assault on the Gaza Strip. “It’s not a war that’s happening against Hamas … This is an Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people,” says Palestinian analyst Tareq Baconi, author of Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance.
With just 19 days until the presidential election, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are ramping up efforts to appeal to a major voting bloc in battleground states: Latinx voters. This comes as both major candidates are boasting hard-line immigration policies that impose harsh conditions on those entering the United States. “It will not be a solution for Vice President Harris to mimic Donald Trump’s policies on immigration.
We look at Israel’s threats to launch retaliatory strikes against Iran as fears grow of a broader regional war. We speak to analyst Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, about the Biden administration sending U.S. troops and the top-of-the-line THAAD missile defense system to Israel. “There are no direct and clear U.S. interests at stake here,” says Parsi.
Aid groups warn Israel is wiping northern Gaza off the map, and the Biden administration is threatening to cut military assistance to Israel — but not for at least 30 days. This comes as the U.S. has continued to arm Israel despite findings by its own experts at USAID and the State Department that Israel has routinely impeded delivery of food and medicine to Gaza.
We get an update on Israel’s war on Lebanon from journalist Rania Abouzeid in Beirut. “We are seeing a definite escalation that started a month ago and doesn’t show any sign of letting up,” she observes, describing unrestrained attacks by Israel throughout the country, on all sectors of society, as Israel carries out its “Dahiya doctrine” in an attempt to foment division among the Lebanese population. “This is the Gaza playbook.
The new documentary film Union, premiering this week, follows Amazon workers at the JFK8 fulfillment center on Staten Island as they formed the first-ever U.S. Amazon union in 2022. Co-directed by Stephen Maing and Brett Story, the film follows “the invisible working class” as they face an uphill battle against the notoriously anti-labor corporation, says Maing, who joins Democracy Now! to discuss the film.
With just 19 days until the presidential election, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are ramping up efforts to appeal to a major voting bloc in battleground states: Latinx voters. This comes as both major candidates are boasting hard-line immigration policies that impose harsh conditions on those entering the United States. “It will not be a solution for Vice President Harris to mimic Donald Trump’s policies on immigration.
Less than three weeks from the election, Kamala Harris is campaigning in Michigan. Will she lose votes over the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza and expanding war on Lebanon? Meanwhile, Republican candidate Donald Trump has opened a new campaign office in the swing state.
As the official death toll in Gaza passes more than 42,400, the true number may be impossible to know until Israel’s war is over. But medical workers who witnessed the carnage in Gaza’s hospitals are speaking out. We speak with Dr. Feroze Sidhwa about his op-ed in The New York Times that features harrowing stories from dozens of healthcare workers and CT scans of children shot in the head or the left side of the chest.
Israel is facing international condemnation after repeatedly attacking U.N. peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon. At least five members of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, have been injured in recent days. The U.N. also accused Israel of forcibly entering and destroying part of a UNIFIL base near the Israeli border after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called to remove the peacekeeping forces from the region.
The new documentary film Union, premiering this week, follows Amazon workers at the JFK8 fulfillment center on Staten Island as they formed the first-ever U.S. Amazon union in 2022. Co-directed by Stephen Maing and Brett Story, the film follows “the invisible working class” as they face an uphill battle against the notoriously anti-labor corporation, says Maing, who joins Democracy Now! to discuss the film.
“There is nothing antisemitic about fighting for people’s right to live,” says Jewish Voice for Peace organizer Elena Stein, who on Monday joined hundreds of protesters arrested to block entrances to the New York Stock Exchange. We discuss the historic mass protest, which called for an Israeli arms embargo and an end to war profiteering by companies like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.
The Biden administration is sending an advanced anti-missile defense system and 100 U.S. troops to Israel in advance of expected retaliatory strikes against Iran. This marks the first significant deployment of American troops to Israel since the beginning of its assault on Gaza, though the U.S. has spent an estimated tens of billions of dollars on the Israeli military and related operations.
Israel is facing international condemnation after repeatedly attacking U.N. peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon. At least five members of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, have been injured in recent days. The U.N. also accused Israel of forcibly entering and destroying part of a UNIFIL base near the Israeli border after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called to remove the peacekeeping forces from the region.
We speak with the reporter who revealed the Israeli plan to displace or kill the entire Palestinian population of north Gaza. Israeli Major General Giora Eiland has proposed ordering everyone in northern Gaza to evacuate within one week, after which Israel will conduct a total siege on the area and deem anyone who remains an eligible target for military attack.
We get another update on Israel’s brutal siege and bombing in the north of the Gaza Strip, where hospitals are desperate for supplies. “Every day is a breaking point. Every day is a desperate rush for food, water, fuel and medicine and shelter,” says Dr. Samer Attar, who has volunteered four times as a surgeon in north Gaza, most recently in June. “It never ends. Every day you wake up to more and more of it. That’s just what makes it so horrifying.
We speak with Dr. Mohammed Salha, the acting director of Al-Awda Hospital at the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, as Israel continues to escalate attacks against northern Gaza and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering implementing a “surrender or starve” policy there. Palestinians in north Gaza report Israeli forces are conducting a strict and deadly siege while bombing more tent encampments, hospitals and schools this weekend.
We speak with the director of The Apprentice, “the movie Trump doesn’t want you to see,” which opens today in theaters despite legal threats from the former president. The film looks at how Trump was mentored by Roy Cohn, former chief counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare. He went on to represent Trump as he built his New York real estate empire, and “was the person who sort of built Trump, as a person, as a brand, as an identity,” says Abbasi.
A Japanese group of atomic bomb survivors, Nihon Hidankyo, has won the Nobel Peace Prize as fears grow of a new nuclear arms race. The head of the group has compared Gaza today to Japan 80 years ago when the U.S. bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We feature a Democracy Now! interview with Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and an anti-nuclear activist, and get response from Joseph Gerson, president of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security, a U.
As the Israeli military continues its assaults on Gaza and Lebanon, which have included the targeting of hospitals and ambulances and the killing of medical personnel, among other violations of international law, we speak to a doctor currently volunteering in Beirut. Dr. Bing Li is an emergency medicine physician and U.S. Army veteran who also volunteered at Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza earlier this year.
We look at the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in southwest Florida, which runs a radio station called Radio Conciencia that helped immigrant farmworkers prepare for Hurricane Milton and other storms. Established in 2003, the community radio station broadcasts in Spanish, Creole and other languages to share crucial information during natural disasters. “This is always scary for us whenever a hurricane hits in our area,” says organizer Gerardo Reyes Chavez.
We speak with the director of The Apprentice, “the movie Trump doesn’t want you to see,” which opens today in theaters despite legal threats from the former president. The film looks at how Trump was mentored by Roy Cohn, former chief counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare. He went on to represent Trump as he built his New York real estate empire, and “was the person who sort of built Trump, as a person, as a brand, as an identity,” says Abbasi.
A Japanese group of atomic bomb survivors, Nihon Hidankyo, has won the Nobel Peace Prize as fears grow of a new nuclear arms race. The head of the group has compared Gaza today to Japan 80 years ago when the U.S. bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We feature a Democracy Now! interview with Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and an anti-nuclear activist, and get response from Joseph Gerson, president of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security, a U.
As the Israeli military continues its assaults on Gaza and Lebanon, which have included the targeting of hospitals and ambulances and the killing of medical personnel, among other violations of international law, we speak to a doctor currently volunteering in Beirut. Dr. Bing Li is an emergency medicine physician and U.S. Army veteran who also volunteered at Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza earlier this year.
We look at the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in southwest Florida, which runs a radio station called Radio Conciencia that helped immigrant farmworkers prepare for Hurricane Milton and other storms. Established in 2003, the community radio station broadcasts in Spanish, Creole and other languages to share crucial information during natural disasters. “This is always scary for us whenever a hurricane hits in our area,” says organizer Gerardo Reyes Chavez.
Editor’s Note: Washington Week With The Atlantic is a partnership between NewsHour Productions, WETA, and The Atlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Check your local listings or watch full episodes here.
Although Election Day is more than three weeks away, early voting is already under way in many states. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are ramping up their efforts to win over undecided and unlikely voters, especially in key swing states.