Contributing Writers

Ralph Nader, longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic and four-time former presidential candidate, joins Democracy Now! to discuss Americans pushing the government to end “this genocidal war in Gaza,” large donors influencing free speech and curriculum at universities, and his new book, The Rebellious CEO: 12 Leaders Who Did It Right.

We speak with anti-Zionist organizer and former IDF soldier from Tel Aviv Meital Yaniv, who joined hundreds of Jewish activists and their allies to shut down the California state Capitol in Sacramento Wednesday to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and condemn the roughly $600 million in California taxes that is used annually for U.S. military aid to Israel.

In Gaza, the death toll from Israel’s 90-day bombardment has topped 22,600, with another 7,000 people reported missing and presumed dead. As the IDF intensifies its attacks on refugee camps in central and south Gaza — areas deemed by Israel to be safe zones — we speak with Mohammed Ghalayini, an air quality scientist and co-founder of Amplify Gaza Stories, who made the “impossible choice” to flee from Gaza to Britain, where he has dual citizenship.

Dutch Palestinian policy analyst Mouin Rabbani says Israel is using the Hamas attack of October 7 as a pretext to carry out its “long-standing ambition” to push Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip. He notes Israeli officials started proposing mass displacement of civilians to Egypt and other countries almost immediately after fighting began, and that this reflects Zionist policy since even before the founding of the state of Israel.

Civil rights leader Bishop William Barber joins us to discuss his calls for more awareness and justice for disabled people after he was kicked out of a Greenville, North Carolina, AMC movie theater last week when he went to see The Color Purple with his 90-year-old mother. Barber was threatened with trespassing and police forcibly removed him from the theater when the manager refused to allow him to use a specialized chair he carries to assist with an arthritic condition.

As Ukraine and Russia complete an exchange of nearly 500 prisoners amid ongoing hostilities, American news outlets are reporting that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be open to ceasefire talks behind the scenes. But in Moscow, “That’s not how we see it,” says Nina Khrushcheva, a professor of international affairs at the New School and the great-granddaughter of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

Twin explosions in the Iranian province of Kerman killed dozens and injured hundreds Wednesday at a memorial for top Revolutionary Guards general Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in a U.S. drone strike four years ago in Iraq. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but Iran has placed blame on Israel and the U.S, while U.S. officials and regional experts have suggested ISIS as the culprit.

Dutch Palestinian policy analyst Mouin Rabbani says Israel is using the Hamas attack of October 7 as a pretext to carry out its “long-standing ambition” to push Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip. He notes Israeli officials started proposing mass displacement of civilians to Egypt and other countries almost immediately after fighting began, and that this reflects Zionist policy since even before the founding of the state of Israel.

A top Hamas official was assassinated in a suburb of Beirut on Tuesday amid growing fears that Israel’s war on Gaza could entangle Lebanon and other countries in the region. Hamas’s deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri was killed in a suspected Israeli drone strike that also killed six other members of Hamas, though Israel has not confirmed its involvement.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is facing backlash after she failed to cite slavery as a cause of the Civil War during a town hall event in New Hampshire last week. She later clarified that “of course the Civil War was about slavery,” but her initial reluctance to say so is indicative of how Republican leaders have long avoided reckoning with the country’s past, says Harvard historian Khalil Gibran Muhammad.

We look at the resignation of Harvard University President Claudine Gay, the first African American and second woman to lead the Ivy League school, after conservative-led allegations of plagiarism and backlash over her testimony at a congressional hearing on antisemitism that is part of a broader effort to censor pro-Palestinian speech on college campuses.