AFT President Discusses New Book, "Why Fascists Fear Teachers;" Trump Sending Troops to Memphis Next

The guest host for today's show is Brad Bannon. Brad runs Bannon Communications Research, a polling, message development and media firm which helps labor unions, progressive issue groups and Democratic candidates win public affairs and political campaigns. His show, 'Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon,' airs every Monday from 3-4pm ET.

Brad is first joined by Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). They discuss her brand new book, "Why Fascists Fear Teachers. Public Education and the Future of Democracy." 

The book's Publisher, Penguin House, describes it as "A rousing defense of public education as the cornerstone of American democracy, by the woman attacked by the far right as “the most dangerous person in the world”
Attacks on schools and teachers have long been a hallmark of fascist regimes: Throughout history, as many dictators rose to power they began banning books and controlling curriculum. Fascists fear teachers because teachers foster an educated and empowered population that can see past propaganda and scare tactics. Fascists fear teachers because they teach young people how to think for themselves.
Drawing on history, stories from teachers on the front lines, and decades of experience with America’s public schools, Weingarten argues that teaching students to think critically is the key to defeating would-be dictators.
She encourages teachers to continue focusing on their vital mission to help young people thrive."
The book is available for purchase here: https://sites.prh.com/whyfascistsfearteachers

During the second half of the show, Brad is joined by Sara Haghdoosti and she is the Executive Director of Win Without War, a diverse network of activists and organizations working towards a progressive U.S. foreign policy.

She details the dangers of militarizing local law enforcement, and what it means for everyday people that the President is willing to position troops in American cities to enforce his own agenda (with Memphis, TN just the latest).
Based just outside of Chicago, Sara also speaks to what the local community is experiencing right now as Trump targets the city.
Sara also talks about her organization’s ‘Know Your Rights Campaign’ for military service members that do not want to follow unlawful orders from the Trump administration:
https://winwithoutwar.org/win-without-war-launches-notwhatyousignedupfor-org-for-members-of-the-military-during-trumps-authoritarian-crackdown/ 

Finally, Brad and Sara talk foreign policy, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as the Trump administration's controversial airstrike on a Venezuelan boat that Trump claims contained drug smugglers transporting fentanyl.

Randi Weingarten is president of the 1.8 million-member AFT, which represents teachers; paraprofessionals and school-related personnel; higher education faculty and staff; nurses and other healthcare professionals; local, state and federal government employees; and early childhood educators. The AFT is dedicated to the belief that every person in America deserves the freedom to thrive, fueled by opportunity, justice and a voice in our democracy.
Their website is www.AFT.org and their handle on BlueSky is @aftunion.bsky.social.  Randi's handle is @rweingarten.bsky.social.

'Win Without War' is a national grassroots organization that works with elected officials, policymakers, media, advocacy organizations, and movement leaders to promote and advance a values-based progressive national security strategy that prioritizes human security and diplomacy over war.
They believe that by democratizing U.S. foreign policy and providing progressive alternatives, we can achieve more peaceful, just, and common sense policies that ensure that all people — regardless of race, nationality, gender, religion, or economic status — can find and take advantage of opportunity equally and feel secure.
Their website is WinWithoutWar.org.  Their handle on BlueSky is @winwithoutwar.bsky.social.  Sara's handle is @shaghdoosti.bsky.social.

Brad writes a political column every Sunday for 'The Hill.'
He's on the National Journal's panel of political insiders and is a national political analyst for WGN TV and Radio in Chicago and KNX Radio in Los Angeles. You can read Brad's columns at www.MuckRack.com/Brad-Bannon. His handle on BlueSky is @bradbannon.bsky.social.  

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Leslie Marshall Show, A true democracy in talk radio
of for and by you the people. Live from our

(00:32):
nation's capital, It's Deadline d C with Brad Bannon.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
I'm a national democratic and progressive strategist, a political analyst
for news radio kN X in Los Angeles, and a
weekly columnist for The Hill in Washington, d C. Monday's
on Deadline d C, I talked to the people play
behind the politics and policies that drive our gate nation

(01:04):
forward or at least keep it from going backwards during
Trump two point zero. Our guest today in the first
half hour is Randy Winegarden, who is the president of
the American Federation of Teachers and the author of a
new book, Why Fascist Their Teachers? Randy, welcome back to

(01:26):
Deadline DC.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Thank you so much for having me, Brett. I really
appreciate it, and it's good to be in Washington, d
C today without seeing the National.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Guard all of the quest Yeah, small, small favors. Let
me ask you this question, and I asked this question,
and I wanted to talk to you today because, as
I think I mentioned last time when you were on,
my daughter is a public school teacher and I can't
imagine why fascists would fear here. Uh So why don't

(02:03):
you talk about why do fascist feared teachers? Uh? And
I'm sure my daughter would love to know.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Well, look, I'm you know, I'm quite careful in my
use of the word because I have watched the way
you know, it gets used, basically weaponized in all sorts
of different ways. But my what I tried to do

(02:33):
here is describe fascistic behavior in a way that we
would if we were teaching a high school or a college,
you know, social studies, class stasistic, oligarchical, you know, authoritarian
kind of behavior, and really talk about what the antidote

(02:56):
is to that. And frankly, just like your daughter, the
antidote are teachers. And fascists fear teachers because they basically
break through the fear and the division and the demonization
and the rage that fascists attempt to create in order

(03:22):
to change societies. And what teachers do is teachers try
and ensure that kids can think for themselves, can have
the skills and knowledge they need for their lives, create
a safe and welcoming environment, and create opportunity for all,

(03:44):
and have a little bit of power on their own
so we are, and teachers are the antidote. And I
spend a lot of time back from stories from even
the Nazi era, but stories to the current day about
the amazing work the teachers do.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Since we're here to discuss your book, let's talk about
book bands. My daughter is an English teacher, and I
look at her booklist for her students every year, and
I see many of them are a banned in some state.
And is that part of what you're talking about?

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Is uh? I mean, it is one of the you
know what, and this is a spectrum, you know, between
the things that start dividing people from each other to
real fascistic behavior, like what the Nazis did to Austrian

(04:49):
Jews when they made them you know, I'm not even
talking about you know, the concentration camps. I'm talking about
when they made them, uh lean on sidewalks and streaks
to clean the streets in their you know, in their
in their Sunday Best or Saturday Best. That kind of demonization,

(05:13):
that kind of dehumanization, that's what that's you know, that's
that kind of behavior. Now, how does book banning fall
in If you don't want to expose young people or
even adults to new ideas. You ban those ideas, you
ban those books. Now, there's a big difference between what

(05:36):
we actually do in classrooms and what should be in
a library. And and in classrooms there's normally curriculum committees
that make decisions about the claims of books that we're
going to have that are age appropriate. But in libraries,
why would you ban a book and therefore not let

(05:59):
any child take that book out of a library, not
let any parent have the choice whether that book belongs there.
And the books that get banned, I mean and Frank
banning a book about Ann Frank banning a book about
Ruby Bridges, banning a book about Roberto Clemente. Why would

(06:19):
you ban these kind of books. It's because you don't
want people to actually see other cultures or other people.
So I think that there's been a lot said about
book banning. There's been a lot of pushback about that
because Americans don't want to ban books.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Let me ask you this question. One of the You've
been outspoken lately in the last few months about Donald
Trump's attempt to eliminate the Department of Education, And of course,
we we are facing budget cuts for educators all across

(07:05):
the country. And I hate to mention my daughter again,
but she teaches in a central city school. They had
a promising teacher they hired last year, a young teacher
who they couldn't hire this year because of funding cuts.

(07:25):
First of all, and I'd like to say, my first
professional job in Washington was as a policy analyst at
the Department of Education. Well, I date myself back then
it was the US Office of Education. But I hate
to see it dismantled. Is it being dismantled? Yes?

Speaker 1 (07:46):
And look, we won in the courts below this particular
case about dismantling the Department of Education, and the Supreme
Court didn't even do a decision. It just did what
they called the shadow docket, unsigned decision that basically said
that they could they could go ahead with firings. So

(08:10):
let me just take a step back, which is to say,
everyone can be more efficient. If this was simply about
how are we more efficient? How are we more effective?
Do you need X number of people in a particular
department or can you do something different? I'm all for that.

(08:33):
What's happening here is an evisceration and basically firing so
many people so that the backlogs for the Office of
Civil Rights, which is the one that basically make sure
that if you have a kid with special needs and
that kid is not getting serviced in a local district,

(08:57):
you can call the Office of Civil Rights and they
will try to make that happen for your kid. If
you have a student debt, because the Department of Education
deals with all the student debts, if you can't get
an answer from your student debt servicer and you're basically

(09:20):
about to go into default, there's a backlog of forty
five or sixty thousand cases, so you're not gonna get
what the relief you need from the department to deal
with that. So these are real people's problems from the
layoffs that they've done. But let me say one more thing.

(09:42):
The real problem here is they're cutting the services that
go directly to kids like your daughter teaches in a
Title one school. They're gonna cut five billion dollars of
money that goes to kids in these schools. That tutoring,
that's English language proficiency, that's learning how to read, after

(10:04):
school programs at summer school programs, that's class sized, that's
mental health programs. These are real cuts that hurtcids.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Randy, we're going to have to take that quick break
for our radio listeners right now. We'll be back with
more of Deadline DC and FT President Randy Winegarden right
after this very quick break. Welcome back to Deadline DC

(10:37):
with Brad Bannon. My guest in this half hour is
Randy Winegarten, who is the president of the American Federation
of Teachers and the author of a great new book,
Y Fascist Fear Teachers. There it is, and I think
you can see it over my shoulder too, Randy. Let

(10:59):
me ask you this. One of the classes my daughter
teaches is English for immigrants. And because the school has
large immigrant population, and in addition to having to worry
about ice agents crossing their classes, she has to worry

(11:20):
about these kinds of budget cuts. Why is English language
instruction for immigrants so important?

Speaker 1 (11:28):
If we want to have an inclusive society. America is
the land of immigrants. America has been. Since our founding,
Ditoefel talked about.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
How we welcome the immigrant and welcome the stranger. What
we need to do if we want to create opportunity
for all so that all can compete.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
We need to help make sure that kids who come
from different places can learn English. It is something that
is part of opportunity, just like learning to read or
learning mathematics. Why would you take that away from kids.

(12:25):
That's what public schools are. They are about creating a
level playing field for all kids. And past administrations, Republican
and Democrat alike, regardless of whether they thought English should
be the primary language of America or not, understood that.

(12:46):
The way in which you help is you create these
on ramps so that kids can have the opportunities to
get the skills and knowledge they need. Where else are
they going to get it if we don't do it
in public schools and there's funding for it that Linda
McMahon and Donald Trump and Project twenty twenty five wants

(13:10):
to take away.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Okay, let me bring up an unpleasant subject. Last week,
three young three children were shot and wounded at a
Denver high school, and there was little note of it.
There was some national attention, but it got buried in

(13:34):
other news. What should we be doing to make schools safer?

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Well, let me just say, bred I do think it
would have gotten more attention, just like the terrible shooting
and Minnesota at the you know, at the Catholic school
during mass when kids were shot and killed, if Charlie
Cook Arley Kirk had not been assassinated at that same

(14:03):
in those same few hours. And so let me just
say as clearly as I can, I don't really care
for this moment what anybody thinks about his positions or not.
I personally disagreed with virtually everything he said. Political violence

(14:27):
must be condemned always, just like we believe I believe
that all of gun violence. We must find a way
to get weapons of war out of people's hands. And
we have to do it, you know, since since gun
shootings are the reason are the most kids get hurt

(14:53):
or killed because of gun shots, now not anything else.
But let's be clear, what happened last week to mister
Kirk is must be condemned. There is no place in
society for political violence in that kind of way or

(15:14):
any kind of way. And I think that's what shrouded
a lot of the attention in terms of what happened
in Colorado. But we have to be serious about gun violence.
And frankly, just like we at one point or another
had a ban on assault weapons, we should have a

(15:37):
ban on weapons of war except for you know, police
and the military, and I think that there's other things
we can do, but that should be first and foremost.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
What would you what is the one lesson that you'd
like to impart to public school teachers about your book
and I'm sure many of them, including my daughter, will
be reading it, what would you like to say to
public school teachers, now that you're here in this opportunity,
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
Public school teachers are doing everything they can every single
day to help our kids achieve, to help deal with
all of you know, the challenges the society throws at kids,
from social media and the devices to everything every other issue, poverty,

(16:43):
issues around, you know, trauma. And what published school teachers
do is they make a difference in the lives of
all of our children. And they do it regardless of
who our kids are, where they come from, who their
parents are, where they live. So this is frankly a

(17:04):
love story to teachers and to the teachers and parents
who send their kids to public schools and to the
kids who actually need and thrive in public schools, because
at the end of the day, that's what teachers do.
They hope to make a difference so kids and splives.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
One final question, what will will the American Federation of
Teachers be doing to make sure that public education is
an issue that discussed gets discussed during the mid term elections.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
Well, first of what we're doing is every single Friday
on our social media platforms, because the media doesn't really
want to talk about the good things that happen in
public schools, and so every single Friday we are talking
about the good things that happen in public schools. We
are lifting up stories, aspiration, hope, and the things that

(18:03):
teachers do all the time. What I would like to
see happen is a real discussion of how we help
all children instead of the blame game, instead of ignoring
our children are our future. We need to help them.
They need to be our priority. Not tax cuts for
the rich, not the kind of not the political machinations

(18:29):
of the day, but what we can do to help
families thrive and help create affordability, to help make sure
that every single one of our kids has a shot
at success.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
That's what we have to end the interview on that note.
Our guests, Brandy Winegarten, President of the American Federation Teachers
and author of great new book I hope you read
Why fascist feared teachers there it is. Thank you very much, Randy,
thank you for.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
UH.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
In the second segment, our guest will be Sarah uh
Hia Duci who is the executive director of UH War
UH War, Win Without War. We'll be back right after
these messages for more of Deadline g C with Brad Bannon.

(19:27):
Welcome back to Deadline d C with Brad Bannon. UH.
We are going to discuss UH Donald Trump's militarization of
law enforcement in this half hour. Our guest is Sarah
uh Hi duce T, who is the executive director of

(19:49):
Win Without War. But before we go to Sarah, we're
going to play this clip about the newest Trump deployment
of the National Guard in American cities.

Speaker 4 (20:03):
We're going to Memphis. Memphis is that's the next of
the deeply troubled and the mayor is happy. He's a Democrat.
The mayor is happy, and the governor Tennessee, the governor's happy.
Deeply troubled. We're going to fix that, just like we
did Washington. I would have preferred going to Chicago, So
we're going to Memphis. I'm just announcing that now and

(20:24):
we'll straighten that out of the National Guard and anybody
else we need, and by the way, we'll bring in
the military to if we need it.

Speaker 5 (20:32):
I think that the National Guard here in Memphis will
hurt this community, but also our country. I think it
will compromise many of our rights. We'll have folks without
training interacting with our citizenry, and there's a chance that
that will compromise our due process rights. At the same time,
the right to travel will not be unfettered because in DC,
we know they set up checkpoints, and I don't think

(20:53):
we want to see those kinds of things in Memphis
and Shelby County. We don't want to see checkpoints, armored vehicles,
individuals with semi automatic weapons, of patrolling our streets, military
personnel and fatigues.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
I think it's really anti American.

Speaker 5 (21:06):
I think it defies our traditions and may possibly be illegal.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
Okay. That was Donald Trump announcing the deployment of National
Guard to Memphis, Tennessee, which is the latest in the
series of his turning law enforcement into a military enterprise.
Our guest in this half hour is Sarah I. Doucet,

(21:33):
who is the executive director of When Without War. Sarah,
Welcome to Deadline. D C with Brad Bannon.

Speaker 6 (21:40):
Thank you so much for having me. Brad, very excited
to be here.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
Okay, maybe you can tell me. Every time I hear
Donald Trump announcing he's sending the National Guard, whether it's
to Washington, d C. Or to Memphis, Tennessee, and god
knows where else, it sends a shiver up my spine.
Why is that?

Speaker 6 (22:05):
Because it is terrifying the way this president talks about
our communities, talks about our cities. Again, a few days ago,
he was threatening to declare war in Chicago, and that's
not how a leader should behave under any circumstances. And
in that clip, the casual way he said that, oh,

(22:28):
we would pull in the military to Memphis. That is
so against all of the norms we have set up
in this country that, yes, a shiver should go up
your spine and more. I hope that people listening to
this take action call on their members of Congress to
really push back against some of what we're seeing and

(22:49):
to restore some of the norms that have safeguarded our
country for a really long time.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah, it seems to me that this, you know, this
has really bad connotations. I think using the military as
a domestic peacekeeping opposition, you know, is there any hope
you know, Congress, I mean Congress can put an end

(23:18):
to this, because I think it sets a dangerous president
when the president uses the military as its personal police force.
It may be National Guards people in Memphis, Tennessee, or
it may be a mass deployment of vice agents in
Chicago or Los Angeles, but it seems to me it

(23:39):
sets a dangerous constitutional precedent. Is there any are there
people in Congress? Are there any Republicans in Congress who
are alarmed by this?

Speaker 6 (23:52):
Well, I want to start a step beforehand. Some of
the points you've said are exactly spot on, and one
thing listeners should know is you know, the National Guard
and active judy troops are not trained for local law enforcement.
That's not what they do. And like saying you want

(24:12):
to solve a problem, but deploying a group of people
who have no training on our expertise in that problem
A is never going to work. And B then you
have a lot of people in these streets like I
will just share the story that I have a young child.
I have an eight year old and when he was

(24:33):
hearing the stories of the National Guard coming to Chicago
and hearing the President talk about declaring war on our cities,
he was terrified, Like I had to sit down and
explain to my kid, who is really safe in the
context of all that's going on. And his question to
me was, why are there men with guns coming into

(24:54):
our city? And the harm of that kind of shift
is really telling. And the way Donald Trump talks about
this in the rhetoric he uses. The other thing I
want to share with your listeners is just this week
in front of an Alderman's office in Chicago, there was
a dead rat with really like horrific anti immigrant sentiment

(25:19):
around it. So like Donald Trump deploying the Marines on protesters,
Donald Trump deploying the National Guard, sending ice out to
really target our communities. It's allowing this level of rhetoric
and this level of like fear perpetuate our communities. That
is incredibly destructive. Now that's what is happening. What you

(25:44):
asked me about, Brad, is where is the hoope? What
can be done? And the thing I will say is
Chicago's actually a really great example of this. We've seen
so many protests in Chicago. There's a great website around
hands Off Chicago. If folks are in city and want
to get involved, they should go there. But there's been
banner drops, there's been protests, there's been thankfully a lot

(26:07):
of state legislators as well as the governor speaking out
and standing up to Trump. And for now it has worked.
And that's the thing with bullies, When you stand up
to them and when you say enough is enough, they
can back off. And I think that's part of the
model of organizing we need to see more of. And again,

(26:29):
people aren't sure what to do. And my thing is
do something. Put up a sign like do talk to
your member of Congress, and if your member of Congress
isn't listening, organize around them. But it is up to
us to safeguard our democracy at this point.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
Do you think that campaign, I mean, two weeks ago
or maybe three weeks ago, everybody was talking about the
imminent National guardization of Chicago and it never hasn't happened
so far. Do you think that your campaign that campaign
scared the president off?

Speaker 6 (27:06):
I mean, I would love to take credit for it,
but I cannot. I would say that it was lots
of people in Chicago, across many different organizations as well
as everyone from governors to mayors, et cetera, really doing
this together. And yes, I think that was why Trump
backed off and went somewhere else. Right, And again Trump

(27:29):
is using this as a way. It is like not
different than what a bully does, using a show of
force to try and get his way. And when people
stand up to bullies, they back off. And that is
exactly what we saw in Chicago.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
So there is some hope.

Speaker 6 (27:46):
Then there's absolutely hope.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
Okay, let's do this. Let me ask you before we
go much farther. We're going to take a quick a
break in a minute and a half or so, tell
us about when without war?

Speaker 6 (28:04):
When without war? We have over three hundred thousand activists
around the country. We were founded when the US invaded Iraq,
and our mission is about creating a world where everyone
can live with dignity and thrive without the fear of violence.
And for us, that's all about how do we focus
on things that actually solve problems as opposed to what

(28:27):
we're seeing now with things like the National Guard deployment,
violence first approaches that often just make things worse.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Okay, one other thing, let me ask you before we break,
tell us about your know your rights campaign.

Speaker 6 (28:44):
We are putting up giant billboards outside of some of
the biggest military bases in the country, asking service members
one question, is this what you signed up for? And
taking them to a website that connects them with a
bunch of resources around the GI Hotline about Veterans Organizer,

(29:04):
and groups like about Face. Essentially, what we're doing is
service members are being put into really awful situations by
this administration, and we want them to know that people
have their backs, groups like us have their backs and
if they need help and need support, their support available.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
Okay, Sarah, we have to take a quick break for
our radio listeners, but we're going to get to continue
this interview with our online viewers. Our guest is Sarah Iduceti,
who is the executive director of Win Without War. We'll
be back with more of Sarah after this message, and

(29:47):
we're going to talk more about we've talked about the
domestic policy front. I would like her to talk about
Win Without War's approach to foreign crises like exist in
Ukraine and Gaza, because it seems to me again this

(30:07):
administration wants to solve all its crisis encouraging more violence.
We'll be right back after this very quick break. Welcome
back to Deadline d C with Brad Bannon. I want
to reminder we're glad to have our radio listeners back

(30:29):
along with our online viewers. I want to remind our
radio listeners that if you'd like to watch Deadline DC
as well as listen to it, you can watch it
at Twitter dot com front Slash Brad Bannon, at Facebook
dot com front Slash, Deadline d with Brad Bannon, front

(30:54):
Slash Videos, and on YouTube at YouTube dot com front
Slash at Deadline DC. Our guest in this half hour
is Sarah Hi Dousti, who is the executive director of
When Without War.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
Sarah, let me ask you this question, how should a
president of the United States try to diffuse situations like
Ukraine and Gaza? For instance, the Ukraine War started when

(31:34):
Russia invaded Ukraine?

Speaker 5 (31:38):
UH?

Speaker 2 (31:38):
And UH, what's to stop a dictator like Vladimir Putin
UH from engulfing a region in war?

Speaker 1 (31:48):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Let's try Ukraine first, and I'll probably ask you the
same question about Gaza.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (31:54):
So what we saw in Ukraine was obviously a horrific
war of aggression by Putt and we have seen the
just sheer carnage that has resulted from his horrific actions. Now,
when you look at what is the best way to
solve it, the way diplomacy is usually most effective is

(32:17):
in partnership with other allies. You don't want to be
going at it alone. But sadly, the Trump administration almost
always tries to do things unilatterly, and because of so
many of their policies, they have also alienated us from
a lot of our key allies, and that makes our

(32:37):
diplomatic strength not what it used to be. So really
investing in diplomacy, really investing on how can we create
a united front against a dictator like Putin is key
to being able to solve the Ukrainian crisis.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
Okay, well let me ask you this question. Let's talk
about Gaza.

Speaker 6 (33:00):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
Here you have the leader of Israel, Benjamin and Yahoo,
who seems hell bent on eliminating the Palestinian population in Gaza. Uh.
And it's my impression is, you know, Donald Trump seems
to wink at it, and you know, occasionally criticize net

(33:24):
Nyahu for uh, you know, the bombings in Gaza, but
really doesn't do anything to try to stop it. And
the reality is Uh, the Israelis are using American bombs
to kill these people, and so how how do you
deal with what? What's how should a president deal with

(33:45):
the situation like Aza.

Speaker 6 (33:47):
The answer here isn't actually complicated. The president should be
following US law. It is really clear from the Foreign
Assistance Act that the US cannot provide military support for
a country that is not a allowing USAID to get
in to its recipients, and that is what the Israeli
government has been doing for quite some time now. Now,

(34:10):
the way you solve this is you enforce our own laws.
And I just want to be clear, this isn't an
international law. This is US law, which means that you
stop sending them bombs, you stop sending them offensive weapons,
You ensure AID is actually getting in. There is such

(34:30):
a crisis going on in Gaza, and that helps create
the space for actually solving the problem, because you're right,
what we're seeing, the sheer amount of terror, the sheer
amount of like children who are suffering in Gaza is
absolutely unacceptable, and it is all happening with US made bombs.

(34:51):
And again, we would not be here had not only
President Trump but President Biden also followed what US law
had said.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Okay, let's turn to another target part topic which I
find alarming. Last week or the week before, US Naval
Air forces destroyed and sank a Venezuelan ship that was

(35:20):
the Trump administration said part of a fentanyl drug ring.
And it seems to me this is gonna be some
kind of violation of international law. Not that anybody cares
about international law, certainly the Trump administration doesn't. Is this
the way I mean? They seems to me they could

(35:41):
have stopped the ship and searched it to see if
there are any drugs on it, but they just blew
it up. Basically. Could you comment on that please.

Speaker 6 (35:53):
This is one of the most outrageous things I have
seen the Trump administration do, and I think it's getting
not nearly enough attention. So again, for your listeners, we
don't know who was on this ship. We only have
the Trump administration's word for it.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Right.

Speaker 6 (36:09):
What we do know is when the ship was struck,
it wasn't coming towards the United States. It was actually
moving away from it. So there are initial reports that
this was supposedly a direct threat to the country. Total falsehood. Now,
despite that, say, if we take everything else they said,
at face value, if there were in fact drugs on

(36:30):
this ship and there was an intent to smuggle it,
there is no legal code for us directly executing people
for those offenses. With like the Trump administration has made
itself judge, jury and executioner in this case, and that
is horrifying. To your point, there was many other ways

(36:54):
to solve this. Now you paired this example of violence
alongside the real opioid crisis that is happening in this
country and the fact that the Trump administration and Republicans
in Congress have gutted key healthcare systems like Medicaid over
the last year, and you can quickly tell this isn't

(37:16):
actually about helping communities in need. It's not about saving
a single life where parents like I have met parents
who have lost kids to this crisis, who are fighting
for treatment, who are fighting for resources. Blowing up a
ship off the coast of Venezuela with no drue process
that like just as like an act of essentially an

(37:40):
active execution, isn't helping anyone and is again one of
those classically performative strongman moves that that President Trump's pulls
off to make himself look invincible, when in fact, all
he's doing is causing harm to people overseas and us

(38:02):
here at home.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
At the same time, it seems to me, Sarah, that
the ethos of the Trump administration is that if it's
a problem, blow it up, and that that seems, you know,
through both them on the domestic front and on the
international front. Is it naive to suggest that we should

(38:23):
actually go to the roots and solve drug problems and
the problems of crime in the United States by taking
an approach that we need government intervention to solve these
problems rather than just shooting at them. And I am
i naive saying that you're not.

Speaker 6 (38:43):
Naive at all, Like I do recall that the Trump
administration at one point freden to bomb a tornado, I
believe our hurricane like they do have this mentality when
it comes to any problem they see. And again, if
you had this mental in your everyday life, it wouldn't
take you far. Of course, we need to figure out

(39:05):
what the causes of things are, and we should listen
to people. What people are saying is they want access
to healthcare. They want more of that, not less of that.
People like me who are parents don't want to deal
with traumatized kids coming home from having to do gun

(39:26):
violence drills in their schools and pretend like there's a
shooter in there and hide. Those are the problems we
need to have real solutions for, and violence doesn't help
with any of them. So you're not just not naive,
You're right on the money when it comes to the policy.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
I try telling out to Donald Trump. He thinks that
I'm probably a wacky liberal, and I probably am actually, Sarah,
thanks for joining us today on Deadline DC with Brad Bannon.
Our guest in this half hour was Sarah Hidusti, who
is the executive director of Win Without War. I want

(40:06):
to thank our first guest, Randy Weingarten, President of the
American Federation of Teachers, and our intrepid executive producer, Mark Grimaldi,
who makes all this possible. We'll be back next week
with more of Deadline DC. Our guest will be We'll

(40:31):
have great guests. I'm sure our first guest will be
Kate Ackley, who is a reporter for Bloomberg Government, and
she's going to discuss President Trump and his adventures. Anyway,
we'll be back next week, and I want to wish

(40:54):
you all a good week and hope you come back
next week. To Deadline d C with Brad Bannon