February, 03 2021, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Danaka Katovich | CODEPINK Yemen Campaign Coordinator | Danaka@codepink.org | 925 336 6221
Medea Benjamin | CODEPINK co-founder | medea.benjamin@gmail.org | 415 235 6517
Ariel Gold | CODEPINK national co-director | ariel@codepink.org | 510 599 5330
Codepink Applauds Biden's Decision to End U.S. Support for the War on Yemen
We applaud President Biden's declaration that he will be ending US support for all offensive operations in Yemen. The people of Yemen have endured years of brutal war and a suffocating blockade. The Saudi-led coalition has attacked Yemeni weddings, hospitals, schools, and funerals with consistent support from the United States. The ruthless attacks on Yemeni healthcare infrastructure have led to the rampant spread of preventable diseases like cholera and dengue--and now COVID.
WASHINGTON
We applaud President Biden's declaration that he will be ending US support for all offensive operations in Yemen. The people of Yemen have endured years of brutal war and a suffocating blockade. The Saudi-led coalition has attacked Yemeni weddings, hospitals, schools, and funerals with consistent support from the United States. The ruthless attacks on Yemeni healthcare infrastructure have led to the rampant spread of preventable diseases like cholera and dengue--and now COVID. The end to American support for this war will hopefully bring some much-needed relief to the people of Yemen.
This announcement is coming after almost six years of tireless advocacy around the world, and on the heels of the January, 25th World Says No to War on Yemen Global Day of Action that CODEPINK helped organize. It comes after years of US lobbying, including getting bipartisan bills on Trump's desk that were vetoed by the president.
"This is a day peace activists around the world have been waiting for," says Danaka Katovich, CODEPINK's Yemen Campaign Coordinator. "On the campaign trail, President Biden said he would end support for the war in Yemen, and I hope he keeps that promise to the fullest extent."
"We hope Biden's announcement marks the beginning of the end of this horrific war." said CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin, "We will be closely following the activities of the new envoy Timothy Lenderking in negotiating a peace process and will push the Biden administration to increase US aid to help repair the damages caused by our devastating participation in this war."
CODEPINK has been engaged in the movement to end the war on Yemen since it began in 2015. "This is a hard-fought win for peace and it shows that activism in the streets and in the halls of Congress can bear fruit. We hope peace activists everywhere are heartened by this decision," said CODEPINK co-director Ariel Gold.
Moving forward, CODEPINK will continue to push the Biden Administration to truly end all support for this war, which should include an end to all intelligence sharing with the coalition, an end to arms sales, and an immediate reversal of the terrorist designation for the Houthis, restoring and increasing humanitarian aid to all parts of Yemen, and reparations for the Yemeni people.
CODEPINK is a women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. wars and militarism, support peace and human rights initiatives, and redirect our tax dollars into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming programs.
(818) 275-7232LATEST NEWS
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“Trump’s failure to release the Epstein files is an insult to survivors and a further stain on an administration that continuously bends over backwards to protect abusers," said one critic.
Dec 19, 2025
The US Department of Justice on Friday released a massive—but incomplete—trove containing hundreds of thousands of records related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a move that came as Democratic lawmakers vowed to pursue "all legal options" after the Trump administration blew a deadline to disclose all of the files.
The DOJ uploaded the files—which can be viewed here in the section titled "Epstein Files Transparency Act"—to its website on Friday. Earlier in the day, Deputy US Attorney General Todd Blanche said that the agency would not release all the Epstein files on Friday, as required by the transparency law signed last month by President Donald Trump.
Friday's release includes declassified files, many of them heavily redacted and some of which were already publicly available via court filings, records requests, and media reporting. Files include flight logs and masseuse lists.
Curiously, a search for the words "Trump" and "Epstein" in the posted documents returned no results.
While not accused of any wrongdoing, Trump was a former close friend of Epstein, who faced federal sex trafficking charges at the time of his suspicious 2019 death in a New York City jail cell.
Responding to the DOJ's document release and delay in fully disclosing the files, Elisa Batista, campaign director at UltraViolet Action, said in a statement that “if the Trump administration had its way, they would undo the sacrifice of survivors who came forward to demand transparency and accountability, as well as all those abused by Epstein who were unable to."
“Trump’s failure to release the Epstein files is an insult to survivors and a further stain on an administration that continuously bends over backwards to protect abusers—and just violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act to do so," Batista added. "We will continue to fight alongside the brave survivors—many of whom were young girls when they were abused by Epstein—who took great risk to reveal Epstein’s globe-spanning sex trafficking network.”
Britt Jacovich, a spokesperson for the progressive political action group MoveOn, said following Friday's release that “President Trump’s Department of Justice is breaking the law by holding all of the Epstein files hostage, and yet again, Trump is doing absolutely nothing."
"Trump doesn’t care about the victims or the millions of Americans calling for justice," Jacovich added. "He only cares about protecting the rich and powerful, even those who abuse young women and children. Every single person named in the Epstein files and involved in the cover-up should face accountability, regardless of their political party. No more delays, no more obstruction.”
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One day after it was announced that Trump's name would be added to the Kennedy Center, which was originally named by the US Congress in the wake of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, construction workers were spotted altering the lettering on the outside of the building.
When their work was complete, the building had been unofficially renamed as "The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts."
From a legal perspective, the Kennedy Center still retains its original name, as the power to change its name rests with the US Congress and not with the Trump-appointed Kennedy Center board of directors whom the president appointed earlier this year.
Andrew Howard, a Washington, DC resident, reacted with rage during an interview with MS Now when asked about Trump's decision to put his name on the side of the official national cultural center of the US.
"We should be shocked... that a felon, a convicted felon, and a thug, and, by all means, a grift has just stuck his name on top of a national monument," Howard fumed. "This is a desecration!"
DC resident on Trump putting his name on the Kennedy Center:
"We should all be shocked that a convicted felon, a thug, and by all means a grifter has just stuck his name on top of a national monument." pic.twitter.com/hzNcucRha5
— FactPost (@factpostnews) December 19, 2025
Former CNN host Jim Acosta also delivered a report from outside the Kennedy Center, which he described as "the scene of yet another crime committed by Donald Trump."
"He has vandalized the Kennedy Center by putting his name on it," Acosta said.
The former CNN anchor explained that only Congress has the power to make changes to the Kennedy Center's name, before noting that Trump "doesn't care about the law, doesn't care what's appropriate," and concluding that the Kennedy Center stunt was symbolic of "a childish and lawless administration."
Reporting from the scene of the crime. Trump has slapped his name on the Kennedy Center. But we will never call it the Trump Kennedy Center: pic.twitter.com/DFlabMjZPJ
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) December 19, 2025
Former Republican political operative Tara Setmayer wrote in a post on X that Trump's decision to illegally rename the Kennedy Center demonstrated his authoritarian ambitions to rule America by decree.
"This desecration of the Kennedy Center is another grotesque example of Trump’s 'Dear Leader' behavior," she wrote. "This has been a week of one wretched act after another by Trump. It’s got to stop."
Kerry Kennedy, a niece of the late president, vowed to personally tear Trump's name from the building.
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Other members of the Kennedy family condemned the renaming of the center on Thursday when it was first announced.
Former US Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.) wrote on Bluesky that “the Kennedy Center is a living memorial to a fallen president and named for President Kennedy by federal law,” and “can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says.”
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A press release from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Wednesday regarding the death of an immigrant named Nenko Stanev Gantchev at one of the agency's facilities suggested ICE had provided a "safe, secure, and humane" environment—but considering numerous reports about medical neglect and abuse at immigrant detention centers in recent months, two Democratic lawmakers are demanding a full investigation into the man's death.
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Ten days before Gantchev's death, Tlaib conducted an oversight visit at the facility after receiving reports of cold temperatures, inadequate food, unsanitary facilities, and inmates having trouble accessing medical care.
“During this visit, we learned there have been multiple suicide attempts at the facility, including one in the last couple weeks, and heard that more medical staff are needed,” she said at the time. “No human being should be trapped in cages, forced to experience dehumanizing conditions, or separated from their family.”
North Lake was a juvenile detention facility in the 1990s, when the University of Michigan documented allegations of medical neglect and abuse. It later operated as a federal prison until 2022, when then-President Joe Biden prohibited private prison companies from running federal detention facilities. In June, GEO Group reopened the jail as an ICE facility.
A lawsuit filed in September by the ACLU of Michigan on behalf of an inmate at North Lake, Jose Contreras Cervantes, alleged that for nearly a month, staffers at the facility did not give him the chemotherapy pills he had been taking for leukemia.
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Gantchev was 56 and was from Bulgaria, and was arrested on a warrant by ICE agents in Chicago in September. He had previously been arrested in the 1990s and 2000s for theft, battery, and driving under the influence. He was granted lawful permanent residence in 2005, but the status was revoked in 2009 and an immigration judge ordered Gantchev's removal in 2023.
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