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A couple watch President-elect Donald Trump’s victory speech from a TV screen in Foster City, California, United States on November 5, 2024.
It took only hours after a majority of Americans chose to return Donald Trump as a strongman-style president for the first billionaire supplicant to come forward on bended knee. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the third-richest person on the planet, had already made his intentions clear in the waning days of the 2024 campaign when the influential newspaper he owns, The Washington Post, spiked a long-planned endorsement of rival Kamala Harris at his instruction.
In a rare tweet Wednesday, Bezos—beneficiary of massive federal contracts—laid it on thick. “Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory,” Bezos posted on X, which is owned by the richest person on the planet, Elon Musk. “No nation has bigger opportunities. Wishing @realDonaldTrump all success in leading and uniting the America we all love.”
It almost goes without saying that Bezos said nothing Wednesday about the fact that, as owner of the Post, he is also the keeper of a remarkable legacy of watchdog journalism, which defied the White House in 1971 in publishing the secret Pentagon Papers and then produced the investigative reporting that helped bring down Richard Nixon in Watergate. There was no Bezos pep talk to his journalists that such heroism for democracy would be acted out now. Less than 48 hours after Trump’s election as the 47th president, this kind of silence has been deafening.
From the obsequious Bezos to the end of resistance from everyday folk, we are seeing the once unthinkable: the start of American autocracy.
Although it feels almost normal to flip on CNN and watch talking heads speculate on whom the president-elect is picking for his cabinet, there is nothing normal about the Trump transition, even with a president who’s been elected before. So much has changed since the tumultuous autumn of 2016. This time, America is rolling out a red carpet for a king—one who will, in the ultimate irony, preside over the 250th anniversary of that time when we overthrew a monarchy.
I know that sounds like hyperbole, or what The 51% calls “Trump derangement syndrome.” But the nation already on Wednesday received its first major bit of news—and there are going to be many, many more to come—making it clear that Trump is returning to the White House with stunning absolute powers that none of his 44 predecessors (Grover Cleveland, and now Trump, twice) either possessed or were willing to exercise over the American people.
It came in the form of a revelation from the U.S. Justice Department that special counsel Jack Smith—who aggressively, if too belatedly, brought federal indictments against Trump for the 2020 efforts to overturn the last presidential election that culminated in the January 6, 2021 insurrection, and for Trump taking highly classified documents—is planning steps that would have the likely impact of ending his cases before Trump takes the oath of office.
Multiple news outlets quoted sources within the Justice Department that Smith is now is active talks about how to “wind down” the two cases against Trump—with the one about classified documents already on life support after a zealously pro-Trump, Trump-appointed lower court judge dismissed the charges for now—before he becomes president again on January 20. It’s not yet clear whether Smith is planning to permanently dismiss the charges or—more likely—put them on some type of hold that would nonetheless make justice nearly impossible, since Trump would be 82 if he leaves office as scheduled in 2029, and there would be questions about the statute of limitations.
Such maneuvers would be in line with the controversial and legally debated Justice Department decision from the Nixon era that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted, which already gave any POTUS a unique standing above the law. But remember that Trump was on track to stand trial in the January 6 case this year, if not for the U.S. Supreme Court’s stunning 6-3 ruling earlier this year giving presidents sweeping legal immunity for broadly defined “official acts.”
When Smith does appear before U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan to end the case, it will be a triple exclamation point on how a once revolutionary nation turned a president into a king.
Some legal experts are arguing that Smith is playing the horrendous hand that he’s been dealt here, perhaps scrambling to issue an in-depth report about Trump’s alleged wrongdoing before the new president’s MAGA appointees can fire him. I get that, but my nonlawyer gut tells me that Smith should make Trump and his lackeys dismiss the case themselves, as one more reminder that Trump is trashing every last democratic norm we have.
But how 2017-ish of me to even think that. The decision has already been made in all our former watchdog institutions to obey the new authoritarianism in advance. You can hear it in the quiet of an unseasonably warm November breeze.
The dogs of 2016 and 2017 are not barking. There are no people in the streets chanting, “We! Reject! The president-elect!” or carrying “Not My President” signs like eight years ago. Kids aren’t walking out of high school, and college presidents—reflecting the catastrophic erosions of free speech in America that go well beyond Trumpism—are not issuing statements.
New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote Thursday about the Russian lifestyle of “internal emigration”—turning away from politics to emphasize family or books or gardening or anything else besides the seeming hopelessness of opposing autocracy.
This is exactly what I’m hearing from so many friends and even family here in Greater Philadelphia and on social media. People are leaving Musk’s X in droves, partly to protest the billionaire, but mostly to disengage from politics, at least for now. One boomer woman who threw herself into the so-called Trump Resistance in 2016 wrote me Thursday to say she is done. Protesting Trump, she wrote, “was an utter failure. I’m tired, demoralized, and bitter.”
I don’t blame her, nor would I think of criticizing the many people emphasizing their own mental health over politics at a moment when it’s not even clear what to do next. We are seeing in real time how autocracy happens, by creating hopelessness and despair among the mass of people who once might have fought back. From the obsequious Bezos to the end of resistance from everyday folk, we are seeing the once unthinkable: the start of American autocracy.
I was fortunate Thursday morning to connect with one of the nation’s top experts on authoritarian regimes, the Yale University historian Timothy Snyder, whose words—especially, “do not obey in advance”—from his essential On Tyranny are frequently quoted here. I wanted to ask him the question on so many people’s minds since Tuesday: What has history taught us about how to live now?
Snyder told me the most important thing for the moment is to avoid isolation and be around other people. “They want you to be alone,” the historian said of autocratic governments because isolation feeds the sense of powerlessness that allows the regime to do its dirty work unimpeded. “Nobody is going to fix this alone,” Snyder said. “That’s not how this works.”
Second, he suggested: “This is a good time to figure out what you’re good at. Define some little human-sized zone, whether it’s your library or your garden or your trade union. Take something positive that you know and do it.” He also noted that the political feeling of despair in opposing Trump and his MAGA movement doesn’t mean you can’t work for change on the state and local level, where one can still hash out issues with forward-minded politicians.
Snyder then suggested, with a laugh, what he called “a dumb little idea”—except that it wasn’t.
“Take a moment and write down a letter about the things you care about, that you’re willing to take a stand about. Write that down, put it in an envelope, and take it out of your desk as we’re going through these things”—like when Trump takes office in January, or early in his term.
Those of us who opposed Trump, and who were devastated to learn how many of our fellow citizens want to live under his strongman rule, need time to mourn this week’s news. But it’s well worth listening to Snyder’s words about not just living under tyranny, but someday soon finding reasonable ways to confront it. We are going to need each other, whether it’s in the streets or just at the dog park. And you—we—are not alone.
Dear Common Dreams reader, The U.S. is on a fast track to authoritarianism like nothing I’ve ever seen. Meanwhile, corporate news outlets are utterly capitulating to Trump, twisting their coverage to avoid drawing his ire while lining up to stuff cash in his pockets. That’s why I believe that Common Dreams is doing the best and most consequential reporting that we’ve ever done. Our small but mighty team is a progressive reporting powerhouse, covering the news every day that the corporate media never will. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. And to ignite change for the common good. Now here’s the key piece that I want all our readers to understand: None of this would be possible without your financial support. That’s not just some fundraising cliche. It’s the absolute and literal truth. We don’t accept corporate advertising and never will. We don’t have a paywall because we don’t think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. Will you donate now to help power the nonprofit, independent reporting of Common Dreams? Thank you for being a vital member of our community. Together, we can keep independent journalism alive when it’s needed most. - Craig Brown, Co-founder |
It took only hours after a majority of Americans chose to return Donald Trump as a strongman-style president for the first billionaire supplicant to come forward on bended knee. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the third-richest person on the planet, had already made his intentions clear in the waning days of the 2024 campaign when the influential newspaper he owns, The Washington Post, spiked a long-planned endorsement of rival Kamala Harris at his instruction.
In a rare tweet Wednesday, Bezos—beneficiary of massive federal contracts—laid it on thick. “Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory,” Bezos posted on X, which is owned by the richest person on the planet, Elon Musk. “No nation has bigger opportunities. Wishing @realDonaldTrump all success in leading and uniting the America we all love.”
It almost goes without saying that Bezos said nothing Wednesday about the fact that, as owner of the Post, he is also the keeper of a remarkable legacy of watchdog journalism, which defied the White House in 1971 in publishing the secret Pentagon Papers and then produced the investigative reporting that helped bring down Richard Nixon in Watergate. There was no Bezos pep talk to his journalists that such heroism for democracy would be acted out now. Less than 48 hours after Trump’s election as the 47th president, this kind of silence has been deafening.
From the obsequious Bezos to the end of resistance from everyday folk, we are seeing the once unthinkable: the start of American autocracy.
Although it feels almost normal to flip on CNN and watch talking heads speculate on whom the president-elect is picking for his cabinet, there is nothing normal about the Trump transition, even with a president who’s been elected before. So much has changed since the tumultuous autumn of 2016. This time, America is rolling out a red carpet for a king—one who will, in the ultimate irony, preside over the 250th anniversary of that time when we overthrew a monarchy.
I know that sounds like hyperbole, or what The 51% calls “Trump derangement syndrome.” But the nation already on Wednesday received its first major bit of news—and there are going to be many, many more to come—making it clear that Trump is returning to the White House with stunning absolute powers that none of his 44 predecessors (Grover Cleveland, and now Trump, twice) either possessed or were willing to exercise over the American people.
It came in the form of a revelation from the U.S. Justice Department that special counsel Jack Smith—who aggressively, if too belatedly, brought federal indictments against Trump for the 2020 efforts to overturn the last presidential election that culminated in the January 6, 2021 insurrection, and for Trump taking highly classified documents—is planning steps that would have the likely impact of ending his cases before Trump takes the oath of office.
Multiple news outlets quoted sources within the Justice Department that Smith is now is active talks about how to “wind down” the two cases against Trump—with the one about classified documents already on life support after a zealously pro-Trump, Trump-appointed lower court judge dismissed the charges for now—before he becomes president again on January 20. It’s not yet clear whether Smith is planning to permanently dismiss the charges or—more likely—put them on some type of hold that would nonetheless make justice nearly impossible, since Trump would be 82 if he leaves office as scheduled in 2029, and there would be questions about the statute of limitations.
Such maneuvers would be in line with the controversial and legally debated Justice Department decision from the Nixon era that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted, which already gave any POTUS a unique standing above the law. But remember that Trump was on track to stand trial in the January 6 case this year, if not for the U.S. Supreme Court’s stunning 6-3 ruling earlier this year giving presidents sweeping legal immunity for broadly defined “official acts.”
When Smith does appear before U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan to end the case, it will be a triple exclamation point on how a once revolutionary nation turned a president into a king.
Some legal experts are arguing that Smith is playing the horrendous hand that he’s been dealt here, perhaps scrambling to issue an in-depth report about Trump’s alleged wrongdoing before the new president’s MAGA appointees can fire him. I get that, but my nonlawyer gut tells me that Smith should make Trump and his lackeys dismiss the case themselves, as one more reminder that Trump is trashing every last democratic norm we have.
But how 2017-ish of me to even think that. The decision has already been made in all our former watchdog institutions to obey the new authoritarianism in advance. You can hear it in the quiet of an unseasonably warm November breeze.
The dogs of 2016 and 2017 are not barking. There are no people in the streets chanting, “We! Reject! The president-elect!” or carrying “Not My President” signs like eight years ago. Kids aren’t walking out of high school, and college presidents—reflecting the catastrophic erosions of free speech in America that go well beyond Trumpism—are not issuing statements.
New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote Thursday about the Russian lifestyle of “internal emigration”—turning away from politics to emphasize family or books or gardening or anything else besides the seeming hopelessness of opposing autocracy.
This is exactly what I’m hearing from so many friends and even family here in Greater Philadelphia and on social media. People are leaving Musk’s X in droves, partly to protest the billionaire, but mostly to disengage from politics, at least for now. One boomer woman who threw herself into the so-called Trump Resistance in 2016 wrote me Thursday to say she is done. Protesting Trump, she wrote, “was an utter failure. I’m tired, demoralized, and bitter.”
I don’t blame her, nor would I think of criticizing the many people emphasizing their own mental health over politics at a moment when it’s not even clear what to do next. We are seeing in real time how autocracy happens, by creating hopelessness and despair among the mass of people who once might have fought back. From the obsequious Bezos to the end of resistance from everyday folk, we are seeing the once unthinkable: the start of American autocracy.
I was fortunate Thursday morning to connect with one of the nation’s top experts on authoritarian regimes, the Yale University historian Timothy Snyder, whose words—especially, “do not obey in advance”—from his essential On Tyranny are frequently quoted here. I wanted to ask him the question on so many people’s minds since Tuesday: What has history taught us about how to live now?
Snyder told me the most important thing for the moment is to avoid isolation and be around other people. “They want you to be alone,” the historian said of autocratic governments because isolation feeds the sense of powerlessness that allows the regime to do its dirty work unimpeded. “Nobody is going to fix this alone,” Snyder said. “That’s not how this works.”
Second, he suggested: “This is a good time to figure out what you’re good at. Define some little human-sized zone, whether it’s your library or your garden or your trade union. Take something positive that you know and do it.” He also noted that the political feeling of despair in opposing Trump and his MAGA movement doesn’t mean you can’t work for change on the state and local level, where one can still hash out issues with forward-minded politicians.
Snyder then suggested, with a laugh, what he called “a dumb little idea”—except that it wasn’t.
“Take a moment and write down a letter about the things you care about, that you’re willing to take a stand about. Write that down, put it in an envelope, and take it out of your desk as we’re going through these things”—like when Trump takes office in January, or early in his term.
Those of us who opposed Trump, and who were devastated to learn how many of our fellow citizens want to live under his strongman rule, need time to mourn this week’s news. But it’s well worth listening to Snyder’s words about not just living under tyranny, but someday soon finding reasonable ways to confront it. We are going to need each other, whether it’s in the streets or just at the dog park. And you—we—are not alone.
It took only hours after a majority of Americans chose to return Donald Trump as a strongman-style president for the first billionaire supplicant to come forward on bended knee. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the third-richest person on the planet, had already made his intentions clear in the waning days of the 2024 campaign when the influential newspaper he owns, The Washington Post, spiked a long-planned endorsement of rival Kamala Harris at his instruction.
In a rare tweet Wednesday, Bezos—beneficiary of massive federal contracts—laid it on thick. “Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory,” Bezos posted on X, which is owned by the richest person on the planet, Elon Musk. “No nation has bigger opportunities. Wishing @realDonaldTrump all success in leading and uniting the America we all love.”
It almost goes without saying that Bezos said nothing Wednesday about the fact that, as owner of the Post, he is also the keeper of a remarkable legacy of watchdog journalism, which defied the White House in 1971 in publishing the secret Pentagon Papers and then produced the investigative reporting that helped bring down Richard Nixon in Watergate. There was no Bezos pep talk to his journalists that such heroism for democracy would be acted out now. Less than 48 hours after Trump’s election as the 47th president, this kind of silence has been deafening.
From the obsequious Bezos to the end of resistance from everyday folk, we are seeing the once unthinkable: the start of American autocracy.
Although it feels almost normal to flip on CNN and watch talking heads speculate on whom the president-elect is picking for his cabinet, there is nothing normal about the Trump transition, even with a president who’s been elected before. So much has changed since the tumultuous autumn of 2016. This time, America is rolling out a red carpet for a king—one who will, in the ultimate irony, preside over the 250th anniversary of that time when we overthrew a monarchy.
I know that sounds like hyperbole, or what The 51% calls “Trump derangement syndrome.” But the nation already on Wednesday received its first major bit of news—and there are going to be many, many more to come—making it clear that Trump is returning to the White House with stunning absolute powers that none of his 44 predecessors (Grover Cleveland, and now Trump, twice) either possessed or were willing to exercise over the American people.
It came in the form of a revelation from the U.S. Justice Department that special counsel Jack Smith—who aggressively, if too belatedly, brought federal indictments against Trump for the 2020 efforts to overturn the last presidential election that culminated in the January 6, 2021 insurrection, and for Trump taking highly classified documents—is planning steps that would have the likely impact of ending his cases before Trump takes the oath of office.
Multiple news outlets quoted sources within the Justice Department that Smith is now is active talks about how to “wind down” the two cases against Trump—with the one about classified documents already on life support after a zealously pro-Trump, Trump-appointed lower court judge dismissed the charges for now—before he becomes president again on January 20. It’s not yet clear whether Smith is planning to permanently dismiss the charges or—more likely—put them on some type of hold that would nonetheless make justice nearly impossible, since Trump would be 82 if he leaves office as scheduled in 2029, and there would be questions about the statute of limitations.
Such maneuvers would be in line with the controversial and legally debated Justice Department decision from the Nixon era that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted, which already gave any POTUS a unique standing above the law. But remember that Trump was on track to stand trial in the January 6 case this year, if not for the U.S. Supreme Court’s stunning 6-3 ruling earlier this year giving presidents sweeping legal immunity for broadly defined “official acts.”
When Smith does appear before U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan to end the case, it will be a triple exclamation point on how a once revolutionary nation turned a president into a king.
Some legal experts are arguing that Smith is playing the horrendous hand that he’s been dealt here, perhaps scrambling to issue an in-depth report about Trump’s alleged wrongdoing before the new president’s MAGA appointees can fire him. I get that, but my nonlawyer gut tells me that Smith should make Trump and his lackeys dismiss the case themselves, as one more reminder that Trump is trashing every last democratic norm we have.
But how 2017-ish of me to even think that. The decision has already been made in all our former watchdog institutions to obey the new authoritarianism in advance. You can hear it in the quiet of an unseasonably warm November breeze.
The dogs of 2016 and 2017 are not barking. There are no people in the streets chanting, “We! Reject! The president-elect!” or carrying “Not My President” signs like eight years ago. Kids aren’t walking out of high school, and college presidents—reflecting the catastrophic erosions of free speech in America that go well beyond Trumpism—are not issuing statements.
New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote Thursday about the Russian lifestyle of “internal emigration”—turning away from politics to emphasize family or books or gardening or anything else besides the seeming hopelessness of opposing autocracy.
This is exactly what I’m hearing from so many friends and even family here in Greater Philadelphia and on social media. People are leaving Musk’s X in droves, partly to protest the billionaire, but mostly to disengage from politics, at least for now. One boomer woman who threw herself into the so-called Trump Resistance in 2016 wrote me Thursday to say she is done. Protesting Trump, she wrote, “was an utter failure. I’m tired, demoralized, and bitter.”
I don’t blame her, nor would I think of criticizing the many people emphasizing their own mental health over politics at a moment when it’s not even clear what to do next. We are seeing in real time how autocracy happens, by creating hopelessness and despair among the mass of people who once might have fought back. From the obsequious Bezos to the end of resistance from everyday folk, we are seeing the once unthinkable: the start of American autocracy.
I was fortunate Thursday morning to connect with one of the nation’s top experts on authoritarian regimes, the Yale University historian Timothy Snyder, whose words—especially, “do not obey in advance”—from his essential On Tyranny are frequently quoted here. I wanted to ask him the question on so many people’s minds since Tuesday: What has history taught us about how to live now?
Snyder told me the most important thing for the moment is to avoid isolation and be around other people. “They want you to be alone,” the historian said of autocratic governments because isolation feeds the sense of powerlessness that allows the regime to do its dirty work unimpeded. “Nobody is going to fix this alone,” Snyder said. “That’s not how this works.”
Second, he suggested: “This is a good time to figure out what you’re good at. Define some little human-sized zone, whether it’s your library or your garden or your trade union. Take something positive that you know and do it.” He also noted that the political feeling of despair in opposing Trump and his MAGA movement doesn’t mean you can’t work for change on the state and local level, where one can still hash out issues with forward-minded politicians.
Snyder then suggested, with a laugh, what he called “a dumb little idea”—except that it wasn’t.
“Take a moment and write down a letter about the things you care about, that you’re willing to take a stand about. Write that down, put it in an envelope, and take it out of your desk as we’re going through these things”—like when Trump takes office in January, or early in his term.
Those of us who opposed Trump, and who were devastated to learn how many of our fellow citizens want to live under his strongman rule, need time to mourn this week’s news. But it’s well worth listening to Snyder’s words about not just living under tyranny, but someday soon finding reasonable ways to confront it. We are going to need each other, whether it’s in the streets or just at the dog park. And you—we—are not alone.
Against a backdrop of Israel's genocidal obliteration of Gaza City and a worsening man-made famine throughout the embattled Palestinian exclave, the United States on Thursday cast its sixth United Nations Security Council veto of a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and the release of all hostages held by Hamas.
At its 10,000th meeting, the UN Security Council voted 14-1 with no abstentions in favor of a resolution proposed by the 10 nonpermanent UNSC members demanding "an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire" in Gaza, the "release of all hostages" held by Hamas, and for Israel to "immediately and unconditionally lift all restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid" into the besieged strip.
Morgan Ortagus, President Donald Trump's deputy special envoy to the Middle East, vetoed the proposal, saying that the move "will come as no surprise," as the US has killed five previous UNSC Gaza ceasefire resolutions under both the Biden and Trump administrations, most recently in June.
Ortagus said the resolution failed to condemn Hamas or affirm Israel's right to self-defense and “wrongly legitimizes the false narratives benefiting Hamas, which have sadly found currency in this council."
The US has unconditionally provided Israel with billions of dollars worth of armed aid and diplomatic cover since October 2023 as the key Mideast ally wages a war increasingly viewed as genocidal, including by a commission of independent UN experts this week.
Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said the torpedoed resolution represented the "bare minimum" that must be accomplished, adding that “it is deeply regrettable and painful that it has been blocked.”
“Babies dying of starvation, snipers shooting people in the head, civilians killed en masse, families displaced again and again... humanitarians and journalists targeted... while Israeli officials are openly mocking all of this," Mansour added.
Following the UNSC's latest failure to pass a ceasefire resolution, Algerian Ambassador to the UN Amar Bendjama asked Gazans to "forgive" the body for not only its inability to approve such measures, but also for failing to stop the Gaza famine, in which at least hundreds of Palestinians have died and hundreds of thousands more are starving. Every UNSC members but the US concurred last month that the Gaza famine is a man-made catastrophe.
“Israel kills every day and nothing happens," Bendjama said. "Israel starves a people and nothing happens. Israel bombs hospitals, schools, shelters, and nothing happens. Israel attacks a mediator and steps on diplomacy, and nothing happens. And with every act, every act unpunished, humanity itself is diminished.”
Benjama also asked Gazans to "forgive us" for failing to protect children in the strip, more than 20,000 of whom have been killed by Israeli bombs, bullets, and blockade over the past 713 days. He also noted that upward of 12,000 women, 4,000 elderly, 1,400 doctors and nurses, 500 aid workers, and 250 journalists “have been killed by Israel."
Condemning Thursday's veto, Hamas accused the US of “blatant complicity in the crime of genocide," which Israel is accused of committing in an ongoing International Court of Justice (ICJ) case filed in December 2023 by South Africa and backed by around two dozen nations.
Hamas—which led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and is believed to be holding 20 hostages left alive out of 251 people kidnapped that day—implored the countries that sponsored the ceasefire resolution to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who along with former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, to accept an agreement to halt hostilities.
Overall, at least 65,141 Palestinians have been killed and over 165,900 others wounded by Israeli forces since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry—whose figures have not only been confirmed by former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, but deemed a significant undercount by independent researchers. Thousands more Gazans are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the ruins of the flattened strip.
UK Ambassador to the UN Barbara Woodward stessed after Thursday's failed UNSC resolution that "we need a ceasefire more than ever."
“Israel’s reckless expansion of its military operation takes us further away from a deal which could bring the hostages home and end the suffering in Gaza," Woodward said.
Thursday's developments came as Israeli forces continued to lay waste to Gaza City as they push deeper into the city as part of Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, a campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse around 1 million Palestinians from the strip's capital. Israeli leaders have said they are carrying out the operation in accordance with Trump's proposal to empty Gaza of Palestinians and transform it into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
In what some observers said was a bid to prevent the world from witnessing fresh Israeli war crimes in Gaza City, internet and phone lines were cut off in the strip Thursday, although officials said service has since been mostly restored.
Gaza officials said Thursday that at least 50 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces since dawn, including 40 in Gaza City, which Al Jazeera reporter Tareq Abu Azzoum said is being pummeled into "a lifeless wasteland."
Azzoum reported that tens of thousands of Palestinians "are moving to the south on foot or in carts, looking for any place that is relatively safe—but with no guarantee of safety—or at least for shelter."
Israel has repeatedly bombed areas it advised Palestinians were "safe zones," including a September 2 airstrike that massacred 11 people—nine of them children—queued up to collect water in al-Mawasi.
"Most families who have arrived in the south have not found space," Azzoum added. "That’s why we’ve seen people setting up makeshift tents close to the water while others are left stranded in the street, living under the open sky."
President Donald Trump doubled down on his threats to silence his critics Thursday, telling reporters aboard Air Force One that outlets that give him "bad press" may have their broadcast licenses taken away.
The threat came just one day after his Federal Communications Commission (FCC) director, Brendan Carr, successfully pressured ABC into pulling Jimmy Kimmel's show from the air by threatening the broadcast licenses of its affiliates over a comment the comedian made about the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
"I read someplace that the networks were 97% against me," Trump told the press gaggle. "I get 97% negative, and yet I won it easily. I won all seven swing states, popular vote, I won everything. And they're 97% against, they give me wholly bad publicity... I mean, they're getting a license, I would think maybe their license should be taken away."
"When you have a network and you have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that’s all they do," the president continued. "If you go back, I guess they haven’t had a conservative on in years or something, somebody said, but when you go back and take a look, all they do is hit Trump. They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that.”
He said that the decision would be left up to Carr, who has threatened to take away licenses from networks that air what he called "distorted" content.
It is unclear where Trump's statistic that networks have been "97% against" him originates, nor the claim that mainstream news networks "haven't had a conservative on in years."
But even if it were true, FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez says "the FCC doesn't have the authority, the ability, or the constitutional right to revoke a license because of content."
In comments made to Axios Thursday, Gomez—the lone Democrat on the five-member panel—said that the Trump administration was "weaponizing its licensing authority in order to bring broadcasters to heel," as part of a "campaign of censorship and control."
National news networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC do not have broadcasting licenses approved by the FCC, nor do cable networks like CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News. The licenses threatened by Carr are for local affiliates, which—despite having the branding of the big networks—are owned by less well-known companies like Nexstar Media Group and the Sinclair Broadcasting Group, both of which pushed in favor of ABC's decision to ax Kimmel.
Gomez said that with Trump's intimidation of broadcasters, the "threat is the point."
"It is a very hard standard to meet to revoke a license, which is why it's so rarely done, but broadcast license to the broadcasters are extremely valuable," she said. "And so they don't want to be dragged before the FCC either in order to answer to an enforcement complaint of some kind or under the threat of possible revocation."
Democratic lawmakers are vowing to investigate the Trump administration's pressure campaign that may have led to ABC deciding to indefinitely suspend late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) announced on Thursday that he filed a motion to subpoena Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr one day after he publicly warned ABC of negative consequences if the network kept Kimmel on the air.
"Enough of Congress sleepwalking while [President Donald] Trump and [Vice President JD] Vance shred the First Amendment and Constitution," Khanna declared. "It is time for Congress to stand up for Article I."
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, also said on Thursday that he was opening an investigation into the potential financial aspects of Carr's pressure campaign on ABC, including the involvement of Sinclair Broadcasting Group, which is the network's largest affiliate and is currently involved in merger talks that will need FCC approval.
"The Oversight Committee is launching an investigation into ABC, Sinclair, and the FCC," he said. "We will not be intimidated and we will defend the First Amendment."
Progressive politicians weren't the only ones launching an investigation into the Kimmel controversy, as legal organization Democracy Forward announced that it's filed a a Freedom of Information Act request for records after January 20, 2025 related to any FCC efforts “to use the agency’s licensing and enforcement powers to police and limit speech and influence what the public can watch and hear.”