Latest Videos
Forever War: How 9/11 Unleashed U.S. Violence on Civilians Abroad & Attacks on Rights at Home
Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt We look at how post-9/11 policies and the so-called war on terror reshaped the country and the world with two Columbia faculty members who convened a two-day symposium on "The Forever War and the First Amendment." The symposium brought together journalists, scholars, lawyers and activists to explore the legacy of the "war on terror," specifically focused on the impact on democratic rights, including the freedoms of speech and the press. First Amendment freedoms "were tested right away in the days and weeks after 9/11," says Jameel Jaffer, legal expert and director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. "All of the surveillance authorities that were put in place after 9/11," says Jaffer, "their use was initially justified by reference to foreign threats. And now, increasingly, we're seeing the Trump administration use these things to suppress domestic dissent." "If you go back to that climate after 9/11 … newsrooms institute[d] shifts, so they started making beats for covering national security," says Azmat Khan of the Columbia Journalism School, who won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing the massive civilian death toll from U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. "Legacy news media in that time period was incredibly dependent on anonymous sources, sometimes unvetted intelligence, leaks to journalists that oftentimes came from an administration that was trying to lead the public to war." Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe
14 minutes ago
"Horror to Last a Lifetime": Juan González on Covering 9/11 Attacks in NYC 25 Years Ago Today
Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt Friday marks 25 years since the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the crash of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Around 3,000 people were killed that day, and nearly 10,000 more have died in the years since from 9/11-related illnesses connected to the collapse of the twin towers. In 2001, Democracy Now! was a radio show broadcasting from the attic of Downtown Community Television in Chinatown, just blocks away from ground zero. We were the closest national broadcast to the World Trade Center site. We were on the air when the second plane hit the south tower. Today, we reair a clip of that broadcast and hear Democracy Now! co-host Juan González read the column he wrote for the _New York Daily News_ in the hours after the attack, "A Horror to Last a Lifetime." "A catastrophe like that changes people forever," says González. Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe
21 minutes ago
Top U.S. & World Headlines — September 11, 2026
Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe
25 minutes ago
Is Trump attempting to buy the vote?
The Republican Party kicked off its first ever mid-term political convention on Wednesday in Dallas, Texas. With his approval ratings at historically low levels, President Trump delivered the keynote address on Wednesday evening. In it, he pledged to send every adult in the U.S. a cash dividend, but only if Republicans maintain control of the House and Senate in November's elections. It is unclear how this proposal would be funded, or if it is even legal.
17 hours, 17 minutes ago
How international aid cuts further restrict girls’ education in Afghanistan
In the five years since the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan following the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, conditions for women and girls have continued to deteriorate. Under the Taliban's patriarchal restrictions on freedom of movement and expression. Afghanistan is the only country in the world that limits girls' education to primary school. We speak to Afghan American activist Masuda Sultan and humanitarian aid worker Jan Egeland, both of whom have spent time in Afghanistan since the Taliban regained power, about the crisis. Sultan says that the Taliban's edict on women and girls' education has been contested within its ranks, while Egeland notes that aid workers are struggling to even provide primary school instruction to Afghan refugees due to a dire lack of international funding.
18 hours, 55 minutes ago
4.7 Million Dead, $8 Trillion: Counting the Devastating Human & Economic Costs of the Post‑9/11 Wars
Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt As part of our weeklong coverage marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks and the launch of the United States' so-called war on terror, we take a look at the human, financial and environmental costs of U.S. military intervention around the world with Neta Crawford, co-founder of Brown University's Costs of War Project. Researchers at the Costs of War Project estimate that nearly a million people have been killed as a direct result of U.S. military violence in the Middle East since 2001. At least half are estimated to be civilians. An additional 3.8 million deaths can be attributed to the indirect effects of war, including injuries, famine and long-term health conditions. And the wars have also increased the U.S. debt, military footprint, greenhouse gas emissions, destruction and destabilization abroad and unchecked executive power at home. "The consequences are all around us," says Crawford. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe
23 hours, 7 minutes ago
"Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump": Spencer Ackerman
Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt "The 'war on terror' was always a construct to be waged, never quite to be ended." We discuss the origins and impacts of the global "war on terror," launched by the U.S. government in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., with Spencer Ackerman, author of Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump. "We saw, beginning at the very outset of the 'war on terror,' our leaders told us to understand 9/11 as an assault of a foreign civilization, one that had nothing to do with the consequences of American extractive and exploitative foreign policy in the Muslim world or its support for Israel." Ackerman says the "war on terror" and its repercussions have extended past U.S. ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to its current war on Iran, Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and the development of extensive surveillance architecture and state repression of Muslim minority groups around the world. "A whole lot of regimes around the world, rising powers looking for their own advantage, saw what the United States was constructing and realized they wanted that for themselves," he says. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe
23 hours, 13 minutes ago
Report from Kabul: NRC Head Jan Egeland on Global Aid Cuts, Poverty & Taliban Repression of Women
Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt In the five years since the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan following the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, millions of Afghan refugees have been forced out of neighboring Iran and Pakistan, where they had been living and "dumped at the border" without immediate access to food, water or shelter. At the same time, conditions for women and girls in Afghanistan continue to deteriorate, as basic rights to education, freedom of movement and access to services are increasingly curtailed under the Taliban's authoritarian rule. "It's a crisis for humanity," says Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, speaking to Democracy Now! from Kabul. "We're so overstretched and underfunded. … We're too alone on the ground here in Afghanistan," explains Egeland, one of the few international aid workers continuing to support displaced people in the country. "The reason we have to lay off female aid workers, female teachers, teaching primary school girls, is because of lack of funding. It's not because of the Taliban." Despite the outsized role it played in destabilizing the country, there has been "zero funding" this year from the U.S. to humanitarian organizations operating in Afghanistan. "Don't forget your promises when you went for the door abruptly five years ago," Egeland says, addressing the United States and other, largely European, countries that made up the U.S.-led NATO coalition in Afghanistan. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe
23 hours, 17 minutes ago
25 Years Later: Afghan New Yorker Masuda Sultan Remembers 9/11 & 19 Relatives Killed in U.S. Bombing
Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt Almost 25 years ago, just days after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, President George W. Bush addressed the nation, making the case for war against al-Qaeda, whose leader, Osama bin Laden, was based in Afghanistan. "I sensed that something like this was not going to go unpunished," Afghan American New Yorker and women's rights activist Masuda Sultan told _Democracy Now!_ at the time. Within a few weeks, the U.S. invasion began. Sultan would lose 19 members of her family when the U.S. military bombed their village outside of Kandahar. We revisit our coverage of the initial U.S. invasion, including our first interviews with Sultan in 2002, and speak to Sultan again today. She reflects on her experience, including working with Rita Lasar, the sister of a 9/11 victim, to advocate for acknowledgment and compensation for the families of Afghan civilians killed by the U.S. military. The United States war in Afghanistan lasted for nearly 20 years, the longest-ever active conflict in U.S. history. Now as the Taliban government — overthrown by the U.S. in 2001 and later reestablished following the end of U.S. military occupation in 2021 — tightens its patriarchal restrictions on women in Afghanistan, Sultan warns international actors not to "repeat the [mistakes of the] 1990s, of turning our backs on the country. We need to engage with the Afghan people, support Afghan women and support civil society." Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe
23 hours, 21 minutes ago
Top U.S. & World Headlines — September 10, 2026
Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe
23 hours, 28 minutes ago
Rise of Mamdani and other leaders shows Muslims "not going to hide" after years of facing hate
After facing severe discrimination for many years after the 9/11 attacks, American Muslims have organized and are "not going to hide" anymore, says Fahd Ahmed from Desis Rising Up and Moving, or DRUM.
1 day, 18 hours ago
9/11: The forgotten arrests and deportations of innocent Muslims
Journalist Rozina Ali discusses a largely forgotten episode of post-9/11 Islamophobia, when hundreds of Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim were mass-arrested and detained in the United States. Later, the Bush administration instituted a registry for foreign nationals from Muslim-majority countries, leading to thousands of unjust deportations. "There has been no apology about that," says Ali.
1 day, 21 hours ago
"Let's Just Round Them Up": The Rise of Islamophobia in the Post-9/11 Domestic War on Terror
Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt The attacks on September 11, 2001, unleashed a wave of Islamophobia in the United States that resulted in widespread harassment and persecution of Muslim Americans. In addition to vigilante attacks targeting Muslims or those perceived to be Muslim, there was also state repression including police roundups, community surveillance, prosecutions on often flimsy terrorism charges and mass deportations. Meanwhile, the wars launched by the United States in the aftermath of 9/11 have killed close to 1 million people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University. Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe
1 day, 22 hours ago
Meet 9/11 Health Watch, NYC Group Behind Mayor Mamdani's Release of 170K Pages on Ground Zero Toxins
Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt Ahead of the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has unsealed more than 170,000 pages of records that offer new insights into how the city responded to the disaster. Some of the papers indicate that officials lied about the hazardous toxins that burned and remained near ground zero for months afterward, even as the government assured New Yorkers the air was safe to breathe and rushed to reopen Lower Manhattan for business. In addition to the nearly 3,000 people killed on 9/11, thousands more are believed to have died from illnesses related to the attacks, including from cancer, heart disease and respiratory conditions. Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe
1 day, 22 hours ago
Top U.S. & World Headlines — September 8, 2026
Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe
1 day, 23 hours ago
New Yorkers hold vigil for Pierre Damas Bel
New Yorkers held a vigil on Friday for Pierre Damas Bel, a 20-year-old Haitian immigrant who died by suicide near Springfield, Ohio, last week. Bel came to the United States in 2024 and had an open asylum claim, but after the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration, revoking temporary protected status for the roughly 340,000 Haitians who live in the United States, he was fitted with an ankle monitor by ICE in late July. Shortly afterward, Bel posted on social media, “I came to this country to pursue my education. I didn’t come here to commit a crime or hurt anyone. Yet now I’m walking through the streets of the United States with a GPS monitor on my leg, carrying a feeling of shame and humiliation that I never imagined I would experience.” Bel was beginning his freshman year as an honors neuroscience student at Wright State University. His family said the ankle monitor made it difficult for him to play soccer and participate in ROTC and that he was bullied by university classmates. Bel’s father said Pierre called him, expressing humiliation about having to wear the device, on the morning of August 31. Just hours later, he parked his car on the side of the interstate and walked into oncoming traffic.
2 days, 17 hours ago
How 9/11 changed the airline industry
“$81 billion was given back by workers in the wake of 9/11, including transferring the cost of healthcare to us, destroying retiree healthcare, destroying pensions — and we're still trying to fight to get that back,” says Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants.
2 days, 18 hours ago
U.K. announces new sanctions on Israeli settlements
U.K. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband on Tuesday announced new policies against illegal Israeli settlements, including a ban on imports, targeted sanctions, a prohibition on advertising stolen land and more. The new sanctions were announced in conjunction with Canada and France.
2 days, 19 hours ago
“Toxic Nightmare”: 25 Years After 9/11, Health Effects Linger for Thousands
Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe
2 days, 19 hours ago
Top U.S. & World Headlines — September 8, 2026
Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe
2 days, 19 hours ago