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Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt We speak with a Salvadoran journalist who fled El Salvador along with others from the acclaimed news outlet _El Faro_ after Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele threatened to arrest them for exposing how Bukele had made secret deals with Salvadoran gangs. Bukele has run the country under a so-called state of exception since 2022, detaining nearly 80,000 people accused of being in gangs, largely without access to due process. "We don't know when we will be able to come back," says Nelson Rauda Zablah, digital editor for El Faro, who notes it is now routine for Bukele's critics to flee for fear of retaliation. He discusses El Faro's reporting, and we feature excerpts from their interview series with two former leaders of the 18th Street Revolucionarios on Bukele's yearslong relationship to gangs. All of this comes as Bukele is working closely with the Trump administration to jail immigrants sent from the United States at CECOT, El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center. 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

Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt We look at President Donald Trump's diplomatic visit to the Middle East and discuss his administration's foreign policy in the region with Akbar Shahid Ahmed, senior diplomatic correspondent for _HuffPost_, and Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of DAWN. As Trump sells U.S. military power in the Gulf in exchange for investments in U.S. businesses, they warn that Trump's transactional business philosophy is spreading to the administration's dealings around the world. As Whitson puts it, "if you can pay, then you can play." This approach extends to the new Syrian government, as Trump pledges to lift sanctions on the country. However, explains Ahmed, while the thawing of relationships between the U.S. and Arab states has the added effect of divergence from tight-knit U.S.-Israel coordination, these changes can be attributed to Trump's "America First" agenda rather than any concern for Palestinians, whom Trump is happy to allow Israel to "pummel." 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 0:00 Intro 3:12 New U.S. Middle East policy? 11:46 Steve Witkoff 15:11 Iran nuclear talks 21:10 U.S.-Saudi-Israeli relations 28:36 Horror in Gaza

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

President Trump's plan to accept a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar is "almost certainly the most corrupt deal in all of American history," says government watchdog Robert Weissman. The Boeing 747 would be used as Air Force One and then be donated to Trump's presidential library, essentially making it his private plane after he leaves office.

Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed talks about the "agonizing decision" to leave Gaza for medical treatment while his family, friends and colleagues continue to suffer under Israel's genocide.

President Donald Trump's executive order demanding that drugmakers lower the cost of prescription drugs has no enforcement mechanism.

Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt We speak with 22-year-old Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed in Ireland after he evacuated Gaza last month suffering from malnutrition and under threat for his reporting on Israel's genocide. Abed describes himself as an "accidental war correspondent" and hoped to become a sports journalist and commentator before the start of the war, but spent much of the last two years reporting on daily death and destruction. He says leaving Gaza was "a very agonizing decision" for him and that he feels tremendous guilt for now having access to food, water and medicine while so many Palestinians continue to suffer. "I can't really tell you that I'm safe here. I'm probably a physical survivor, but not an emotional survivor. The images that I took with me from Gaza are still haunting me," says Abed. "My whole family is still in Gaza, my friends, my colleagues. And all of them, I'm just thinking about them every single second all day." 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

Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt "People are starving to death, and this is a fact that we are witnessing and experiencing nowadays," says Oxfam's food security coordinator in Gaza, Mahmoud Alsaqqa. More than 10 weeks after Israel instituted a total siege on Gaza, blocking all food and other aid from entering, hunger has reached catastrophic levels in the Palestinian territory. This comes as a new United Nations report warns one in every five people in Gaza is facing starvation, while Save the Children says every child is now at risk of famine. The World Food Programme and charities working in Gaza say they have completely run out of supplies and can no longer feed people. 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