In this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing, we examine the case of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian student whose decadelong journey toward American citizenship ended not with the oath of allegiance, but in handcuffs.

On Monday, the Columbia student arrived at his long-awaited citizenship interview in Vermont. Instead, immigration agents arrested him, and he now faces deportation to the occupied West Bank.

Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., who represents his district, is outraged and told The Intercept Briefing, “If you'll deny due process from somebody who was in this country with a green card for 10 years, who is somebody who talked about peace and connection between Palestinians and Israelis who was looking to build bridges — if this man is somehow a threat to our society, then we are down a sick path.”

Mahdawi spoke to The Intercept the night before his fateful appointment and said he understood the risk he might be facing. He is now the ninth Columbia student targeted for deportation. The Trump administration has revoked or changed over a 1,000 student visas, according to Inside Higher Ed. 

Mahdawi’s case exemplifies how immigration enforcement is being weaponized, says Balint. “ If they're so proud of what they're doing, then show your damn face, then show your ID. Then talk about what grounds you are holding this person. But it's being done in secret, and it is meant to shock and awe and to get the rest of us to remain silent. They have no evidence, they have no details, which is what we're demanding of both Secretary [Marco] Rubio and Secretary [Kristi] Noem."

Immigration lawyer Matt Cameron spoke to The Intercept about the broader implications of the administration’s agenda and said that this is much bigger than just students and immigrants. “ It's a message to student protesters obviously to start with, but it's a message to all of us that our free speech is a liability,” he warned.

Cameron pointed to the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who was illegally deported to El Salvador and is now imprisoned despite no criminal record. The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered the government to facilitate his return, but so far, the administration has resisted. "This is going to be one of the most important cases of our lifetimes,” said Cameron. “ Even for people who don't think they're interested in following immigration issues: This is for all of us. And you know, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia will be all of us pretty soon here if we don't stay on our rights.”

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Donald Trump’s presidency continues to challenge all conventional understanding of executive authority. His administration's extensive use of executive orders has reshaped the political landscape, testing established laws, ethical boundaries, and institutional norms.

Among those raising alarms is Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, who has consistently questioned what happens when governmental powers are directed against the very citizens they were designed to protect.

On this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing, she discusses these concerns, including the administration's immigration enforcement tactics targeting international students — among them, one of her own constituents. Rümeysa Öztürk, a Ph.D. candidate at Tufts University who has a valid student visa, was abducted off the streets by ICE agents.

“ She was kidnapped in broad daylight. There is no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing. The only — the only — thing that she did was co-author an op-ed centering the humanity and the dignity of the Palestinian people and because that is a dissenting opinion of the hostile Trump administration, she finds herself a political prisoner,” says Pressley.

“So I need people to understand that this could be anyone when constitutional rights are being violated, when due process is being violated. It could be you tomorrow for reading a banned book. It could be you tomorrow for suffering a miscarriage. It could be you tomorrow for practicing diversity, equity, and inclusion,” she warns.

In a broad ranging conversation with host Jessica Washington, she also raises fundamental questions about executive authority and democratic safeguards.

“It was all laid out in Project 2025, which was not a blueprint — it was a playbook. And they're making good on that playbook. And I think people didn't take it seriously,” Pressley points out. 

“They recognized that a lot of what he was laying out in that playbook was unlawful — was unconstitutional. So they said, how could it ever happen? And yet, you know, here we find ourselves.”

And despite widespread criticism and anger about the Democratic Party’s response — or lack thereof — she believes her party is stepping up. “Even though I believe that we are — as a party — being exhaustive, being strategic, [we] have found our footing. I believe we are being more effective as an opposition party in resistance to this hostile administration,” Pressley says. 

But she acknowledges the Democrats can do more. “ I do believe that we have a sound strategy of litigation, legislation, agitation, mobilization, and I think we are finding our footing. We have to match their energy. They're flooding the zone. We have to do the same thing.”

Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

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Tesla’s stock plummeted more than 30 percent in the first quarter of 2025, losing its post-election gains, as the electric vehicle pioneer grapples with an unexpected challenge: a consumer revolt against CEO Elon Musk's leadership of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and his political alliances.

Once celebrated across the political spectrum, Tesla has transformed from an environmental icon into a political flashpoint. 

Tesla dealerships have become symbols, explains Lara Starr, who organized a 200-person demonstration in Marin County, California. "You can't disentangle Tesla from Musk, and you can't disentangle Musk from Trump. And the one thing I can say about Musk positively is he has handed us a place in almost every community around the country that is symbolic of everything wrong that is going on in Washington."

The impact of this grassroots rebellion is beginning to show in Tesla's financial reports. Global sales have hit historic lows for the company, with particularly sharp declines in traditionally strong markets.

Despite Tesla's business challenges, the billionaire poured considerable resources on reshaping America's political landscape. His political spending — including with his super PAC spending $25 million in a single Wisconsin Supreme Court race — has yielded disappointing returns. His preferred candidate was defeated.

In this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing, reporters Matt Sledge and Sunjeev Bery examine this grassroots rebellion and what it reveals about Musk's power and the future of political activism.

"There's been a lot of talk about how the Democrats are in disarray and not sure how to recover from the election last year. But the Wisconsin election — and the way that Elon Musk got involved and personalized it and made it about him himself — gave Democrats an easy yes-no vote on Elon Musk, and I think that was really significant here," says Sledge. 

He points out how that election is also a rebuke of the Trump–Musk alliance: " It is fascinating that it is happening through this electoral mechanism, and that people are being allowed to give a referendum on this relationship, and that the democratic process is potentially having a direct input on this relationship."

Intercept contributor Sunjeev Bery says the Tesla protests are much bigger than just Tesla or Musk. "The Tesla takedown movement has become this astonishing wave of opposition to Trump, the fascist directions of the Trump regime, everything Elon Musk is pushing with DOGE. It's a place where lots of people who are angry about all of the different things that the Trump regime is up to — all of the fires they're setting — can come together and focus on Elon Musk, Tesla, and the physical place of his dealerships."

Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

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The ongoing conflict in Gaza has emerged as the deadliest war for journalists in modern history. Two Palestinian journalists were killed in Israeli attacks just this week, underscoring the extreme risks faced by reporters in the region. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 165 journalists have been killed since October 2023 — a staggering number that surpasses the total journalist fatalities during the entire span of World War II.

The conflict has escalated to a critical point, with Israel resuming strikes on Gaza after breaking a ceasefire with Hamas. Amid this humanitarian catastrophe, journalists persist in their crucial role, risking their lives to document the unfolding events and bring critical information to the world.

In response to attacks on Palestinian journalists, Forbidden Stories launched the Gaza Project — a collaboration bringing together over 40 journalists from 12 organizations, including the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism and The Intercept. Their mission: investigate and expose the unprecedented threats facing journalists in Gaza and the West Bank. 

On this week's episode of The Intercept Briefing, Hoda Osman, the executive editor of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, says the killings have become hauntingly familiar: “A repeated scene seeing a journalist is being killed, and you get the news, and then you see their bodies with a bloodied press vest. And then you see the mourning of their colleagues and their families.”

In addition to this extreme risk, Osman says the daily realities confronting Palestinian reporters are difficult to imagine. “I was speaking to a journalist there and she's telling me how hard it is because it's Ramadan and they fast, and at the end of the day at sunset, they're supposed to break fast, but there is no food. And how they're all starting to become extremely weak because of the lack of food. And that was before even the strikes began again,” she says.

“Most of them are living in tents,” Osman adds. “A few weeks ago when the weather was really cold, one of the journalists was texting me how they don't know what to do to be warm. They're constantly cold. And then she sent me videos of — it had rained — the whole tent just completely flooding.”

But despite all these personal challenges, they keep going. 

Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

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“Anything that shows solidarity of Palestine is being mischaracterized quite erroneously as antisemitism. That’s the way in which they are trying to get us to stop speaking about Palestine,” says Momodou Taal, a Cornell University graduate student and activist now facing deportation after challenging the Trump administration in court.

The risks of political speech have escalated dramatically for international students like Taal. He spoke to The Intercept Briefing yesterday, underscoring the chilling reality he and his peers now face. “It’s not just that you might get kicked out of school or suspended,” says Taal, “but you are threatened with deportation and ICE custody now. That’s what’s at stake here.” 

Late last week, federal officials sent Taal’s attorney a midnight email demanding he appear before Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday. The email provided no grounds for the request. This typically marks the beginnings of removal proceedings against an individual in the U.S. 

Only afterward, over the weekend, did the Department of Justice claim Taal’s student visa had been revoked on March 14 by the State Department due to “disruptive protests” and “creating a hostile environment for Jewish students.” 

The timing is telling — just days after Taal, a dual Gambian and British citizen, joined other Cornell plaintiffs in a lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of targeting international students for supporting Palestinian rights. In their complaint, the plaintiffs state, “The First Amendment protects people and not citizens alone. This includes non-citizens living in the U.S.” 

Taal had participated in pro-Palestine protests at Cornell. His legal team argues the order to appear before ICE demonstrates their central claim that deportation is being weaponized “in retribution” for lawful political speech.

Despite the pressure, Taal sees the government’s actions as evidence of weakness, not strength. “You don’t repress to this level when you’re in a position of strength. When you have to quell speech, it means that you are realizing that the outside world or public opinion is swaying in one direction. So I think now would not be the time to be afraid. I know it’s a very frightening moment, but for me, this is the time to double down.”

As Tuesday approaches, Taal remains resolute about the potential consequences. “If I have to leave the country, it would be back to the U.K. I know the weather’s terrible and your listeners probably don’t like beans and toast either, but it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world going back to the U.K. I think about what the Palestinians have endured for 76 years and more — what I’m going through pales in comparison.”

Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

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After breaking a two-month ceasefire, Israel launched an assault on Gaza on Tuesday, killing more than 400 people in pre-dawn strikes. The death toll continues to climb as airstrikes persist, and Israel pushes forward with a ground invasion. At least 200 children have been killed in recent attacks, according to UNICEF. 

The assault — the deadliest in over a year — came after Donald Trump gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the green light to break the ceasefire. Netanyahu has warned, “This is only the beginning.” 

Author Pankaj Mishra argues Israel operates within a “culture of impunity,” emboldened by global far-right movements that admire Israel’s “brazen cruelty.”

This week on The Intercept Briefing, reporter Jonah Valdez speaks to Mishra about his latest book, "The World After Gaza,” which examines how the war on Gaza isn’t just another conflict — it’s a turning point reshaping global politics, exposing institutional failures, and forcing a reckoning over who sets the rules on the world stage.

“Some of the worst people in the world today are drawn to Israel," Mishra says. “Not because they believe in Zionism, not because they are protective of Jewish population of Israel, but because Israel again represents to them — embodies this opportunity to take whatever you can and hold on to it using extreme violence if necessary.”

Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

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When government agents surrounded Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil and his pregnant wife outside their New York City apartment over the weekend, it marked a chilling escalation in the battle over free speech in America. Those agents weren't enforcing immigration policy; they were sending a message about the consequences of political expression. 

After serving as a negotiator during campus protests against Israel's war on Gaza, Khalil became the target of what his attorney called "a profound doxing campaign for two months related to his First Amendment protected activities" — harassment so severe he had desperately sought help from university leadership.

Despite being a lawful permanent resident entitled to constitutional protections, Khalil was transported to a detention facility thousands of miles away, effectively "disappeared" for over 24 hours. The political motivation became explicit when President Donald Trump celebrated the arrest on social media, calling it "the first arrest of many to come." 

On this week's episode of The Intercept Briefing, we discuss the profound implications Khalil’s case raises for free speech and due process with Edward Ahmed Mitchell, civil rights attorney and national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and Columbia Journalism Review reporter Meghnad Bose.

"It's very clear the administration is waging a war on free speech — free speech for Palestine. They said they were going to do it when they took office. And that is what they are doing. Their issue with him is that he is a Muslim who is a lawful, permanent resident of America and he exercised his right to speak up for Palestinian human rights," says Mitchell. 

Bose adds, “ It's this sort of thinking that if you are somehow critical of a certain position of the United States government, except this isn't even a position of the United States government. You're basically saying, if you're critical of the position of a foreign government — in this case, the Israeli government — that you can be penalized in the United States, even if you've not broken any law.” 

Mitchell warns even U.S. citizens face risk: "American citizens should be safe in all this, but Stephen Miller and others have said they want to review the naturalization of citizens to see whether or not there are grounds to remove their citizenship. So in the worst-case scenario, you can imagine them trying to find or manufacture some way to target even the citizenship status of people who were lawful permanent residents and then attained citizenship. So they're going all out to silence speech for Palestine."

Bose says it's not just about immigration status; the government has other draconian tools at its disposal as well. "They can jail U.S. citizens too. They don't have to deport you or take away your citizenship, he says. “They can incarcerate U.S. citizens too."

Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

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In an address to Congress on Tuesday, President Donald Trump once again cast himself as a divine savior of the American people.“I was saved by God to make America great again,” he claimed as he recounted the failed assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. 

During his 100-minute speech, Trump made direct appeals to the Christian right, a major segment of his base: “This will be our greatest era. With God's help over the next four years, we are going to lead this nation even higher.”

He framed a series of policy proposals — many attacking civil rights for minorities and trans people — as part of God’s plan for the nation. He called on Congress “to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children,” proclaiming “our message to every child in America is that you are perfect, exactly the way God made you.”

In some ways, Trump is the kind of political leader the Christian right has been seeking for decades. He has fully championed the movement’s long-held policy priorities: overturning Roe v. Wade, pushing prayer in schools, and curbing LGBTQ+ rights. Now he is taking their movement even further, embedding right-wing Christian ideology into every facet of federal policy.

It’s a “broad coalition across Christian denominations,” says journalist Talia Lavin, “whose goal is an extremely socially restrictive agenda.” Lavin, author of "Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America," argues that today’s Christian right is more receptive to authoritarianism than previous generations. “They've reached a kind of acme or apotheosis of their power and influence, where that sort of attitude towards democracy has attained real relevance in the way we're governed.” 

On this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing, Lavin and Intercept reporter Jessica Washington examine the Christian right’s growing influence, its long-term strategy, and what, if anything, can be done to curb their vision for the country. 

Washington warns that many liberals dismiss Trump’s alliance to the Christian right as fringe, missing its deep political impact. “While it's this convenient political organizing tool, it is also a deeply held belief,” she says — one that rejects the idea that Black people and queer people have a rightful place in American leadership. Trump, she adds, validates the belief that only white Christian males are the true inheritors of the nation’s legacy. “Trump is both a product of and an accelerant of this movement.” 

Countering the rapid lurch toward Christian nationalism, Washington argues, requires solidarity. “We all have to band together and fight this together. And not allowing ourselves to be siloed into different issues. And recognizing that this is an attack on everyone who doesn't fit this very specific mold.” 

Lavin calls for active resistance — a “joyous cacophony” — to the Christian right’s war on diversity, on the poor, and democracy: “We're gonna be gender rebels. We're not going to accept the gutting of social services. We're not going to accept a king.” Rather than doomscrolling, she encourages people to do “something, anything — feeding someone, attending a protest — whatever it is. All of that is how we win.” 

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Safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP are in peril after the House Republicans passed a budget resolution this week that proposes massive $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, alongside $2 trillion in spending reductions. The math doesn’t add up: There is no realistic way to achieve the necessary savings without slashing entitlement programs that the most vulnerable Americans depend on.

While the Republicans claim they won’t cut these programs, they are simultaneously setting up eventual changes. House Speaker Mike Johnson characterized Medicaid as "hugely problematic" with "a lot of fraud, waste, and abuse." This rhetoric echoes that of Elon Musk, who labeled those affected by federal program cuts as the "parasite class."

On this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing, Anat Shenker-Osorio, a political messaging expert, and Sunjeev Bery, a foreign policy analyst and Intercept contributor, discuss how Republican messaging is previewing what’s to come and why Trump and his allies have been successful in the court of public opinion.

“One of the most persuasive tools that we have in our arsenal is repetition. Messages that people hear over and over, irrespective of their actual content, are rated to be more credible,” says Shenker-Osorio. “Familiarity gives our brains what we call cognitive ease, they give us what's called the illusory truth effect that if you've heard something over and over, like if you've heard government is wasteful, government is wasteful, government is wasteful … then the next time that you hear it, you're like, oh, yeah, that sort of seems true.”

Bery believes the way to fight back is by first changing our language. “Republicans are very good at trapping our country and our society with their language. You take something like the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, simply to repeat that phrase is to be trapped by its false logic and by the fraudulent claims of its master, the billionaire Elon Musk,” he says. “We need to use different language entirely. This is an attempt to steal from the American people and hand a fat check to Elon Musk and all the billionaires who stood on stage with Donald Trump during his inauguration. That's what this is.”

And while the speed of change and upheaval seems dire, both Shenker-Osorio and Bery remain optimistic. 

Shenker-Osorio thinks Americans who disagree with the Trump administration’s actions should step up in this moment. “The opportunity, if we were to seize it, is a recognition that the only thing that has actually toppled autocracy, I would argue both in the U. S. past and also, most certainly, in other countries, is civil resistance. It is a sustained, unrelenting group of people showing, not telling, being out in the world, demonstrating their resistance, their refusal, and their ridicule,” she says. “The future is still made of the decisions that we take together. That is what makes the whole thing crumble. And the possibility, not the inevitability, but the possibility of a very different kind of governing regime.”

To hear more of the conversation, check out The Intercept Briefing wherever you get your podcasts.

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Swift and sweeping changes have marked the first month of Donald Trump's return to the White House. Having promised to "fix every single crisis facing our country," Trump wasted no time in making his mark — signing an extraordinary 36 executive orders within his first week in office.

On this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing, politics reporters Jessica Washington and Akela Lacy assess the full scope of changes.

Lacy is surprised at how ill-prepared people, especially Democrats, were for these changes. “So much of this stuff was on the wall with Project 2025 and Trump's own words, and yet what I'm struggling to understand is how we knew so much and why everyone is still struggling to play catch up in so many ways,” she says.

“ I think broadly what we're seeing is a wholesale test of how to overturn the Constitution. So many of the orders are clearly outside of the law and an example of the administration pushing the limits of our system to see how far they can go and what it can really withstand,” she observes.

Washington says one thing the headlines don’t fully capture is the human toll. “There are a lot of human stories in this chaos that get missed, and those are the stories I really want to tell more,” she says.

“This is necessarily going to lead us to the darkest of dark places, but when they mass-fired the people who watch our nuclear systems and then had to try and rehire them back — whether or not you're going to be able to take your kid to daycare and get to your job that you need in order to keep a roof over your head, not knowing what's going on with the nuclear system. All of this chaos has very real effects on people,” Washington says.

To hear more of the conversation, check out this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing.

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