The Intercept Briefing

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 gav...

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 durin...

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 great...

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 Republ...

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 f...

Less than a month into Donald Trump's second term, his administration's aggressive restructuring of the government and flirtation with defying court rulings threaten to spark a constitutional crisis. "He could have done all of that lawfully, and instead what he's done is testing the limits of his power in a way we have never seen in this country," says retired federal Judge Nancy Gertner . During...

Donald Trump has unleashed a "flood the zone" strategy: a cascade of executive actions aimed at rapidly reshaping the federal government and the country.  The scope of changes is staggering: massive reductions in the federal workforce, the dismantling of USAID , signaling departments of labor and education are next, and the firing of Justice Department prosecutors. Trump granted Elon Musk's s...

After 15 months of Israeli bombardment, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are returning to northern Gaza as part of the first phase of the long-awaited ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.  During his inaugural speech, President Donald Trump pledged to be a peacemaker and claimed credit for securing the deal. But mere hours after promising peace and unity, Trump’s actions and rhe...

Silicon Valley’s biggest power players traded in their hoodies for suits and ties this week as they sat front and center to watch Donald Trump take the oath of office again. Seated in front of the incoming cabinet were Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Trump confidant and leader of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk. Apple CEO Tim Co...

What can we expect when President-elect Donald Trump begins his second term on Monday? This week on The Intercept Briefing, we ask Intercept reporters what’s on their radar as a new president and a Republican-controlled Congress take office.  They’ll be watching the tentative ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, the brazenness of oligarchs seeking to profit from the new administratio...

The Supreme Court is poised to decide a landmark case on Friday that could reshape social media in America. At stake: TikTok must either break from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or cease U.S. operations entirely. While the government frames this as a critical national security measure, the short-form video app and its creators and users see a direct challenge to First Amendment freedoms....

Few journalists have ventured as deep into the shadows of American power as The Intercept's James Risen. A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, Risen waged a remarkable seven-year battle against the federal government to protect his sources , risking imprisonment to defend press freedom. As he prepares to retire from journalism, he joins this week's Intercept Briefing to reflect on his extraordinary c...

Originally aired November 15, 2024 In the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s victory, Democrats and those on the left are grappling with what comes next. On The Intercept Briefing podcast this week, columnist Natasha Lennard critiques the Democratic Party. “You can’t be both at once: You can’t be the party of Wall Street, and you can’t be the party of the working class,” Lennard says. By acqui...

Among a president’s most profound responsibilities is the power to grant clemency. Now, as President Joe Biden's first term winds down, he faces mounting calls to use that authority to commute the sentences of the 40 men on federal death row. Donald Trump's final months in office marked a stark shift in federal execution policy. After a 17-year hiatus, his administration executed 13 people — the m...

The unexpected toppling this weekend of the Assad regime by rebel forces brought a swift end to Syria's 13-year uprising-cum-civil war and over half a century of authoritarian rule. Syrians around the world have celebrated the development , with thousands walking free from the regime's hellish prisons.  But in the aftermath, the situation remains volatile. Israel has struck targets inside Syr...

For years, Donald Trump has vowed to go after his critics and journalists. As he prepares to reenter the White House, he’s nominating loyalists, like incoming FBI director Kash Patel, who have pledged to do the same. The Trump administration may soon have a new weapon to target perceived enemies. On this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing, we discuss the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalti...

Continued campus protests against the Gaza war have sparked heated debates around free speech, academic freedom, and the role of universities in addressing global issues.  This spring saw an outpouring of students demanding that their institutions divest from Israel. Since then, universities have taken sometimes draconian measures to stop protests before they even begin. On this week’s episod...

As the clock winds down on the Biden presidency, Democrats have a limited window to act. Come January 20, Republicans will control the executive branch and both houses of Congress. On this week's episode of The Intercept Briefing, Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa. , acknowledges the need for swift action, particularly on the war in Gaza, prison pardons, and immigration. “I’ve been on calls with advocacy grou...

In the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s victory, Democrats and those on the left are grappling with what comes next. On The Intercept Briefing podcast this week, columnist Natasha Lennard critiques the Democratic Party. “You can’t be both at once: You can’t be the party of Wall Street, and you can’t be the party of the working class,” Lennard says. By acquiescing to Silicon Valley and Wall S...

There will be much analysis and innumerable postmortems of what Kamala Harris and her campaign got wrong about the electorate this election. Already, the trends are becoming clear: She failed to reach Black and Latino men, who flocked to Donald Trump this cycle. She underperformed in cities, typically Democratic strongholds. And she even lagged among younger voters vital to her party’s present and...

Welcome to The Intercept Briefing, a new podcast from our newsroom. In our first episode, politics reporters Jessica Washington and Akela Lacy break down The Intercept’s recent investigation on how the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has shaped U.S. foreign policy, as well as, as well as its record-breaking spending in the 2024 election cycle to unseat members of Congress who are who are...

The process of Jewish expansion over Palestinian land has involved maintaining a "system of domination," says author Nathan Thrall on this week's Intercepted. In order to constrict "Palestinians into tighter and tighter space" over the decades, Israel has deployed a strict permit system, movement restrictions, walls, fences, segregated roads, and punitive actions such as arrests and detentions, ev...

Throughout the past nine months of Israel’s scorched-earth war against the people of Gaza, the world has watched as the official death toll has increased by the day. Nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed. These figures are likely a stark undercount of the true devastation. A recent report from the British aid organization Save the Children estimates that more than 20,000 Palestinian children...

The escalating military confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel now threatens to expand the conflict in Gaza into a full-blown regional war. For the past eight months, Israel and Hezbollah have traded missile attacks , leading to the evacuation of tens of thousands of civilians from northern Israel and southern Lebanon. The two sides have fought devastating wars in the past, but a cold peace ha...

An Israeli military operation in Gaza this week aimed at rescuing four hostages from Hamas killed over 270 Palestinians and wounded hundreds more. The Nuseirat refugee camp, where the attacks occurred, became a scene of horror as the injured sought care from Gaza's few remaining hospitals. Karin Huster, a Doctors Without Borders medical coordinator, witnessed the aftermath. She joins host Murtaza...