CovertAction Bulletin

Mahmoud Khalil Freed as Anti-War Movement in U.S. Celebrates and Grows

Mahmoud Khalil is free! After spending 104 days unjustly held in an ICE detention center in Jena, Louisiana, he was reunited with his wife Noor, newborn son Deen and community over the weekend. At a press conference and rally at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine near Columbia University on Sunday, he said “I must call the hypocrisy of Columbia University, a university that just two weeks ago said that they want to protect their international students. Why? While over 100 [days] later, I haven’t received a single call from this university,” as he promised to continue his work in the movement for Palestine.

His release came after District Court Judge Michael Farbiarz ordered for him to be freed on Friday, the latest move in a long legal battle during which the Trump administration has tried to have him held indefinitely or just deported. The government has already appealed the decision, but the fact that Mahmoud Khalil is free is a legal and political victory that cannot be understated. 

On this episode, we also discuss developments in the quickly-unfolding situation between the U.S. and its imperialist outpost Israel on the one hand and Iran, after the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend.

Make No Mistake: The U.S. Wants War with Iran

Donald Trump posted to his social media site Truth Social on Monday evening that “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” as he made an early departure from the G7 summit in Canada to “attend to many important matters,” according to the White House. The U.S. government is also moving the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz away from the South China Sea canceling a planned port call in Da Nang City, Vietnam scheduled for this week as the ship continues to move West towards the Arabian Sea where it could join the USS Carl Vinson carrier striker group. At least three Navy destroyers have been moved to the Mediterranean Sea over the past week, including the USS Thomas Hudner.

This happens at the same time that the U.S. is claiming it won’t directly join Israel’s war on Iran, reignited last Thursday when Israel bombed the country, but the military moves both signify that Israel is unable to defend itself militarily, and that the U.S. is preparing for its own offensive role in the conflict.

It’s also increasingly clear that despite initial claims to the contrary, the U.S. government knew and approved of Israel’s plans, really making this a US-Israeli war. In fact, Donald Trump himself said to the Wall Street Journal a few days ago, “It wasn’t a head up. It was – we know what’s going on.”

The war against Iran isn’t just Trump’s and Netanyahu’s war. It’s part of a long offensive against the country for maintaining independence from the imperialist world system, and for being a stalwart supporter of the Palestinian people.

Are we yet again on the verge of yet another regime change attempt by the United States in Iran as Trump threatens Ayatollah Ali Khamenhei? Have Israel and the US put the world on the verge of a new World War by igniting a regional conflict that could spread like wildfire? 

Find an action against the war in Iran at answercoalition.org/iran. 

The LA Uprising and Trump’s Authoritarian Agenda

Over the weekend, ICE agents invaded Los Angeles and its suburbs, kidnapping dozens of people on Friday and threatening more near a Home Depot on Saturday. These masked and heavily-armed forces are part of Trump’s promised 30-day surge in anti-immigrant attacks in the LA area. But wherever there is repression, there is resistance - and the people of LA are fighting back. The community in LA and the suburbs continues its anti-deportation mobilization as we record this episode.

Donald Trump has sent thousands of federalized California National Guard troops to the area against the wishes of Governor Newsom, and under seemingly murky legal authority. US Northern Command announced Monday that at Trump’s order it sent 700 Marines with the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division from the base at Twentynine Palms, about 2 and a half hours from LA. Trump. The resulting legal and political battle happening at the same time as the pitched street battles and the solidarity and community defense mobilizations that are spreading across the country all but guarantee a larger crisis should Trump not back down.

We also react to the breaking news that the government is planning to send 8,000 people to “free up bed space at detention facilities on domestic American soil,” according to Politico.

Palantir, Surveillance and Technofascism

Big data and surveillance tech firm Palantir is working with the U.S. government to bring its software into multiple government agencies under the Trump administration. In April, Wired reported that the company had a $30-million contract with ICE to provide “near real-time visibility” on immigrants in the country. Late in May, the New York Times revealed that the company is expanding its government work across agencies including the Social Security Administration, Department of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services and more in $113 million in new contracts - on top of the $795 million they were just awarded by the Pentagon.

CIA-connected Palantir counts the Agency’s investment firm In-Q-Tel as an early backer, and was founded in 2003 by hardcore conservative libertarian Peter Thiel along with current CEO Alex Karp and two others. It’s worked with the U.S. government as well as allies in Ukraine, Israel, Australia and many private companies. Its growth as a private partner in the extension of U.S. government surveillance and data collection in the age of AI should be a cause of concern for all people no matter which party is in the White House.

NATO Dayton Assembly Exposes Outrageous War Spending

NATO held its 2025 Parliamentary Assembly in Dayton, Ohio between May 22 and 26. Though it promotes itself as a force in defense of peace and security, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s history exposes its true purpose: propping up Western imperialism and hegemony. It’s an international body started with the goal of containing and threatening the Soviet Union, and since the fall of the USSR has expanded well out of its target areas of North America and the Northern Atlantic, causing death and destruction from Ukraine and Yugoslavia to Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond

NATO is an existential threat to countries that seek to challenge the U.S.-centered status quo and manage their own path of development that doesn’t include subservience to the capitalist global order.

People from Dayton and around the area recognized the severity of this threat and called for protests outside the Parliamentary Assembly. CovertAction’s Rachel Hu was there to cover the events and reports on how the city spent millions of dollars on security, keeping residents away from the summit and holding extravagant fireworks events while people go hungry and don’t have their basic needs met on the ground.

Does Trump Really Want Peace in Ukraine?

Donald Trump held phone calls with both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, then announced that the two countries will “immediately start negotiations toward a ceasefire” in the 3-year-long conflict between the two. His announcement also touted a goal of increased trade and economic ties with Russia. It also comes weeks after the U.S. and Ukraine signed what’s been called a “mineral for muscle” deal, giving the United States the ability to profit from Ukraine’s natural resources. While an end to the conflict that’s gone on for over 3 years now, and has its origins further back in recent history, is more than welcome, it’s important to understand how we got here and how the “peace” process is playing out. The way the Trump administration is going about this ceasefire isn’t really from a desire for peace, but a desire for greater control in the region overall - over both Russia and Ukraine - and the ability to focus the U.S. military on China.

Trump Advances Right-Wing Agenda At Home and Abroad

On Tuesday, UnitedHealth Group announced that CEO Andrew Witty was stepping down. The announcement came from Witty as the company suspended its full-year financial outlook - because it believes that medical costs will be higher than forecast. UnitedHealth’s revenue was over $400 billion. The year before Witty became CEO in 2021, its revenue was $257 billion - that’s a 55% increase.

At the same time, the Trump administration’s 2026 budget will slash $880 billion in cuts to the critical programs of Medicare and Medicaid, while funding the military to an even higher level than requested by the Pentagon. Some of the cuts will come in the form of privatization, pushing recipients to private plans with Medicare Advantage - described by former Cigna executive Wendell Potter as “one of the biggest scams that we’ve seen in this country” because of significant fraud by the private companies that administer the plans.

From cuts to healthcare and other social services padding the pockets of the wealthy, to threats to eliminate habeas corpus and other key democratic rights, and into new moves on the international stage, the Trump administration is showing us an entire system in crisis and moving far to the right.

Genocidal Ben-Gvir Faces Resistance on U.S. Trip

Israeli Minister of National Security and supporter of extremist, far-right policies Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the United States in late April. From the time he got off his plane in Florida and throughout events in New Haven, CT, New York City and Washington, DC, he was met with opposition, protest and resistance. Even some Zionist groups opposed his visit, which included stops at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago, a Jewish society tied to Yale university, the halls of Congress, and a fundraiser in New York. Ben-Gvir is a Kahanist, a follower of the rabbi Meir Kahane who supported and encouraged and was convicted of acts of terrorism in both Israel and the United States. He famously has a portrait of Baruch Goldstein in his living room, who killed 29 Palestinians in Hebron in 1994, and he repeats the calls of Goldstein and Kahane to expel all Palestinians from their homeland.

And following in those ideological footsteps, Israel’s government announced this week that it plans to seize Gaza entirely for the first time since it was forced to withdraw in 2005.

Earth Day: War and Climate Change Threaten The Planet

April 20th marked the fifteenth anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the largest oil spill in U.S. history, which killed 11 workers and spilled 134 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. For those who rely on fishing and related industries off the Gulf Coast, as well as for those who were involved in the recovery and cleanup efforts, real relief is still yet to come. The AP reports that “all but a handful of roughly 4,800 lawsuits seeking compensation for health problems linked to the spill have been dismissed and only one has been settled,” noting that in 2012 BP paid $67 million - about $1,300 each for nearly 80% of those seeking compensation. BP has since been forced to pay billions of dollars in fines.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration plans to extend fossil fuel drilling and fracking even more than the Biden administration did. The nearly $1-trillion Pentagon budget is also a hotbed of climate- and life-destroying wastes of money, as the US prepares for great-power conflict with China.

This episode was recorded on Earth Day, Tuesday, April 22nd, and we get into the lasting legacy of the Deepwater Horizon spill and much more.

Kilmar Garcia Disappearance Triggers Constitutional Crisis

Mahmoud Khalil, likely days away from the birth of his first child, is still being held in Louisiana as his lawyers fight for his freedom after a judge ordered that he can be deported. Just Monday, Columbia student Moshen Mahdawi was detained by ICE during a regular interview as part of the citizenship process. Hundreds of students from more than 90 institutions across the country have had their student visas revoked.

And the Trump Administration is doubling down on the disappearance of hundreds to CECOT, the maximum-security prison in El Salvador. With Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele by his side on Monday in the White House, Trump suggested that US citizens could be sent to the notorious prison, saying “Homegrowns are next. The homegrowns. You gotta build about five more places. It’s not big enough.”

At the same meeting, Bukele said he would not return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who fled his home 14 years ago to escape gang violence and had an order granting him the right to stay in the United States. Garcia is married with three children and works as a first-year apprentice with SMART Local 100, the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers union. The Trump administration is ignoring multiple courts who have said the deportation of Garcia must be overturned, including the Supreme Court.

Is a Constitutional crisis around the corner? Is it here? And what should we make of the threats to continue these deportations and disappearances and expand them to US citizens?