Democracy Now! Productions

Billionaire Trump associate Elon Musk's latest disinformation campaign is targeting the U.K. government, which Musk appears to believe is not sufficiently anti-immigrant. Musk, who has already shaped the incoming Trump administration's economic policy by proposing cuts to government spending and tech-oriented privatization of services, signifies a “new era” in American politics, says our guest Quinn Slobodian, who is chronicling right-wing tech billionaires' accelerating attempts to mold the world according to their “destructive” and “nihilist” beliefs. In a far-reaching conversation, Slobodian touches on Musk's clear admiration of authoritarian strongmen, market deregulation and white supremacist rhetoric.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Ann Telnaes has quit The Washington Post after her editors rejected a cartoon depicting billionaires genuflecting to President-elect Trump.

North Korea fired a suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile into the sea earlier today as U.S.

The American Historical Association, the oldest learned society in the United States, has adopted the “Resolution to Oppose Scholasticide in Gaza,” condemning Israel's “intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system.” We speak to Sherene Seikaly and Barbara Weinstein, two scholars who supported the resolution and helped push for the groundbreaking vote. Seikaly, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says, “This moment was one I never thought I would experience,” hailing the resolution as an opportunity for historians to “narrate our past and imagine our future.” Weinstein, who teaches at New York University and previously served as the president of the American Historical Association, adds, “Over the years it has become increasingly clear that we can't have a narrow definition of what our roles are as historians.”

In the occupied West Bank, three people were killed and eight others wounded when two attackers opened fire at Israeli cars and a bus near the West Bank settlement of Kedumim earlier today. Israeli soldiers said they were pursuing two suspected Palestinian shooters.

In Qatar, representatives of Hamas say they’ve approved a list of 34 Israeli hostages to be released as part of the first phase of a potential ceasefire deal. The list includes all women, children, seniors and sick people still being held in Gaza. A spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu downplayed talk of progress toward a ceasefire as “spin” and dismissed Hamas’s offer as “propaganda and psychological terror.”

Israeli forces continued their unrelenting assault on the Gaza Strip throughout the weekend, killing scores of Palestinians even as Israeli and Hamas officials resumed talks in Qatar aimed at a ceasefire. Al Jazeera reports Israel carried out over 100 bombings in just three days. Earlier today, more than 40 Palestinians were injured when an Israeli drone bombed a school housing displaced people in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp. Before that, an Israeli attack on a residential building in Bureij refugee camp killed four. And seven Palestinians, including two farmers, were killed in three separate attacks in Rafah. In Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, an Israeli airstrike late Saturday killed 11 people, most of them members of the Zuhd family. Relatives of the dead worked by hand to sift through the ruins of their home, hoping to find loved ones trapped in the rubble.Ammar Zuhd: “Three young men, the son’s wife and three children are still under the rubble. We retrieved this cousin of mine. Another cousin has been martyred and is now in the hospital. Approximately 11 people have been martyred here.”The Palestinian Ministry of Health reports another baby in Gaza has died of hypothermia — the eighth such death.

Ukraine’s military has launched a surprise cross-border offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, where there are reports of fierce fighting. Before Ukraine’s renewed offensive, Russia had retaken much of the territory Ukraine seized when it first invaded Kursk last August. On Sunday, one person was killed and another wounded when Russian forces shelled the city of Nikopol in southeastern Ukraine. Further south, at least eight people were wounded when Russian troops shelled the city of Kherson. Meanwhile, Russia has vowed to retaliate after it said it shot down eight U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles fired by Ukraine at the Russian region of Belgorod. Russian President Vladimir Putin previously threatened to respond to such attacks using Russia’s new nuclear-capable hypersonic ballistic missile.

With the House speaker voted in, a joint session of Congress is meeting today as scheduled to count electoral votes and certify Donald Trump’s win. Outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris, who repeatedly called her election rival Trump unfit for office, will oversee the process as the president of the Senate. This comes exactly four years after a horde of Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to delay the certification of Joe Biden’s win and keep Trump in power. Trump has vowed to pardon those convicted for taking part in the Capitol insurrection. One of those convicts is 32-year-old Antony Vo, who recently fled to Canada instead of reporting for his nine-month prison term. Vo, who’s since been giving interviews and snowboarding at the Whistler resort, is hoping to receive a Trump pardon or asylum from the Canadian government.

On Capitol Hill, House Speaker Mike Johnson squeaked through a win, retaining his gavel on Friday, after Donald Trump called two Republican lawmakers to ask them to change their votes to support Johnson. In an acceptance speech, House Speaker Johnson said that defending the nation’s borders should be Congress’s “number one priority.”Speaker Mike Johnson: “In coordination with President Trump, this Congress will give our border and immigration enforcement agents the resources that they need to do their job. We will secure the border. We will deport dangerous, criminal illegal aliens and finally finish building the border wall.”