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As the Trump administration carries out its campaign against the International Criminal Court, imposing wide-reaching sanctions on judges, prosecutors and groups who have accused Israel of war crimes in front of the international tribunal, we’re joined by veteran war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody. Brody says that the U.S. government’s rejection of the ICC’s jurisdiction is not about “American sovereignty,” as the Trump administration claims, but about “impunity,” for both U.S. allies, like Israel, and the U.S. itself. “Marco Rubio knows that bombing Iran without Security Council authorization constitutes aggression under the U.N. Charter,” says Brody. “This is an insurance policy against accountability for crimes that the Trump administration is committing in plain sight.”

Brody also responds to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s statements that his office may attempt to carry out the ICC arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu when the Israeli prime minister attends the United Nations General Assembly later this year, and to the recent announcement by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega that his country will no longer hold elections, further entrenching the onetime revolutionary’s authoritarian rule.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show with a major escalation in the Trump administration’s campaign against the International Criminal Court, the ICC. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced new plans to systematically dismantle the ICC, quote, “brick by brick.” Last week, Rubio published an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, released a video attacking the Hague-based tribunal, accusing it of overreach.

SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO: But as we speak, the ICC and its friends are waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes, compacts and the force of so-called international law. When the ICC was born 24 years ago, they told us that it was merely a narrow backstop, a global court that would step in to prosecute only the gravest offenses, things like genocide and war crimes, and only when a nation’s courts were unable to prosecute them on their own. But the truth is, it was something far more radical and extreme. It was a global tribunal staffed by unelected globalist bureaucrats who claim their power is almost unlimited. Related Story News | War & Peace Pentagon Slashed Civilian Harm Reduction Staff and Is Instead Using AI CENTCOM, which oversees the war in Iran, has had its civilian harm reduction team slashed from 10 to just one. By Sharon Zhang , Truthout July 20, 2026 Truthout The danger of this global court has only continued to grow. Today, it threatens every aspect of our political and legal system — Border Patrol agents removing violent criminals from our country, American Marines risking their lives to defend our homeland, prosecutors working to dismantle terrorist plots to attack and kill Americans. If we stand idle, all of them would be at the mercy of foreign judges thousands of miles away, facing the constant risk of prosecution and even imprisonment for the so-called crime of defending their own country.

SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO: But as we speak, the ICC and its friends are waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes, compacts and the force of so-called international law. When the ICC was born 24 years ago, they told us that it was merely a narrow backstop, a global court that would step in to prosecute only the gravest offenses, things like genocide and war crimes, and only when a nation’s courts were unable to prosecute them on their own. But the truth is, it was something far more radical and extreme. It was a global tribunal staffed by unelected globalist bureaucrats who claim their power is almost unlimited.

Pentagon Slashed Civilian Harm Reduction Staff and Is Instead Using AI

The danger of this global court has only continued to grow. Today, it threatens every aspect of our political and legal system — Border Patrol agents removing violent criminals from our country, American Marines risking their lives to defend our homeland, prosecutors working to dismantle terrorist plots to attack and kill Americans. If we stand idle, all of them would be at the mercy of foreign judges thousands of miles away, facing the constant risk of prosecution and even imprisonment for the so-called crime of defending their own country.

AMY GOODMAN: In his Wall Street Journal piece, Rubio singled out human rights organizations, including Democracy for the Arab World Now, or DAWN, for supporting international accountability efforts. Rubio’s attacks came as DAWN has filed a major lawsuit in U.S. federal court challenging the Trump administration’s sanctions targeting the International Criminal Court. The lawsuit argues the sanctions, quote, “violate Americans’ constitutional right to engage in Palestine-related human rights advocacy,” unquote.

Rubio’s attack on the ICC comes two years after the court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced in 2024 he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then-Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three Hamas leaders, over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Since then, Khan has been accused of sexual misconduct by a female aide. On........

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