democracynow--2020-03-09--Blackwater Founder Erik Prince Recruited Spies to Infiltrate Progressive Groups with Project Veritas

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
I ’ m Amy Goodman .
Erik Prince , the founder of the mercenary firm Blackwater , brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos , helped recruit former spies to infiltrate and gather intelligence about a Democratic congressional campaign and the American Federation of Teachers .
That ’ s according to an explosive new New York Times report that exposes previously unreported details about the ties between Prince and Project Veritas , a right-wing group that often sets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , everyone from Planned Parenthood to journalists , by recording covert videos .
According to The New York Times , one former spy recruited by Erik Prince helped run a Project Veritas operation to secretly tape leaders of the Michigan office of the American Federation of Teachers in 2017 .
The spy , named Richard Seddon , directed an undercover operative to gather and make public information that could damage the union .
In response to The New York Times report , Derek Martin , director of the consumer watchdog Allied Progress , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s not a lot of dots to connect here .
Secretary DeVos ’ brother was directly involved in a spying scheme in her home state against a teachers ’ union she ’ s been hostile with for years .
If this doesn ’ t clear the bar for an immediate Congressional investigation , nothing does , ” he said .
In another instance in 2018 , the same undercover operative who gathered information about the American Federation of Teachers infiltrated the congressional campaign of former CIA officer Abigail Spanberger , who was running @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , representing Virginia as a Democrat .
The campaign fired the operative after discovering the operative ’ s identity .
Well , for more , we ’ re joined by The Intercept 's Matthew Cole .
He 's the investigative journalist who first broke the story of Erik Prince ’ s ties to the Trump administration last year in his story headlined “ The Complete Mercenary : How Erik Prince Used the Rise of Trump to Make an Improbable Comeback.
” His latest piece , “ The FBI Is Investigating Erik Prince for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has recently been published .
It ’ s great to have you with us .
So , let ’ s talk , Matthew , about this explosive front-page New York Times piece , that really is coming off of your investigation .
MATTHEW COLE : Yeah , what The New York Times was able to do was to figure out where Erik Prince ’ s team of former spies had helped Project Veritas in operations .
What I reported last year for the first time was that Prince had paid for and arranged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ GOODMAN : And explain what Project Veritas is .
MATTHEW COLE : So , Project Veritas is run by a gentleman named James O ’ Keefe .
And they purport to highlight and expose liberal bias and agendas and progressive agendas in organizations , news organizations , Planned Parenthood , as you described .
They , early on , were involved in sacking — they ’ ve been successful in exposing some stuff at ACORN , I think in 2009 , just after Obama had come in .
They often find people who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and I say , by “ the bottom , ” not the leaders , but people who are working on sort of ground level — saying things that they probably shouldn ’ t say on camera but often reflect an individual ’ s viewpoint rather than an entire organization ’ s .
They then cut that video and blast it out and make a media spectacle out of it .
And in some cases , some of the things they have done have been legitimate .
Most of what they ’ ve done @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without fail , they focus only on liberal and progressive organizations , whether it ’ s Democratic campaigns — now we know the teachers ’ union — and news organizations .
They are not interested in looking at anything on the right side of the political spectrum .
AMY GOODMAN : So , go back to what Erik Prince did in recruiting these spies .
MATTHEW COLE : So , Prince has for years helped fund them .
He was — you know , you have to understand that Project Veritas got its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — from conservative organizations , the Mercer family , the Erik Prince family , Betsy DeVos , who is Erik Prince ’ s brother .
They have been funding them .
Coming into the — MATTHEW COLE : Erik Prince ’ s sister .
Coming into the 2016 election , Erik Prince decided that what Project Veritas needed was better training .
And the training that they needed specifically was to get from former spies .
So , in 2016 , he hires a former spy , American spy , to do the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ training failed .
The former spy quit because he thought that they weren ’ t serious people .
It wasn ’ t going to stop Erik Prince .
After Trump wins the election — AMY GOODMAN : He was with him election night .
MATTHEW COLE : He was with him election night , he and his wife .
After the election and the inauguration , Erik Prince arranges for a former MI6 officer named Richard Seddon — MATTHEW COLE : British intelligence — to train Project Veritas at the Prince family ranch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them is a series of weapons training , secret video camera , you know , undercover video camera work , elicitation .
He ’ s teaching them to be spies .
And at the time , O ’ Keefe and one of the other Project Veritas members tweeted out and put on Instagram what they were doing .
They described it as from a classified location and special training , and described their organization not as journalists , which publicly and today James O ’ Keefe will say and defend himself .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intelligence agency .
And that ’ s a key thing .
What I reported last year was that after Erik Prince trained them , Erik Prince sought to use Project Veritas for his own operations and a business opportunity abroad as undercover spies .
And it ’ s important to understand that when you start to mix spying with domestic political operations , you ’ re looking at a Nixonian-era system of domestic black bag jobs .
And that is where we see Erik Prince now , is moving in that direction .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ frightening here .
AMY GOODMAN : So , talk about these two examples that the Times exposes , the Michigan chapter of the American Federation of Teachers and then Abigail Spanberger ’ s campaign in Virginia .
MATTHEW COLE : Yeah , so , Veritas had long been trying to seed their people inside of Democratic members of Congress and the Senate .
And there were efforts on the House and in Congress with a picture of people — literally , a photo sheet , a facebook , that identified Veritas undercover members @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they could be caught .
And what they got was better at what they were doing , although in this case they were caught .
There were suspicions , when I was reporting my story last year , that Veritas had been involved in the teachers ’ federation in Michigan .
There was an obvious connection there between Betsy DeVos and her antagonism and antipathy towards the teachers ’ federation and in Michigan , where Erik and Betsy , they grew up in western Michigan , Holland , Michigan , specifically .
MATTHEW @ @ @ @ @ @ @ primary tomorrow .
And what Veritas did was they used the British spies to help run the operation .
So they run — you know , the people who were undercover were not former spies .
They were not former foreign intelligence officers .
What they had were the professionals running the operation from the outside , directing them .
They had given them training .
Now they were going to direct them .
And that ’ s what the Times was able to find , was how Prince had used these spies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and improve Veritas ’ ability to get inside organizations and pull documents out .
AMY GOODMAN : And how did it affect the Michigan Federation of Teachers and also Abigail Spanberger ?
Interestingly , she is a former CIA official .
She has worked for the CIA .
And she was able to find the spy within her organization and fired her .
MATTHEW COLE : Yeah .
Like I said , Congress had — the Democrats in Congress have a list that they share , because they all know that they are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in this case , they were able to catch the person who had come in as an intern to work in the office .
In Michigan , the exposé that Project Veritas did and a video that they put out resulted in a lawsuit .
The federation , teachers ’ federation there , has been suing Project Veritas for a variety of crimes , under the notion that this had been a spying operation , not some disgruntled whistleblower .
And that ’ s often what Veritas presents itself as , you know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the inside .
In fact , what they ’ re often doing , they ’ re seeding people in under false pretenses and then exfiltrating data and information .
AMY GOODMAN : They also succeeded in getting an ABC reporter suspended , David Wright .
You used to work for ABC .
MATTHEW COLE : I used to work for ABC .
And , you know , again , I think this — the ABC case is actually a fantastic example of what they do .
They got a reporter to give his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and qualifies what he ’ s about to say as not in his professional capacity but in his personal capacity , and then blast it out as liberal bias in media .
AMY GOODMAN : Talking about Medicare for All .
MATTHEW COLE : Yeah , I mean , it was absurd .
But , you know , one thing that needs to be — I need to mention here about Project Veritas is that in 2017 they tried to get The Washington Post to run a false story during the Roy Moore @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : — Alabama Senate seat election .
And what they did was they sent one of their operatives in posing as a victim , a sexual assault victim of Roy Moore .
And the idea was to get the Post to run a fake story .
Now , let ’ s let that sink in for a second .
Now — MATTHEW COLE : They were caught .
And what we believe is , is that there was some awareness or coordination by the Trump White House and administration that Project Veritas was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is — if that ’ s the case , that is literally selling fake news and trying to seed in propaganda .
AMY GOODMAN : And now people are calling for a congressional investigation .
Matthew Cole , I want you to stay here .
We ’ re going to do Part 2 and put it online at democracynow.org .
Matthew Cole , investigative journalist for The Intercept .
That does it for our show .
I ’ m Amy Goodman .
Thanks so much for joining us .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman. Erik Prince, the founder of the mercenary firm Blackwater, brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, helped recruit former spies to infiltrate and gather intelligence about a Democratic congressional campaign and the American Federation of Teachers. That’s according to an explosive new New York Times report that exposes previously unreported details about the ties between Prince and Project Veritas, a right-wing group that often sets up sting operations, targeting, oh, everyone from Planned Parenthood to journalists, by recording covert videos.
According to The New York Times, one former spy recruited by Erik Prince helped run a Project Veritas operation to secretly tape leaders of the Michigan office of the American Federation of Teachers in 2017. The spy, named Richard Seddon, directed an undercover operative to gather and make public information that could damage the union. In response to The New York Times report, Derek Martin, director of the consumer watchdog Allied Progress, said, quote, “There’s not a lot of dots to connect here. Secretary DeVos’ brother was directly involved in a spying scheme in her home state against a teachers’ union she’s been hostile with for years. If this doesn’t clear the bar for an immediate Congressional investigation, nothing does,” he said.
In another instance in 2018, the same undercover operative who gathered information about the American Federation of Teachers infiltrated the congressional campaign of former CIA officer Abigail Spanberger, who was running and eventually won her seat in Congress, representing Virginia as a Democrat. The campaign fired the operative after discovering the operative’s identity.
Well, for more, we’re joined by The Intercept's Matthew Cole. He's the investigative journalist who first broke the story of Erik Prince’s ties to the Trump administration last year in his story headlined “The Complete Mercenary: How Erik Prince Used the Rise of Trump to Make an Improbable Comeback.” His latest piece, “The FBI Is Investigating Erik Prince for Trying to Weaponize Crop Dusters,” has recently been published.
It’s great to have you with us. So, let’s talk, Matthew, about this explosive front-page New York Times piece, that really is coming off of your investigation.
MATTHEW COLE: Yeah, what The New York Times was able to do was to figure out where Erik Prince’s team of former spies had helped Project Veritas in operations. What I reported last year for the first time was that Prince had paid for and arranged for training for Project Veritas.
AMY GOODMAN: And explain what Project Veritas is.
MATTHEW COLE: So, Project Veritas is run by a gentleman named James O’Keefe. And they purport to highlight and expose liberal bias and agendas and progressive agendas in organizations, news organizations, Planned Parenthood, as you described. They, early on, were involved in sacking — they’ve been successful in exposing some stuff at ACORN, I think in 2009, just after Obama had come in. They often find people who are at the bottom of organizations — and I say, by “the bottom,” not the leaders, but people who are working on sort of ground level — saying things that they probably shouldn’t say on camera but often reflect an individual’s viewpoint rather than an entire organization’s. They then cut that video and blast it out and make a media spectacle out of it.
And in some cases, some of the things they have done have been legitimate. Most of what they’ve done has been ham-handed or illegitimate. But without fail, they focus only on liberal and progressive organizations, whether it’s Democratic campaigns — now we know the teachers’ union — and news organizations. They are not interested in looking at anything on the right side of the political spectrum.
AMY GOODMAN: So, go back to what Erik Prince did in recruiting these spies.
MATTHEW COLE: So, Prince has for years helped fund them. He was — you know, you have to understand that Project Veritas got its funding — they’re a nonprofit — from conservative organizations, the Mercer family, the Erik Prince family, Betsy DeVos, who is Erik Prince’s brother. They have been funding them. Coming into the —
AMY GOODMAN: Erik Prince’s sister.
MATTHEW COLE: Erik Prince’s sister. Coming into the 2016 election, Erik Prince decided that what Project Veritas needed was better training. And the training that they needed specifically was to get from former spies. So, in 2016, he hires a former spy, American spy, to do the training. I reported that. That training failed. The former spy quit because he thought that they weren’t serious people. It wasn’t going to stop Erik Prince. After Trump wins the election —
AMY GOODMAN: He was with him election night.
MATTHEW COLE: He was with him election night, he and his wife. After the election and the inauguration, Erik Prince arranges for a former MI6 officer named Richard Seddon —
AMY GOODMAN: British intelligence.
MATTHEW COLE: British intelligence — to train Project Veritas at the Prince family ranch in Wyoming. And what he gives them is a series of weapons training, secret video camera, you know, undercover video camera work, elicitation. He’s teaching them to be spies. And at the time, O’Keefe and one of the other Project Veritas members tweeted out and put on Instagram what they were doing. They described it as from a classified location and special training, and described their organization not as journalists, which publicly and today James O’Keefe will say and defend himself. They were describing themselves as the next great intelligence agency. And that’s a key thing.
What I reported last year was that after Erik Prince trained them, Erik Prince sought to use Project Veritas for his own operations and a business opportunity abroad as undercover spies. And it’s important to understand that when you start to mix spying with domestic political operations, you’re looking at a Nixonian-era system of domestic black bag jobs. And that is where we see Erik Prince now, is moving in that direction. And that is what is actually really frightening here.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about these two examples that the Times exposes, the Michigan chapter of the American Federation of Teachers and then Abigail Spanberger’s campaign in Virginia.
MATTHEW COLE: Yeah, so, Veritas had long been trying to seed their people inside of Democratic members of Congress and the Senate. And there were efforts on the House and in Congress with a picture of people — literally, a photo sheet, a facebook, that identified Veritas undercover members so that they couldn’t — they could be caught. And what they got was better at what they were doing, although in this case they were caught. There were suspicions, when I was reporting my story last year, that Veritas had been involved in the teachers’ federation in Michigan. There was an obvious connection there between Betsy DeVos and her antagonism and antipathy towards the teachers’ federation and in Michigan, where Erik and Betsy, they grew up in western Michigan, Holland, Michigan, specifically.
AMY GOODMAN: And where there’s a primary tomorrow.
MATTHEW COLE: Where there’s a primary tomorrow. And what Veritas did was they used the British spies to help run the operation. So they run — you know, the people who were undercover were not former spies. They were not former foreign intelligence officers. What they had were the professionals running the operation from the outside, directing them. They had given them training. Now they were going to direct them. And that’s what the Times was able to find, was how Prince had used these spies to help run and sort of elevate and improve Veritas’ ability to get inside organizations and pull documents out.
AMY GOODMAN: And how did it affect the Michigan Federation of Teachers and also Abigail Spanberger? Interestingly, she is a former CIA official. She has worked for the CIA. And she was able to find the spy within her organization and fired her.
MATTHEW COLE: Yeah. Like I said, Congress had — the Democrats in Congress have a list that they share, because they all know that they are being targeted by Project Veritas. And in this case, they were able to catch the person who had come in as an intern to work in the office.
In Michigan, the exposé that Project Veritas did and a video that they put out resulted in a lawsuit. The federation, teachers’ federation there, has been suing Project Veritas for a variety of crimes, under the notion that this had been a spying operation, not some disgruntled whistleblower. And that’s often what Veritas presents itself as, you know, an organization that gets whistleblowers from the inside. In fact, what they’re often doing, they’re seeding people in under false pretenses and then exfiltrating data and information.
AMY GOODMAN: They also succeeded in getting an ABC reporter suspended, David Wright. You used to work for ABC.
MATTHEW COLE: I used to work for ABC. And, you know, again, I think this — the ABC case is actually a fantastic example of what they do. They got a reporter to give his personal opinions, who makes a statement and qualifies what he’s about to say as not in his professional capacity but in his personal capacity, and then blast it out as liberal bias in media.
AMY GOODMAN: Talking about Medicare for All.
MATTHEW COLE: Yeah, I mean, it was absurd. But, you know, one thing that needs to be — I need to mention here about Project Veritas is that in 2017 they tried to get The Washington Post to run a false story during the Roy Moore scandal down in the —
AMY GOODMAN: Alabama.
MATTHEW COLE: — Alabama Senate seat election. And what they did was they sent one of their operatives in posing as a victim, a sexual assault victim of Roy Moore. And the idea was to get the Post to run a fake story. Now, let’s let that sink in for a second. Now —
AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds.
MATTHEW COLE: They were caught. And what we believe is, is that there was some awareness or coordination by the Trump White House and administration that Project Veritas was targeting The Washington Post. But that is — if that’s the case, that is literally selling fake news and trying to seed in propaganda.
AMY GOODMAN: And now people are calling for a congressional investigation. Matthew Cole, I want you to stay here. We’re going to do Part 2 and put it online at democracynow.org. Matthew Cole, investigative journalist for The Intercept. That does it for our show. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.


democracynow--2020-03-09--"Afghanistan Papers" Reveal How Presidents & Generals Misled the American Public on War's Progress

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
I ’ m Amy Goodman .
We ’ re looking at Afghanistan , where there have been nearly 80 violent attacks since last month ’ s U.S.-Taliban peace plan was announced .
The violence could derail the deal that calls for U.S. troops to withdraw over the next 14 months and end the longest war in U.S. history .
We ’ re speaking with Washington Post reporter Craig Whitlock .
He has just won the George Polk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Papers : A Secret History of the War , ” that reveals how officials misled the public about the war for decades .
It shows how three successive presidencies — President George W. Bush , President Obama and President Trump — bungled the War in Afghanistan , despite deploying 775,000 U.S. troops since 2001 .
More than 2,000 U.S. soldiers have died in Afghanistan ; 20,000 have been wounded .
This is an excerpt from the video released with the report .
It begins with our guest , Craig Whitlock , and includes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Affairs Nicholas Burns and retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn .
AMY GOODMAN : That ’ s a clip from The Washington Post video produced by Joyce Lee that accompanies “ The Afghanistan Papers , ” as we continue our conversation with Craig Whitlock , The Washington Post reporter who uncovered the Afghanistan Papers .
I mentioned the death toll of U.S. soldiers .
It ’ s believed something like , what , 150,000 Afghans also died during this 19-year period .
Is that about accurate ?
Although those numbers , we don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know .
CRAIG WHITLOCK : Well , that ’ s right .
Those are estimates .
There hasn ’ t been a reliable count of Afghan civilians that have died throughout the duration of the war .
The United Nations has tried to keep track for the last 10 years .
It ’ s much harder even to count the number of dead of Afghan insurgents , but it ’ s also impossible to get a reliable count of the number of Afghan security forces — in other words , the Afghan National @ @ @ @ @ @ @ losses have been so steep in recent years that the Afghan government keeps that number classified to avoid destroying morale in the ranks .
AMY GOODMAN : So , talk about , Craig Whitlock , what you found .
Talk about the tip you got , and take us on the journey that took you years to get the explosive documentation that you got .
CRAIG WHITLOCK : Sure .
So , this all started the old-fashioned way in reporting .
Back in August of 2016 , I got a tip .
At @ @ @ @ @ @ @ several years covering the Pentagon .
I was on our investigative desk .
I got a tip that Lieutenant General Michael Flynn , who we all know these days as being a Trump supporter , had given a very blistering interview to an obscure government agency called the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan .
Flynn had just retired from the Army .
He was becoming well known for campaigning for Trump and leading the crowds in chants of “ Lock her up ” about Hillary Clinton .
So he was in the news @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also a highly respected Army general in military intelligence .
So , when we found out he had given this long interview about the Afghan War , we wanted to know what he had said , because he was a pretty forthright officer when he was in the military .
We asked the inspector general if we could get a transcript of it .
And at first , they said , “ Sure .
It shouldn ’ t be a problem.
” We then had to file a Freedom of Information Act request @ @ @ @ @ @ @ law to obtain government information .
We thought we were going to get this in a matter of a couple weeks .
But as the campaign went on and then Trump won , the inspector general started dragging its feet .
And then , when Michael Flynn was named national security adviser to Trump , the very next day the inspector general denied our public records request .
So , we were frustrated because we wanted to know what Flynn said .
But in the meantime , we had also heard that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with other key figures in the war , from military commanders to ambassadors to White House officials .
And we were trying to find out what all these people said in these interviews .
Long story short , we had to file two Freedom of Information Act lawsuits in federal court in Washington to compel the inspector general to release these interviews .
It took three years for us to get our hands on them .
And we ’ re still not done .
We still have litigation pending to get more interviews @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these people who spoke about the war .
But the end result , as you pointed out , were about 2,000 pages of documents , of interviews that had been kept under wraps for a number of years , in which people who were in charge of the war admitted that the strategy was a mess , that they misled the American public and that there were fundamental flaws with how the war was being fought for over 18 years .
And that ’ s what we finally brought to light .
AMY @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Washington Post video released as part of “ The Afghanistan Papers , ” you ask the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction , John Sopko , about why the papers were not released earlier .
AMY GOODMAN : So , if you can explain the significance of who he is and what he was saying ?
CRAIG WHITLOCK : Sure .
So , this is John Sopko .
He is the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction .
He ’ s appointed by Congress .
And his job , for the past more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to investigate fraud , waste and abuse in the war zone , right ?
We ’ re spending billions and billions of dollars there , and his job is to report to Congress and the public when money is being wasted or spent inefficiently .
He ’ s kind of like an auditor , if you will .
But his office , back in 2014 , decided to do a side project .
And this side project was called Lessons Learned , because the country assumed at that point , back in 2014 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an end .
President Obama had said , “ Combat operations are over , ” and he was going to pull out all U.S. troops by the end of his presidency in 2016 .
Well , that didn ’ t happen .
But these interviews that the inspector general had done with hundreds of people involved in the war were sitting on their computer files and in their offices in northern Virginia .
And they started to do some public reports on these subjects , about lessons learned with mistakes made in Afghanistan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they left out the harshest commentary , the most strident criticism from these interviews that we did and which we published .
It ’ s important to recognize that everything The Washington Post obtained was obtained legally , and it ’ s public information .
None of this was leaked to us .
These are all public records .
The public owns them .
They have a right to see what they are .
Yet it took the inspector general more than three years to release all this information to us .
So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trying to slow roll it , well , I think most people would take that with a big grain of salt .
Over three years , many , many , many unaccountable number of people have died in Afghanistan .
The United States has been spending billions and billions of more dollars .
We certainly think that it would have helped to have this information come to light a long time ago .
AMY GOODMAN : On Capitol Hill in January , the top government watchdog for Afghanistan reconstruction told lawmakers that U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public throughout the U.S.-led War in Afghanistan .
Again , this is Special Inspector General John Sopko testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee .
AMY GOODMAN : And this is Democratic Congressmember Gerald Connolly of Virginia questioning the special inspector general , John Sopko , in January .
AMY GOODMAN : So , if you can respond to what the inspector general , Sopko , said , Craig Whitlock ?
Explain what he is talking about with administration officials lying repeatedly .
CRAIG WHITLOCK : Right .
It ’ s a little @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s some irony here , right ?
So , here is the inspector general telling Congress that for years the federal government has lied about some very important measurements of how progress was being made , or lack of progress , in the Afghan War .
Uses words like “ mendacity ” and “ lies ” and “ hubris ” and things like this .
And , you know , that ’ s all true .
I agree with him on that , and our reporting backed that up .
The irony @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own files , his own interviews that his agency conducted with people in the war , revealed this , revealed many more examples , and yet he suppressed them for three years , and we had to sue him twice to pry them loose .
So , I think he ’ s accurate in his description of the falsehoods and spin and lies and so forth , but why he tried to cover that up for so long , you know , honestly , I don ’ t have a good answer for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what most surprised you in all that you found ?
Talk also about the confusions that the presidents have around issues of who is al-Qaeda , who is Taliban , confusing the organizations .
CRAIG WHITLOCK : Well , they ’ re just — when you read these interviews , they ’ re really raw .
They ’ re raw in the human emotion , in the frustrations , the exasperations , that are expressed by people who played varying roles in the war .
And that ’ s what was striking about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which are kind of dry and hard to get through , these are notes and transcripts of interviews with real people who played roles in the war , again , from military commanders on down to people in the field to aid workers to people back in the White House .
And the frustrations that come out are really striking .
You talk about the difficulty in identifying who we ’ re fighting .
There were a number of interviews with Army soldiers or mid-level commanders in the field who had expressed their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who ’ s the enemy .
As they would put it , “ Who were the bad guys ?
We went over there to try and fight and do our job , but nobody could tell us who the bad guys were .
You know , who ’ s the enemy in this war ?
” People couldn ’ t really tell in the field .
Then we also got documents from former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld .
He wrote hundreds of thousands of memos during his time in office .
He ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ memos to senior people in the Pentagon .
He would say , “ I don ’ t have any insight into who the bad guys are .
We need better intelligence : Who are the bad guys ?
” So , when you ’ re fighting a war and you can ’ t even identify the enemy , most people would understand that you ’ re kind of in big trouble at that point .
People have to understand , the reason we went to Afghanistan in 2001 was to fight al-Qaeda , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to try and find Osama bin Laden .
Within the first six months , by the spring of 2002 , we had largely accomplished that goal .
Al-Qaeda was virtually erased from Afghanistan .
They had either been killed , captured or had fled , like bin Laden went to Pakistan .
There were very few al-Qaeda foot soldiers left in Afghanistan .
But in these interviews we obtained , person after person says , “ That ’ s when things started to go off the rails .
That ’ s when our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hard time figuring out who the enemy was , what we were trying to accomplish , what the objectives were.
” So , since 2002 , that ’ s been very blurry .
And that really explained a lot about why the war has gone on and on and on .
Nobody was quite sure how to end it or what the objectives were .
AMY GOODMAN : You also show opium production in Afghanistan actually has gone up since the U.S. invasion , saying in your reporting , last year , quote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the plant from which opium is extracted to make heroin — on four times as much land as they did in 2002.
” Explain how that happened , Craig .
CRAIG WHITLOCK : Well , that ’ s a good question .
This is another byproduct , a very negative byproduct , of the war , was Afghanistan is the largest producer of opium in the world .
And this is different from laboratory-made opiates that we ’ re having such trouble with in the United States right now .
We ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and grown in the fields to make heroin and morphine and drugs like that .
The irony is , when the war started , there was very little opium production in Afghanistan , because the Taliban , in the year 2000 , had issued a ban on growing opium , that was actually largely successful .
But after the war started and the Taliban was booted from power , opium production skyrocketed in Afghanistan , because this is a very profitable crop .
And the United States never quite figured out what to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the war strategy ?
Was this something the United States needed to do something about ?
That wasn ’ t why we went to war , but it was obviously a big factor fueling corruption and illicit production in Afghanistan .
The United States has spent over $ 8 billion just trying to tackle the opium problem in Afghanistan since 2001 .
And yet , as you point out correctly , production of it has gone up by more than four times .
The last few years there have been record harvests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — things have gotten worse in Afghanistan on this front , despite our presence and despite the spending of billions and billions of dollars there .
AMY GOODMAN : And finally , Craig , one of interviews talks about USAID officials saying , “ We were just getting crazy amounts of money.
” Over a trillion dollars was spent on the War in Afghanistan .
But , of course , most important is the lives lost .
But a trillion dollars , a lot of that money has gone missing .
If you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , finally , these most recent U.S. negotiations with the Taliban , you also show that through the years there were a number of opportunities for this to have taken place .
CRAIG WHITLOCK : That ’ s right .
You make a number of really important , critical points here .
So , one thing people need to recall , to put this in perspective , the United States since 2001 has spent more money trying to rebuild or reconstruct Afghanistan , in development , in humanitarian aid , than it did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ World War II , and that ’ s after you adjust for inflation .
So that ’ s the scope of what we ’ ve spent in Afghanistan trying to rebuild the country .
The first several years of the war , under the Bush administration , we actually didn ’ t spend that much .
And there was a lot of criticism in the Afghanistan papers that if the Bush administration had spent more , and spent more thoughtfully , trying to build up Afghanistan in the early years , it could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , by the time President Obama took power , the war wasn ’ t going well .
We sent 100,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan as part of a surge .
And simultaneously , we spent billions and billions and billions of dollars in a really short amount of time trying to build up the Afghan government , as long as we had all the troops there .
Now , in these interviews in the Afghanistan Papers , again , person after person complains that the spending was really mindless .
One word that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ insane , ” that they were just told to spend as much money as possible building schools , clinics , roads — anything to just make it look like they were doing something , and that , in retrospect , of course , it didn ’ t make any sense , and they don ’ t know whether any of it did any good .
And this led to — AMY GOODMAN : This is not to mention the money spent bombing the country at the same time .
CRAIG WHITLOCK : Well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say that doesn ’ t make a whole lot of sense , right ?
We ’ re bombing the heck out of the country , but yet we ’ re spending all this money simultaneously trying to blow it up .
And this gets to your other point , which you brought up about the Taliban negotiations have been going on in recent months .
There are a number of interviews in the Afghanistan Papers from people who say , you know , we had better opportunities to do this when we had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as 2002 .
There was a real opportunity , perhaps the best opportunity , to negotiate a peace deal with the Taliban then , because it was largely defeated .
It was out of power .
It was on its heels .
And that would have been the time , particularly when the Taliban was most interested in talking , that we could have cinched a peace deal in Afghanistan that may have at least minimized the need for us to be there .
Instead , the war has gone on for year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to remember , back in 2002 , 2003 , everybody thought we were victorious in Afghanistan .
And militarily , we were , for the moment .
So there was a real reluctance to negotiate with a defeated enemy .
I think this gets back to one thing .
We never really understood who we were fighting or why they were fighting us in Afghanistan , so we kind of thought the Taliban would disappear .
But they ’ re so integrated in the fabric of society , that was a fundamental miscalculation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years later , trying to negotiate with them , when the Taliban is , frankly , stronger than ever , and so it ’ s been a much , much tougher proposition .
AMY GOODMAN : Craig Whitlock , we want to thank you for being with us , staff writer at The Washington Post who uncovered the Afghanistan Papers .
We ’ ll link to this remarkable exposé at democracynow.org .
When we come back , we look at a new New York Times exposé that reveals how Erik Prince , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos , recruits ex-spies to help infiltrate liberal groups — among them , the Michigan chapter of the American Federation of Teachers .
Stay with us .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman. We’re looking at Afghanistan, where there have been nearly 80 violent attacks since last month’s U.S.-Taliban peace plan was announced. The violence could derail the deal that calls for U.S. troops to withdraw over the next 14 months and end the longest war in U.S. history. We’re speaking with Washington Post reporter Craig Whitlock. He has just won the George Polk Award for his investigation “The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War,” that reveals how officials misled the public about the war for decades. It shows how three successive presidencies — President George W. Bush, President Obama and President Trump — bungled the War in Afghanistan, despite deploying 775,000 U.S. troops since 2001. More than 2,000 U.S. soldiers have died in Afghanistan; 20,000 have been wounded.
This is an excerpt from the video released with the report. It begins with our guest, Craig Whitlock, and includes former Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Nicholas Burns and retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn.
CRAIG WHITLOCK: There’s a clear pattern that what was said in private in these interviews contrasted so greatly with what U.S. officials — presidents, members of Congress, military commanders — what they had been saying in public over 18 years. Usually the talking points were all pretty similar. They would say, “The war is — it’s a tough place.”
LT. GEN. DOUGLAS LUTE: Conditions that are very trying.
GEN. STANLEY McCHRYSTAL: It was a tough year.
CRAIG WHITLOCK: “Afghanistan, there’s still fighting going on.”
ERIC EDELMAN: Increase in Taliban violence.
GEN. DAVID McKIERNAN: A higher level of violence.
CRAIG WHITLOCK: “But we’re making progress.”
ZALMAY KHALILZAD: Progress.
MAJ. GEN. JEFFREY SCHLOESSER: Progress.
GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS: Progress.
DEFENSE SECRETARY ROBERT GATES: Significant progress.
CRAIG WHITLOCK: You know, “We’re going in the right direction.”
MICHÈLE FLOURNOY: We are on the right road.
DEFENSE SECRETARY LEON PANETTA: In the right direction.
CRAIG WHITLOCK: “And our strategy is sound.”
ERIC EDELMAN: I think it’s important to understand that we do have a strategy that’s quite broad.
DEFENSE SECRETARY ROBERT GATES: Our strategy is succeeding.
CRAIG WHITLOCK: And they would give a very detailed case for why the American people should keep having to fight this war halfway around the world. But when you read these interviews, people would say that this was a lot of spin and lies, to some extent.
NICHOLAS BURNS: After '03, ’04, once we're fully engaged in both wars, I can’t remember us ever saying, “Should we be there? Are we being useful? Are we succeeding?”
CRAIG WHITLOCK: There were people in the White House who were giving interviews saying very explicitly that statistics or figures about the war, that were indicators of who was winning and losing or how things were going, were being twisted around or manipulated or almost made up.
LT. GEN. MICHAEL FLYNN: As intelligence makes its way up higher, it gets consolidated, and it gets really, really watered down.
CRAIG WHITLOCK: One of the most sobering things to read, for me, was just how many people involved in the war were very blunt and candid that the strategy, the war strategy, under Obama and Bush and Trump, they all said it was worthless.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s a clip from The Washington Post video produced by Joyce Lee that accompanies “The Afghanistan Papers,” as we continue our conversation with Craig Whitlock, The Washington Post reporter who uncovered the Afghanistan Papers. I mentioned the death toll of U.S. soldiers. It’s believed something like, what, 150,000 Afghans also died during this 19-year period. Is that about accurate? Although those numbers, we don’t — we will never actually know.
CRAIG WHITLOCK: Well, that’s right. Those are estimates. There hasn’t been a reliable count of Afghan civilians that have died throughout the duration of the war. The United Nations has tried to keep track for the last 10 years. It’s much harder even to count the number of dead of Afghan insurgents, but it’s also impossible to get a reliable count of the number of Afghan security forces — in other words, the Afghan National Army or Afghan police — because their losses have been so steep in recent years that the Afghan government keeps that number classified to avoid destroying morale in the ranks.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about, Craig Whitlock, what you found. Talk about the tip you got, and take us on the journey that took you years to get the explosive documentation that you got.
CRAIG WHITLOCK: Sure. So, this all started the old-fashioned way in reporting. Back in August of 2016, I got a tip. At that time, I had just finished several years covering the Pentagon. I was on our investigative desk. I got a tip that Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, who we all know these days as being a Trump supporter, had given a very blistering interview to an obscure government agency called the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan. Flynn had just retired from the Army. He was becoming well known for campaigning for Trump and leading the crowds in chants of “Lock her up” about Hillary Clinton. So he was in the news quite a bit. But he was also a highly respected Army general in military intelligence. So, when we found out he had given this long interview about the Afghan War, we wanted to know what he had said, because he was a pretty forthright officer when he was in the military.
We asked the inspector general if we could get a transcript of it. And at first, they said, “Sure. It shouldn’t be a problem.” We then had to file a Freedom of Information Act request, which is the federal public records law to obtain government information. We thought we were going to get this in a matter of a couple weeks. But as the campaign went on and then Trump won, the inspector general started dragging its feet. And then, when Michael Flynn was named national security adviser to Trump, the very next day the inspector general denied our public records request. So, we were frustrated because we wanted to know what Flynn said. But in the meantime, we had also heard that the inspector general had conducted hundreds of interviews with other key figures in the war, from military commanders to ambassadors to White House officials. And we were trying to find out what all these people said in these interviews.
Long story short, we had to file two Freedom of Information Act lawsuits in federal court in Washington to compel the inspector general to release these interviews. It took three years for us to get our hands on them. And we’re still not done. We still have litigation pending to get more interviews and the identities of a lot of these people who spoke about the war. But the end result, as you pointed out, were about 2,000 pages of documents, of interviews that had been kept under wraps for a number of years, in which people who were in charge of the war admitted that the strategy was a mess, that they misled the American public and that there were fundamental flaws with how the war was being fought for over 18 years. And that’s what we finally brought to light.
AMY GOODMAN: In this clip from The Washington Post video released as part of “The Afghanistan Papers,” you ask the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, John Sopko, about why the papers were not released earlier.
JOHN SOPKO: We don’t have classifying authority.
CRAIG WHITLOCK: Right.
JOHN SOPKO: So we have to send it back to — under FOIA, send it back to the agencies to review. And as a matter of fact, some of the material that I think may be in the Flynn review, but I know some of the interviews, was classified.
CRAIG WHITLOCK: Of the 400 interviews that were released, only about 15, 16 of them had any classified information redacted.
JOHN SOPKO: Yeah, but we still have to review the information. We also have to then go through a whole process on it.
CRAIG WHITLOCK: But you weren’t trying to slow roll it?
JOHN SOPKO: No, no, no. No one’s asked us to slow roll it. And we wouldn’t slow roll it. I think of any inspector general, I’ve probably been the most forthcoming on information. We’re firm believers in openness and transparency, but we’ve got to follow the law.
AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can explain the significance of who he is and what he was saying?
CRAIG WHITLOCK: Sure. So, this is John Sopko. He is the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction. He’s appointed by Congress. And his job, for the past more than a decade now, has been to investigate fraud, waste and abuse in the war zone, right? We’re spending billions and billions of dollars there, and his job is to report to Congress and the public when money is being wasted or spent inefficiently. He’s kind of like an auditor, if you will.
But his office, back in 2014, decided to do a side project. And this side project was called Lessons Learned, because the country assumed at that point, back in 2014, that the war was coming to an end. President Obama had said, “Combat operations are over,” and he was going to pull out all U.S. troops by the end of his presidency in 2016. Well, that didn’t happen. But these interviews that the inspector general had done with hundreds of people involved in the war were sitting on their computer files and in their offices in northern Virginia. And they started to do some public reports on these subjects, about lessons learned with mistakes made in Afghanistan. But what we found is that they left out the harshest commentary, the most strident criticism from these interviews that we did and which we published.
It’s important to recognize that everything The Washington Post obtained was obtained legally, and it’s public information. None of this was leaked to us. These are all public records. The public owns them. They have a right to see what they are. Yet it took the inspector general more than three years to release all this information to us. So when he says he wasn’t trying to slow roll it, well, I think most people would take that with a big grain of salt. Over three years, many, many, many unaccountable number of people have died in Afghanistan. The United States has been spending billions and billions of more dollars. We certainly think that it would have helped to have this information come to light a long time ago.
AMY GOODMAN: On Capitol Hill in January, the top government watchdog for Afghanistan reconstruction told lawmakers that U.S. officials have routinely lied to the American public throughout the U.S.-led War in Afghanistan. Again, this is Special Inspector General John Sopko testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
JOHN SOPKO: The problem is, there’s a disincentive, really, to tell the truth. … And when we talk about mendacity, when we talk about lying, it’s not just by lying about a particular program, it’s lying by omissions, by saying, “Oh, I can’t tell you about the casualties,” or “I can’t tell you about how good the Afghans [inaudible] weapons,” or “I can’t tell you this and that.” Turns out that everything that’s bad news has been classified over the last few years.
AMY GOODMAN: And this is Democratic Congressmember Gerald Connolly of Virginia questioning the special inspector general, John Sopko, in January.
REP. GERALD CONNOLLY: Can you just give us some examples of hubris and especially mendacity?
JOHN SOPKO: Some of the statements made by AID about the great success on life expectancy, it was statistically impossible to double the life expectancy over the time given. I think it’s a combination of hubris and mendacity that anybody can do that. I mean, the next thing you know is we’re going to be walking on water on an AID program. The education, where we claimed millions of children were in school, and AID knew that the data was bad, but they still reported it, as if there was millions of children. Is that hubris? Is that mendacity? Probably a combination of both.
AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can respond to what the inspector general, Sopko, said, Craig Whitlock? Explain what he is talking about with administration officials lying repeatedly.
CRAIG WHITLOCK: Right. It’s a little hard to keep track of. There’s some irony here, right? So, here is the inspector general telling Congress that for years the federal government has lied about some very important measurements of how progress was being made, or lack of progress, in the Afghan War. Uses words like “mendacity” and “lies” and “hubris” and things like this. And, you know, that’s all true. I agree with him on that, and our reporting backed that up. The irony is that the inspector general’s own files, his own interviews that his agency conducted with people in the war, revealed this, revealed many more examples, and yet he suppressed them for three years, and we had to sue him twice to pry them loose. So, I think he’s accurate in his description of the falsehoods and spin and lies and so forth, but why he tried to cover that up for so long, you know, honestly, I don’t have a good answer for you.
AMY GOODMAN: Craig, what most surprised you in all that you found? Talk also about the confusions that the presidents have around issues of who is al-Qaeda, who is Taliban, confusing the organizations.
CRAIG WHITLOCK: Well, they’re just — when you read these interviews, they’re really raw. They’re raw in the human emotion, in the frustrations, the exasperations, that are expressed by people who played varying roles in the war. And that’s what was striking about it. Unlike most government reports, which are kind of dry and hard to get through, these are notes and transcripts of interviews with real people who played roles in the war, again, from military commanders on down to people in the field to aid workers to people back in the White House. And the frustrations that come out are really striking.
You talk about the difficulty in identifying who we’re fighting. There were a number of interviews with Army soldiers or mid-level commanders in the field who had expressed their frustration about even being able to identify who’s the enemy. As they would put it, “Who were the bad guys? We went over there to try and fight and do our job, but nobody could tell us who the bad guys were. You know, who’s the enemy in this war?” People couldn’t really tell in the field. Then we also got documents from former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. He wrote hundreds of thousands of memos during his time in office. He’s using the same language in his memos to senior people in the Pentagon. He would say, “I don’t have any insight into who the bad guys are. We need better intelligence: Who are the bad guys?” So, when you’re fighting a war and you can’t even identify the enemy, most people would understand that you’re kind of in big trouble at that point.
People have to understand, the reason we went to Afghanistan in 2001 was to fight al-Qaeda, to respond to the 9/11 attacks, to try and find Osama bin Laden. Within the first six months, by the spring of 2002, we had largely accomplished that goal. Al-Qaeda was virtually erased from Afghanistan. They had either been killed, captured or had fled, like bin Laden went to Pakistan. There were very few al-Qaeda foot soldiers left in Afghanistan. But in these interviews we obtained, person after person says, “That’s when things started to go off the rails. That’s when our mission got fuzzy. We had a hard time figuring out who the enemy was, what we were trying to accomplish, what the objectives were.” So, since 2002, that’s been very blurry. And that really explained a lot about why the war has gone on and on and on. Nobody was quite sure how to end it or what the objectives were.
AMY GOODMAN: You also show opium production in Afghanistan actually has gone up since the U.S. invasion, saying in your reporting, last year, quote, “Afghan farmers grew poppies — the plant from which opium is extracted to make heroin — on four times as much land as they did in 2002.” Explain how that happened, Craig.
CRAIG WHITLOCK: Well, that’s a good question. This is another byproduct, a very negative byproduct, of the war, was Afghanistan is the largest producer of opium in the world. And this is different from laboratory-made opiates that we’re having such trouble with in the United States right now. We’re talking about opium that’s used and grown in the fields to make heroin and morphine and drugs like that. The irony is, when the war started, there was very little opium production in Afghanistan, because the Taliban, in the year 2000, had issued a ban on growing opium, that was actually largely successful. But after the war started and the Taliban was booted from power, opium production skyrocketed in Afghanistan, because this is a very profitable crop.
And the United States never quite figured out what to do about it. Was this part of the war strategy? Was this something the United States needed to do something about? That wasn’t why we went to war, but it was obviously a big factor fueling corruption and illicit production in Afghanistan. The United States has spent over $8 billion just trying to tackle the opium problem in Afghanistan since 2001. And yet, as you point out correctly, production of it has gone up by more than four times. The last few years there have been record harvests. So, again, this is — things have gotten worse in Afghanistan on this front, despite our presence and despite the spending of billions and billions of dollars there.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Craig, one of interviews talks about USAID officials saying, “We were just getting crazy amounts of money.” Over a trillion dollars was spent on the War in Afghanistan. But, of course, most important is the lives lost. But a trillion dollars, a lot of that money has gone missing. If you could comment on that? And then, finally, these most recent U.S. negotiations with the Taliban, you also show that through the years there were a number of opportunities for this to have taken place.
CRAIG WHITLOCK: That’s right. You make a number of really important, critical points here. So, one thing people need to recall, to put this in perspective, the United States since 2001 has spent more money trying to rebuild or reconstruct Afghanistan, in development, in humanitarian aid, than it did in Europe with the Marshall Plan after World War II, and that’s after you adjust for inflation. So that’s the scope of what we’ve spent in Afghanistan trying to rebuild the country.
The first several years of the war, under the Bush administration, we actually didn’t spend that much. And there was a lot of criticism in the Afghanistan papers that if the Bush administration had spent more, and spent more thoughtfully, trying to build up Afghanistan in the early years, it could have made a real difference. Then, by the time President Obama took power, the war wasn’t going well. We sent 100,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan as part of a surge. And simultaneously, we spent billions and billions and billions of dollars in a really short amount of time trying to build up the Afghan government, as long as we had all the troops there. Now, in these interviews in the Afghanistan Papers, again, person after person complains that the spending was really mindless. One word that keeps popping up is the word “insane,” that they were just told to spend as much money as possible building schools, clinics, roads — anything to just make it look like they were doing something, and that, in retrospect, of course, it didn’t make any sense, and they don’t know whether any of it did any good. And this led to —
AMY GOODMAN: This is not to mention the money spent bombing the country at the same time.
CRAIG WHITLOCK: Well, exactly. And most people would say that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, right? We’re bombing the heck out of the country, but yet we’re spending all this money simultaneously trying to blow it up.
And this gets to your other point, which you brought up about the Taliban negotiations have been going on in recent months. There are a number of interviews in the Afghanistan Papers from people who say, you know, we had better opportunities to do this when we had more leverage, including as far back as 2002. There was a real opportunity, perhaps the best opportunity, to negotiate a peace deal with the Taliban then, because it was largely defeated. It was out of power. It was on its heels. And that would have been the time, particularly when the Taliban was most interested in talking, that we could have cinched a peace deal in Afghanistan that may have at least minimized the need for us to be there. Instead, the war has gone on for year after year.
I think you have to remember, back in 2002, 2003, everybody thought we were victorious in Afghanistan. And militarily, we were, for the moment. So there was a real reluctance to negotiate with a defeated enemy. I think this gets back to one thing. We never really understood who we were fighting or why they were fighting us in Afghanistan, so we kind of thought the Taliban would disappear. But they’re so integrated in the fabric of society, that was a fundamental miscalculation. And here we are, 18 years later, trying to negotiate with them, when the Taliban is, frankly, stronger than ever, and so it’s been a much, much tougher proposition.
AMY GOODMAN: Craig Whitlock, we want to thank you for being with us, staff writer at The Washington Post who uncovered the Afghanistan Papers. We’ll link to this remarkable exposé at democracynow.org.
When we come back, we look at a new New York Times exposé that reveals how Erik Prince, the mercenary firm founder, Blackwater, brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, recruits ex-spies to help infiltrate liberal groups — among them, the Michigan chapter of the American Federation of Teachers. Stay with us.


democracynow--2020-03-09--"It's a Real Mess": Afghan Rivals Both Claim Presidency as Ongoing Attacks Could Derail Peace Deal

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : We begin today ’ s show with Afghanistan .
Both President Ashraf Ghani and top Afghan political leader Abdullah Abdullah are claiming they won the presidential election , and are holding dueling inauguration ceremonies today in the capital Kabul .
Ghani has been president since 2014 , but Abdullah claims the most recent election was spoiled by fraud .
This is playing out in the middle of a U.S.-negotiated peace plan with the Taliban , which calls for the U.S. and its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the next 14 months and for the start of direct talks between the Afghan government and Taliban insurgency .
Members of the Taliban and the Afghan government were set to start direct negotiations on Tuesday , tomorrow .
Al Jazeera reports there have been nearly 80 attacks in Afghanistan since the U.S. and the Taliban signed the peace accord .
Just 11 days after the deal , U.S. forces carried out an air raid on Taliban fighters in Helmand province .
On Friday , Abdullah escaped unharmed from an Islamic State attack on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ least 32 people .
The Taliban issued a statement saying they were not involved in that attack .
This is Mukhtar Jan , one of the wounded , speaking to reporters .
AMY GOODMAN : For more , we ’ re joined by Washington Post award-winning reporter Craig Whitlock .
He was just recognized with a George Polk Award for Military Reporting for his in-depth investigation called “ The Afghanistan Papers : A Secret History of the War.
” After getting a tip , Whitlock fought for three years to win the release @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government officials conducted with people directly involved in the nearly two-decade-long war .
He ultimately obtained more than 2,000 documents that revealed how presidents , generals and diplomats intentionally misled the American public about the longest war in U.S. history .
Some people call the Afghanistan Papers the “ modern-day Pentagon Papers.
” Craig Whitlock , welcome to Democracy Now !
It ’ s great to have you with us .
Before we get into the documents , this trove of documents and interviews that you have unveiled , can we start by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.S. and Taliban have reached this so-called peace plan , which did not include the Afghan government , and the bombings that have taken place over the last few days and the dueling administrations that have just held their inaugurations , Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani ?
CRAIG WHITLOCK : Sure .
Well , to be blunt , it ’ s a real mess politically in Afghanistan these days .
You have a number of players , different rivalries that are playing out on the political stage , but also in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ States , which has been there for almost two decades , and its NATO allies .
You have the Taliban , who all of a sudden are much more friendly and at least forthcoming in these peace talks with the United States .
But then you have the Afghan government , which for years has been propped up by the United States but now is feeling a real split between the president , Ashraf Ghani , and his chief rival , Abdullah Abdullah .
I mean , think about the scene today in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both Abdullah and Ghani claiming that they are the rightful president .
In the midst of all this , the United States is trying to get the Afghan government , whoever it ’ s led by , to sit down and negotiate with the Taliban .
And the Taliban doesn ’ t even recognize the legitimacy of the Afghan government .
So , trying to sort all this out and bring peace to Afghanistan is going to be a real challenge indeed .
AMY GOODMAN : And those negotiations between the Taliban and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — were supposed to begin tomorrow .
Is that right ?
CRAIG WHITLOCK : Well , that ’ s right , but I don ’ t think that ’ s going to happen , if we don ’ t even know who the rightful president of Afghanistan is .
There was another precursor before peace talks could start tomorrow , and that was the United States had assured the Taliban that the Afghan government would release up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners being held by the Afghan government .
President Ghani has said no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t involved in that agreement , and he isn ’ t going to release all these prisoners by tomorrow .
Now , that may be the subject of side negotiations , but again , you have all these demands and contingencies and players and people saying they won ’ t talk to each other .
Over the last few days , you had Donald Trump ’ s special envoy , Zalmay Khalilzad , who ’ s an Afghan American — he was doing shuttle diplomacy between the two rival Afghan would-be presidents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ off their inaugurations or at least work out some kind of deal .
But obviously he failed , because both men went ahead with their respective inauguration ceremonies .
AMY GOODMAN : And the U.S. strikes in Helmand province , among the 80 attacks that have taken place since the U.S. announced this brokered deal with the Taliban ?
CRAIG WHITLOCK : Well , that ’ s right , and there has been violence ongoing .
Now , part of it is trying to figure out who ’ s behind it , because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as it were , is the Islamic State , which the United States of course considers a terrorist group .
And one of the ironies here is the Islamic State and the Taliban don ’ t get along at all .
So , as the Islamic State is trying to — they ’ re trying to fight , and they ’ re not party to any negotiations .
The United States is trying to get the Taliban to turn against the Islamic State .
So , really , what you have here @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a word , that has been going on for many years , and the United States is in the middle of it .
And I think one thing people forget is the whole reason we went to war in Afghanistan was to fight al-Qaeda .
We don ’ t really – al-Qaeda doesn ’ t really have much of a presence in Afghanistan .
You have all these other factions , and that ’ s what United States is in the middle of and trying to sort out and get all sides @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and talk .
But again , that ’ s going to be a monumental challenge .
AMY GOODMAN : Craig , if you could stay with us , we ’ re going to break , and then we want to go deeply into what you found , this remarkable release of documents , of the quotes of generals and presidents , behind the scenes , talking about the failure of the War in Afghanistan , as the public was being told something very different .
Craig Whitlock is the award-winning staff writer for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Papers .
We ’ ll be back with him in a minute .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show with Afghanistan. Both President Ashraf Ghani and top Afghan political leader Abdullah Abdullah are claiming they won the presidential election, and are holding dueling inauguration ceremonies today in the capital Kabul. Ghani has been president since 2014, but Abdullah claims the most recent election was spoiled by fraud. This is playing out in the middle of a U.S.-negotiated peace plan with the Taliban, which calls for the U.S. and its NATO allies to withdraw their troops over the next 14 months and for the start of direct talks between the Afghan government and Taliban insurgency. Members of the Taliban and the Afghan government were set to start direct negotiations on Tuesday, tomorrow.
Al Jazeera reports there have been nearly 80 attacks in Afghanistan since the U.S. and the Taliban signed the peace accord. Just 11 days after the deal, U.S. forces carried out an air raid on Taliban fighters in Helmand province. On Friday, Abdullah escaped unharmed from an Islamic State attack on a ceremony in Kabul that killed at least 32 people. The Taliban issued a statement saying they were not involved in that attack. This is Mukhtar Jan, one of the wounded, speaking to reporters.
MUKHTAR JAN: [translated] I was at the ceremony when the gunshots started. I rushed toward the door to get out of the area, but suddenly my foot was hit by a bullet.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Washington Post award-winning reporter Craig Whitlock. He was just recognized with a George Polk Award for Military Reporting for his in-depth investigation called “The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War.” After getting a tip, Whitlock fought for three years to win the release of a trove of confidential interviews with government officials conducted with people directly involved in the nearly two-decade-long war. He ultimately obtained more than 2,000 documents that revealed how presidents, generals and diplomats intentionally misled the American public about the longest war in U.S. history. Some people call the Afghanistan Papers the “modern-day Pentagon Papers.”
Craig Whitlock, welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. Before we get into the documents, this trove of documents and interviews that you have unveiled, can we start by you explaining the latest news, since the U.S. and Taliban have reached this so-called peace plan, which did not include the Afghan government, and the bombings that have taken place over the last few days and the dueling administrations that have just held their inaugurations, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani?
CRAIG WHITLOCK: Sure. Well, to be blunt, it’s a real mess politically in Afghanistan these days. You have a number of players, different rivalries that are playing out on the political stage, but also in the war zone. You have the United States, which has been there for almost two decades, and its NATO allies. You have the Taliban, who all of a sudden are much more friendly and at least forthcoming in these peace talks with the United States. But then you have the Afghan government, which for years has been propped up by the United States but now is feeling a real split between the president, Ashraf Ghani, and his chief rival, Abdullah Abdullah. I mean, think about the scene today in Kabul. You had rival inaugurations with both Abdullah and Ghani claiming that they are the rightful president. In the midst of all this, the United States is trying to get the Afghan government, whoever it’s led by, to sit down and negotiate with the Taliban. And the Taliban doesn’t even recognize the legitimacy of the Afghan government. So, trying to sort all this out and bring peace to Afghanistan is going to be a real challenge indeed.
AMY GOODMAN: And those negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government were supposed to start — were supposed to begin tomorrow. Is that right?
CRAIG WHITLOCK: Well, that’s right, but I don’t think that’s going to happen, if we don’t even know who the rightful president of Afghanistan is. There was another precursor before peace talks could start tomorrow, and that was the United States had assured the Taliban that the Afghan government would release up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners being held by the Afghan government. President Ghani has said no way to that, that he wasn’t involved in that agreement, and he isn’t going to release all these prisoners by tomorrow. Now, that may be the subject of side negotiations, but again, you have all these demands and contingencies and players and people saying they won’t talk to each other. Over the last few days, you had Donald Trump’s special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, who’s an Afghan American — he was doing shuttle diplomacy between the two rival Afghan would-be presidents, trying to get them to call off their inaugurations or at least work out some kind of deal. But obviously he failed, because both men went ahead with their respective inauguration ceremonies.
AMY GOODMAN: And the U.S. strikes in Helmand province, among the 80 attacks that have taken place since the U.S. announced this brokered deal with the Taliban?
CRAIG WHITLOCK: Well, that’s right, and there has been violence ongoing. Now, part of it is trying to figure out who’s behind it, because another actor in this very complicated play, as it were, is the Islamic State, which the United States of course considers a terrorist group. And one of the ironies here is the Islamic State and the Taliban don’t get along at all. So, as the Islamic State is trying to — they’re trying to fight, and they’re not party to any negotiations. The United States is trying to get the Taliban to turn against the Islamic State. So, really, what you have here is a very complicated civil war, in a word, that has been going on for many years, and the United States is in the middle of it. And I think one thing people forget is the whole reason we went to war in Afghanistan was to fight al-Qaeda. We don’t really – al-Qaeda doesn’t really have much of a presence in Afghanistan. You have all these other factions, and that’s what United States is in the middle of and trying to sort out and get all sides to calm down a bit and try and talk. But again, that’s going to be a monumental challenge.
AMY GOODMAN: Craig, if you could stay with us, we’re going to break, and then we want to go deeply into what you found, this remarkable release of documents, of the quotes of generals and presidents, behind the scenes, talking about the failure of the War in Afghanistan, as the public was being told something very different. Craig Whitlock is the award-winning staff writer for The Washington Post who uncovered the Afghanistan Papers. We’ll be back with him in a minute.


democracynow--2020-03-09--Headlines for March  9, 2020

Headlines for March  9, 2020

We begin with news on the coronavirus pandemic .
The death toll in Italy has soared to at least 366 — with over a third of the deaths recorded within the last day .
Authorities have now put around 16 million people on lockdown in the north of the country as they attempt to contain the fast-growing pandemic .
All schools nationwide have been ordered closed .
Pope Francis delivered his Sunday sermon via live stream after the Vatican acknowledged its first case of coronavirus earlier in the week .
In Saudi Arabia , the east of the country has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nationwide have been closed .
Iran has confirmed at least 49 new deaths on Sunday , bringing its death toll to just under 200 .
In Quanzhou , China , a hotel that was used as a coronavirus quarantine center collapsed Saturday , killing at least 10 people .
It is not known what caused the collapse .
Over 106,000 people have confirmed cases of the disease worldwide , with around 3,600 dead .
Here in the United States , there is growing outcry over the Trump administration ’ s mismanagement of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tests .
Known cases of coronavirus now exceed 500 , with 22 recorded deaths .
At least 19 of those deaths have been linked to the Life Care Center of Kirkland , Washington — considered ground zero of the U.S. outbreak on the West Coast .
The facility said Saturday 90 out of 180 employees have symptoms of coronavirus .
States including Oregon , Washington , California , Maryland and New York have declared states of emergency .
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo slammed the Centers for Disease Control for delays in responding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ private labs in New York state to test for the coronavirus .
Over 100 cases have been identified in New York as of Sunday .
Columbia University has canceled classes today and tomorrow after a “ member of its community ” was exposed to coronavirus .
The University of Washington and other Washington-area schools have shifted to online classes .
Stanford University in California has also , and Rice University in Texas has also canceled in-person classes .
The Conservative Political Action Conference , or CPAC , said one of its attendees has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Senator Ted Cruz and Arizona Congressmember Paul Gosar to self-quarantine after interacting with the individual at the conference last month .
Three attendees at the AIPAC conference in Washington , D.C. , last week have tested positive for coronavirus .
Eighteen thousand people attended the conference , including a number of lawmakers .
Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were among the speakers .
Meanwhile , low-wage and hourly workers are calling attention to the fact that they are being forced to work even when they are sick , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for containing coronavirus .
On Friday , workers from fast-food chain Chipotle walked out of a New York City restaurant in protest of the company ’ s practices , which they say puts them , their co-workers and customers at further risk .
Millions of workers do not receive paid sick leave .
In Washington state , activists from the Shutdown Northwest Detention Center Coalition are calling for health inspections at the immigrant jail and the release of a plan to help prevent the spread of coronavirus among prisoners and to treat any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Friday , Trump responded to a reporter question about letting passengers from the Grand Princess cruise ship , which had been quarantined off the coast of San Francisco , disembark .
Twenty-one of the 3,600 people on board the cruise ship have been found to have coronavirus .
But only 46 people have been tested .
Passengers are set to start disembarking in Oakland today .
Last week , Trump said at least a million tests would be available by the end of the week , but states around the country have been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and the actual number of cases remains unknown due to insufficient testing .
In financial news , markets worldwide continued to tumble today .
The collapse of an alliance between OPEC and Russia compounded the plunge , causing the worst one-day crash in crude prices in nearly 30 years .

We begin with news on the coronavirus pandemic. The death toll in Italy has soared to at least 366 — with over a third of the deaths recorded within the last day. Authorities have now put around 16 million people on lockdown in the north of the country as they attempt to contain the fast-growing pandemic. All schools nationwide have been ordered closed. Pope Francis delivered his Sunday sermon via live stream after the Vatican acknowledged its first case of coronavirus earlier in the week.
In Saudi Arabia, the east of the country has been put on lockdown, and schools nationwide have been closed. Iran has confirmed at least 49 new deaths on Sunday, bringing its death toll to just under 200. In Quanzhou, China, a hotel that was used as a coronavirus quarantine center collapsed Saturday, killing at least 10 people. It is not known what caused the collapse. Over 106,000 people have confirmed cases of the disease worldwide, with around 3,600 dead.
Here in the United States, there is growing outcry over the Trump administration’s mismanagement of the outbreak and the lack of access to tests. Known cases of coronavirus now exceed 500, with 22 recorded deaths. At least 19 of those deaths have been linked to the Life Care Center of Kirkland, Washington — considered ground zero of the U.S. outbreak on the West Coast. The facility said Saturday 90 out of 180 employees have symptoms of coronavirus.
States including Oregon, Washington, California, Maryland and New York have declared states of emergency. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo slammed the Centers for Disease Control for delays in responding to the outbreak and for not allowing private labs in New York state to test for the coronavirus. Over 100 cases have been identified in New York as of Sunday. Columbia University has canceled classes today and tomorrow after a “member of its community” was exposed to coronavirus. The University of Washington and other Washington-area schools have shifted to online classes. Stanford University in California has also, and Rice University in Texas has also canceled in-person classes.
The Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, said one of its attendees has tested positive for the disease, causing Senator Ted Cruz and Arizona Congressmember Paul Gosar to self-quarantine after interacting with the individual at the conference last month. Three attendees at the AIPAC conference in Washington, D.C., last week have tested positive for coronavirus. Eighteen thousand people attended the conference, including a number of lawmakers. Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were among the speakers.
Meanwhile, low-wage and hourly workers are calling attention to the fact that they are being forced to work even when they are sick, which is directly counter to CDC recommendations for containing coronavirus. On Friday, workers from fast-food chain Chipotle walked out of a New York City restaurant in protest of the company’s practices, which they say puts them, their co-workers and customers at further risk. Millions of workers do not receive paid sick leave.
In Washington state, activists from the Shutdown Northwest Detention Center Coalition are calling for health inspections at the immigrant jail and the release of a plan to help prevent the spread of coronavirus among prisoners and to treat any infected individuals.
While touring the CDC Friday, Trump responded to a reporter question about letting passengers from the Grand Princess cruise ship, which had been quarantined off the coast of San Francisco, disembark.
President Donald Trump: “I would rather — because I like the numbers being where they are. I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship. That wasn’t our fault.”
Twenty-one of the 3,600 people on board the cruise ship have been found to have coronavirus. But only 46 people have been tested. Passengers are set to start disembarking in Oakland today. Last week, Trump said at least a million tests would be available by the end of the week, but states around the country have been complaining of the lack of test kits, and the actual number of cases remains unknown due to insufficient testing.
In financial news, markets worldwide continued to tumble today. The collapse of an alliance between OPEC and Russia compounded the plunge, causing the worst one-day crash in crude prices in nearly 30 years.


democracynow--2020-03-10--Immigrants in WA Detention Center Demand Protection from Coronavirus, Not Posters in English

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Well , as the world responds to the coronavirus outbreak , we look at how the Trump administration ’ s immigration policies may put everyone at risk .
For more , we go to Seattle , Washington , not far from the C [ sic ] Life Care Center in the suburb of Kirkland , which was the epicenter of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak .
AMY GOODMAN : In nearby Tacoma , Washington , our next guest says she saw posters in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immigrants held in the Northwest Detention Center , which is run by the private prison company GEO Group .
Joining us on the phone is Maru Mora-Villalpando , an activist and undocumented immigrant with the group La Resistencia and Mijente .
Last week they issued a call for public health inspections of the Northwest Detention Center due to the danger of coronavirus inside the facility along with other demands for how ICE should respond to the epidemic .
Welcome back to Democracy Now !
, Maru .
Tell us what you ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Good morning , Amy and Juan .
We are asking , first of all , the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department to ensure that there ’ s some sort of inquiry at least on how this is being treated .
We know because of past incidents and records that outbreaks have happened in this detention center .
In the past three years , we ’ ve seen a lot of varicella and mumps outbreaks happening .
We want to know what is being done beyond placing flyers in English about washing hands and covering @ @ @ @ @ @ @ find out what are the protocols for workers .
What ’ s happening in case that workers do end up being ill ?
What will be happening then to people detained ?
Let me remind your audience that the building here in the Seattle area of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service has been in lockdown or actually shut down for two weeks since March 5th because of an ICE employee that was exposed to the virus , and the USCIS office decided to shut down that building .
Now , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officers and people detained at NWDC could come in and out .
So how do we know that people that have been to this building have not been exposed ?
We are asking ICE to stop transfers right now .
We want a moratorium on transferring to NWDC or really anywhere in the nation because we are not certain that people are safe under ICE custody , not even yet with the trace [ sp ] of this outbreak .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And what about your own experience in Seattle , Washington @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the virus here in the U.S. ?
MARU MORA-VILLALPANDO : Well , we are obviously looking at different ways to engage with each other .
We , even La Resistencia , we had an action just last Saturday , and we had to come up with different protocols .
We decided to go ahead with this action because it is an outdoor activity , but a lot of activities have been canceled .
We know that the state has done a really good job of trying to assure to the public that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ definitely can not rely on the federal government .
But yet we have not seen anything in regards to people in prisons and detained .
I personally don ’ t have insurance , so I ’ m still trying to figure out if anything happens to me or communities like me that are not insured , what is going to happen .
Are we going to have access to medical care ?
I ’ m also a consultant myself—I don ’ t have paid sick leave—so what is going to happen to people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are you concerned about guards coming in with the virus , with coronavirus ?
MARU MORA-VILLALPANDO : Yes , we ’ re definitely concerned .
We know there ’ s more people being found that have coronavirus .
It is just a matter of when .
Even the governor agreed that this is not if ; it ’ s a matter of when .
And we really worry about people in detention .
We know that people in detention are already at risk of even dying .
Just Sunday , another person has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ imagine if this coronavirus actually goes into the detention center .
We ’ re really worried about the hundreds of people that are in there .
And there ’ s more coming .
Just Sunday , March 5th— AMY GOODMAN : Maru , we ’ re going to have to leave it there but we will continue to cover this ever important issue .
Maru Mora-Villalpando , activist and undocumented immigrant with La Resistencia and Mijente .
And that does it for our broadcast .
I am Amy Goodman with Juan González .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, as the world responds to the coronavirus outbreak, we look at how the Trump administration’s immigration policies may put everyone at risk. For more, we go to Seattle, Washington, not far from the Life Care Center in the suburb of Kirkland, which was the epicenter of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak.
AMY GOODMAN: In nearby Tacoma, Washington, our next guest says she saw posters in English only, when she went to visit immigrants held in the Northwest Detention Center, which is run by the private prison company GEO Group. Joining us on the phone is Maru Mora-Villalpando, an activist and undocumented immigrant with the group La Resistencia and Mijente. Last week they issued a call for public health inspections of the Northwest Detention Center due to the danger of coronavirus inside the facility, along with other demands for how ICE should respond to the epidemic.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Maru. Tell us what you’re demanding right now.
MARU MORA-VILLALPANDO: Good morning, Amy and Juan. We are asking, first of all, the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department to ensure that there’s some sort of inquiry at least on how this is being treated. We know, because of past incidents and records, that outbreaks have happened in this detention center. In the past three years, we’ve seen a lot of varicella and mumps outbreaks happening. We want to know what is being done beyond placing flyers in English about washing hands and covering coughs. We are also asking to find out what are the protocols for workers. What’s happening in case that workers do end up being ill? What will be happening then to people detained?
Let me remind your audience that the building here in the Seattle area of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service has been in lockdown, or actually shut down, for two weeks, since March 5th, because of an ICE employee that was exposed to the virus, and the USCIS office decided to shut down that building. Now, that building is a building where both ICE officers and people detained at NWDC could come in and out. So how do we know that people that have been to this building have not been exposed?
And we are asking ICE to stop transferrings right now. We want a moratorium on transferrings to NWDC or really anywhere in the nation, because we are not certain that people are safe under ICE custody, not even yet with the threat of this outbreak.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what about your own experience in Seattle, Washington state, which has been an epicenter of the virus here in the U.S.?
MARU MORA-VILLALPANDO: Well, we are obviously looking at different ways to engage with each other. We, even La Resistencia, we had an action just last Saturday, and we had to come up with different protocols. We decided to go ahead with this action, because it is an outdoor activity, but a lot, a lot of activities have been canceled. We know that the state has done a really good job of trying to assure the public that something is being done, since we definitely cannot rely on the federal government. But yet we have not seen anything in regards to people in prisons and detained.
I personally don’t have insurance, so I’m still trying to figure out if anything happens to me or communities like me that are not insured, what’s going to happen. Are we going to have access to medical care? I’m also a consultant myself. I don’t have paid sick leave. So what’s going to happen to people like us?
AMY GOODMAN: And are you concerned about guards coming in with the virus, with coronavirus, Maru?
MARU MORA-VILLALPANDO: Yes, we are definitely concerned. We know that there’s more people being found that they have coronavirus. It’s just a matter of when. Even the governor agreed that this is not if, it’s a matter of when. And we really worry about people in detention. You know, we know that people in detention already are at risk of even dying. Just last Sunday, another person has died under ICE custody. And then imagine if this coronavirus actually goes into the detention center. We’re really worried about the hundreds of people that are in there. And there’s more coming. Just Sunday, March 5th —
AMY GOODMAN: Maru, we’re going to have to leave it there, but we will continue to cover this ever important issue. Maru Mora-Villalpando, activist and undocumented immigrant with La Resistencia and Mijente. And that does it for our broadcast. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. Thanks so much for joining us.