democracynow--2020-06-29--Massive Case of Denial: COVID Surges in US, Tops 10M Globally, as Pence Touts "Remarkable Progress"

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : Coronavirus cases have now topped 10 million worldwide , with more than a half-million deaths .
Brazil , second only to the United States in the number of cases and deaths , registered its highest number of infections in a week , as protests this weekend denounced the right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro ’ s handling of the crisis .
On Friday , the United States reported the highest number of new cases in a single day since the start of the pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Confirmed infections have now topped 2.6 million in the United States , with over 126,000 reported deaths — a quarter of the deaths and infections in the world , though the U.S. has only under 5 % of the world population — this all amidst worsening outbreaks in Florida , Texas and Arizona .
Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar warned the U.S. needs to act immediately .
AMY GOODMAN : Despite this one warning , this dire warning , Secretary Azar defended President Trump in the same interview for his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump is regularly tested .
During an appearance with Texas Governor Greg Abbott in Dallas , Vice President Mike Pence changed course from previous remarks and said , quote , “ Wearing a mask is a good idea.
” During the same visit , he attended a Dallas church Sunday , where he wore a mask as he sat in the front row as a choir of over a hundred people performed unmasked .
Choruses are known as superspreading events .
Over 2,000 people attended the event , many also not wearing a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the nation ’ s , quote , “ truly remarkable progress , ” even as the U.S. reported a record 40,000 new cases in the previous 24 hours .
He also commented on new data showing an increase in young people becoming infected .
AMY GOODMAN : Well , for more , we ’ re joined by Laurie Garrett , Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer , former senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations , author of a number of books , including Ebola : Story of an Outbreak and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a World Out of Balance , as well as Betrayal of Trust : The Collapse of Global Public Health .
Laurie , welcome back to Democracy Now !
There ’ s so much to unpack here .
You have Vice President Pence speaking at the first public briefing of the coronavirus task force with the scientists , Birx and Fauci , on Friday , after two months not saying people should wear masks , talking about the “ remarkable progress ” of the United States , and then , on Sunday , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mask in Dallas .
Just talk about the state we are in .
The globe has topped 10 million cases — a quarter of them are in the United States — as well as a half a million deaths — and again , a quarter of them are in the United States , when we have just over 4 % of the population .
LAURIE GARRETT : Amy , I was thinking about that I think the first time I was on this show talking about COVID-19 , it didn ’ t have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ the coronavirus ” or “ Wuhan virus ” at the time .
And it was February , and I told you that best-case scenario was we would get out of this in 36 months .
Well , it ’ s been — what ?
— five months since then , and I do think we have at least three years ahead of us .
This has just been a massive case of denial , of idiotic government policy , of the lack of any strategic planning , any really specific strategic goal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speaking of the United States .
Almost the entire world has screwed this up .
Even in Europe , where they ’ ve managed to bring their epidemic down after great pain and suffering , and in places like Japan , where they never really had a serious spike because they took such excellent , proactive steps , the whole world ’ s efforts and all the sacrifices that people have made elsewhere in the world are imperiled by our out-of-control pandemic .
And as you said , we represent about a quarter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you add in the next big three — Brazil , India and Russia — you make up half of the entire global total of this pandemic .
And what that means is that unless we control our efforts in our country and in those other three , the whole world gets imperiled by reinfection and reinfection and reinfection , coming from American travelers , Brazilian travelers , Indian travelers , Russian travelers .
So we have a duty not just to ourselves and to Americans , that we hopefully care about , senior @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about , but we have a duty to the whole planet , and in particular to countries that don ’ t have the resources we have , that don ’ t have the capacity to conquer their own outbreaks , whether they ’ re desperately poor or they lack an entire infrastructure of health or both .
So , Amy , we ’ re in very , very dire straits right now .
AMY GOODMAN : So , let ’ s talk about what has to be done .
You have that quote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people .
At the beginning , there was no sense of what was happening to young people , because everyone was told to shelter at home , and it was the sickest people and the dying who were going to the hospital .
But now there ’ s much more chance , though there was in places like Germany and China to get information from them , to learn about what ’ s happening to young people and the spike in the infections in young people .
And when you address this , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kinds of effects ?
You ’ ve got the respiratory effects that we all know about , lungs filling up , that can be seen , but then you also have what looks like the vascular effects , kids stroking out , you know , having strokes , getting blood clots .
Talk about the two different ways of presenting , and what this means .
LAURIE GARRETT : Well , it ’ s more than two , Amy , actually .
This virus affects the entire body .
And the more we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have this epidemic go on , so that we see more and more cases , it ’ s looking like just about every single organ system in the entire human body is affected by this virus , directly or indirectly .
I think because the initial presentations in China were all about pneumonia , we tended to think of it as a respiratory disease , but really profoundly , it ’ s a cardiovascular disease .
The entire cardiovascular system is affected by infection with this virus .
And we ’ re beginning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seemingly asymptomatic or very mild infections may in fact have long-lasting problems in their bodies that result from having been exposed to the virus , so that it ’ s a whole host of factors .
I mean , we know the virus can infect the brain .
And the long-standing repercussions of a neurological infection can be quite profound , including long-term depression , loss of smell , loss of taste , certain hearing problems , visual problems and certain kinds of cognitive issues .
We see the entire blood vascular system @ @ @ @ @ @ @ constricting .
You can see people having strokes , having tachycardia events , having a host of different issues related to plaque buildup or not .
Interestingly , taking statins seems to be helpful , so that implies that some of the same mechanism that are involved with cholesterol buildup and plaque formation as a contributor to heart disease may somehow have a similar role with this virus .
And the renal problems , the kidney problems , are really profound .
Many people who have recovered and are out of hospital , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , have permanent kidney damage .
And we ’ re beginning more and more to realize that , you know , this isn ’ t like having the flu — you get over it , you have a couple weeks where you ’ re still a little shaky , and then , boom , you know , after that period of time , you ’ re A-OK .
This is not like that .
People are having permanent damage .
Even Guillain-Barré syndrome , the neurological partial paralysis syndrome that affects the limbs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
AMY GOODMAN : So , let ’ s talk about the means of prevention and what it means that President Trump has equated wearing a mask with being weak , wearing a mask — and not wearing a mask with being a Trump supporter .
You now have the Republicans , like Mitch McConnell , wearing a mask .
Liz Cheney tweeted her father , Dick Cheney , the former vice president , wearing a mask , saying real men wear masks .
So the Republican Party is getting it , especially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just skyrocket .
But President Trump insists on not wearing a mask and says testing should be slowed down because it just — you find more cases that way , and if you didn ’ t test , you wouldn ’ t find those cases .
LAURIE GARRETT : Look , Amy , let ’ s be clear .
This whole situation in the United States is a failure to develop a federal strategy .
So we have no real overarching strategic plan that creates a webbing between the various states so that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where states are competing against each other or undercutting one another , as is now the case and has been for months now .
And the problem is that without a federal strategic plan and without real , genuine federal targets , the president is simply using the whole COVID issue to coincide with his reelection needs .
So , he doesn ’ t think he gets reelected if he appears on camera all the time wearing a mask .
He doesn ’ t think that ’ s a good look for a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ across like a real winner , like somebody who built the economy and conquered the virus and made life better again for Americans .
What does the mask imply ?
Well , it implies there ’ s a threat out there , and that threat hasn ’ t been conquered by the fearless leader .
I just feel that the president has — you know , maybe three , four months ago , it was possible to say , “ Well , maybe there ’ s more to this than the president ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some strategic issues in the background that we don ’ t know about , that the White House is considering.
” But this far down the road , looking at the situation in Texas , in Arizona , in Florida , in Arkansas , in Oklahoma , in South Carolina — we can go down the list — it ’ s 30 states on the rise , with at least 10 of them really spectacularly on the rise .
AMY GOODMAN : So , can you explain why masks are so important ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the beginning , perhaps they were playing it down because the country didn ’ t have enough masks even for the healthcare workers .
But why the simple process of putting on a mask can mean that you ’ re saving tens of thousands of lives across the country ?
And then talk about : Do you think states , like Florida , California , Texas , Arizona , should be shutting down , sheltering in place ?
They had defied the CDC guidelines , Florida and California , not only to a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to flatten the curve , rather , but to wait a few weeks to see that the rate was going down .
LAURIE GARRETT : Early in the epidemic , when we thought this was a very similar virus to SARS , I actually said you don ’ t need to wear a mask outdoors .
It didn ’ t work for SARS .
It won ’ t work for this .
It ’ s really not relevant .
But I ’ ve learned my lesson , and I think the whole entire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lesson .
You know , back in February and early March , we didn ’ t realize how deeply contagious this virus is .
And it ’ s contagious in two ways that involve your mask , wearing a mask .
The first is the kind of propellant that comes from coughing or sneezing and [ coughs ] , and you ’ re creating a plosive , sort of propelling droplets forward .
In that situation , the droplets may actually be visible to the naked eye ; they may not even be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , they will go out , but they ’ re contained within heavy water droplets , so gravity takes over , and they fall to the ground .
The much worse , which is what ’ s carried by asymptomatic carriers and people with very mild infections , involves no coughing , involves just normal patterns of speech , as I am doing right now , involves normal breathing , involves the kind of slightly accelerated breathing that comes with being a jogger or having some kind of exercise .
And in those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in microscopic-size water droplets that can not be seen , and they are not as gravitationally affected .
They will go outwards and linger and get caught in air streams and move around within an enclosed space for hours and hours and hours on end .
And in that way , you , as an individual walking without a mask on into a store , into a restaurant , into a friend ’ s house , and standing there having normal speech , are basically contaminating the atmosphere of the space .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or it ’ s not a good air flow-through space , the contamination will remain for a considerable amount of time .
So , you don ’ t even know you ’ re infected .
You don ’ t know you ’ re a carrier .
You have no particular symptoms .
You ’ re 25 years old .
You feel fearless .
What could possibly threaten you ?
But you just managed to threaten a whole group of people you got in contact with .
I mean , Amy , you probably @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Harper ’ s bar in East Lansing , Michigan .
They opened up when Michigan started opening up .
It was legal , what they were doing .
The bar was a very popular hot spot in that college town , packed with twenty-somethings .
Everybody took their masks off , you know , or they had them dangling from one ear , you know , as like a fashion statement .
A lot of drinking .
And now , last count , more than 80 people have been contact traced to having @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bar .
Well , the only way to deal with that situation is to shut the whole bar down , disinfect the entire place , open all the windows , put fans in , blow the place clean .
And this is what we ’ re dealing with all over the entire United States now , is situations where people refuse to wear a mask .
They take it as a political — you know , “ Don ’ t tread on me , baby .
I have a right in America .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to do.
” Well , it ’ s true .
I can ’ t tell you .
I can ’ t walk in and make you put on your seatbelt , unless I ’ m a cop .
I can ’ t make you wear a motorcycle helmet , unless I ’ m a cop .
But both of those are things that affect only you .
You know , everybody in your car won ’ t die because you didn ’ t wear a seatbelt , but you will die .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re asking you to be a good citizen and give a damn about the people around you .
And if you can ’ t do that , if you can ’ t manage to care about them the way you would , say , with secondhand smoking , or you would with various kinds of pollution that you might use , pesticide you spray on your front lawn as the wind blows it into your neighbor ’ s windows — if this is your attitude — your neighbors can just go ahead and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ killing ants on your front lawn — then you ’ re not a good American , and you ’ re not a good Christian , and you ’ re not a good spiritual being .
You ’ re a jerk .
AMY GOODMAN : The issue of testing .
While President Trump says everyone can get a test , I have a friend right here who just got a test , took seven days to get the results of that test .
There is no way to make plans or to operate in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ takes that long , if you ’ re lucky enough to get one .
In Texas , people waited hours and hours and hours .
In Arizona , the lines were off the charts just to get one test .
But , in fact , public health professionals are saying you should be getting many tests as you try to reopen the country .
What is wrong ?
Why aren ’ t they spending — they spend a trillion dollars on bailouts for the wealthiest people in the United States .
What about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Oh dear , this is so complicated .
Those of you who haven ’ t already may want to go online and watch the segment on last night ’ s 60 Minutes about why all the antibody tests are a mess .
These are the tests , sometimes called serology tests , that measure whether you ever have been infected , not whether you are right now .
And then the nucleic acid tests are meant to determine whether you have virus in your body at this moment .
The FDA has essentially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hands and let the market get flooded with garbage .
There are so many tests out there that just simply don ’ t work or give completely inaccurate , unreliable results , that states have spent millions and millions of dollars buying bogus products , because , again , we have no federal strategy , no federal system of being a gatekeeper in determining which tests really work and then distributing them as needed to the states .
So the states have been in this Wild Wild West situation of competing against not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with less than honest , shady dealers in places like southern China or in the Philippines and all over the world , and being sold just utter crap .
AMY GOODMAN : So , how can that be turned around ?
LAURIE GARRETT : Well , you need a federal government that gives a darn about taking the reins in this epidemic .
And I ’ m sorry , but this government shows absolutely no signs of doing so .
AMY GOODMAN : Laurie Garrett , I want to thank you so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Prize-winning science writer , former senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations .
When we come back , we ’ ll look at the police killing of Elijah McClain , a 23-year-old African American massage therapist who was attacked almost a year ago by Aurora , Colorado , police , as he said to them , “ I ’ m an introvert .
I ’ m different.
” We ’ ll speak with his family ’ s attorney .
Stay with us .
AMY GOODMAN : Violinists Ashanti Floyd @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Justice for Elijah McClain protest over the weekend in Aurora , Colorado , a violin vigil because Elijah played the violin .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Coronavirus cases have now topped 10 million worldwide, with more than a half-million deaths. Brazil, second only to the United States in the number of cases and deaths, registered its highest number of infections in a week, as protests this weekend denounced the right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the crisis.
On Friday, the United States reported the highest number of new cases in a single day since the start of the pandemic, as cases continue to surge. Confirmed infections have now topped 2.6 million in the United States, with over 126,000 reported deaths — a quarter of the deaths and infections in the world, though the U.S. has only under 5% of the world population — this all amidst worsening outbreaks in Florida, Texas and Arizona. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar warned the U.S. needs to act immediately.
HHS SECRETARY ALEX AZAR: The window is closing. We have to act. And people, as individuals, have to act responsibly. We need to social distance. We need to wear our face coverings if we’re in settings where we can’t social distance, particularly in these hot zones.
AMY GOODMAN: Despite this one warning, this dire warning, Secretary Azar defended President Trump in the same interview for his refusal to wear a mask, since Trump is regularly tested. During an appearance with Texas Governor Greg Abbott in Dallas, Vice President Mike Pence changed course from previous remarks and said, quote, “Wearing a mask is a good idea.” During the same visit, he attended a Dallas church Sunday, where he wore a mask as he sat in the front row as a choir of over a hundred people performed unmasked. Choruses are known as superspreading events. Over 2,000 people attended the event, many also not wearing a mask. On Friday, Pence touted the nation’s, quote, “truly remarkable progress,” even as the U.S. reported a record 40,000 new cases in the previous 24 hours. He also commented on new data showing an increase in young people becoming infected.
VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: Inarguably, as we see where we are today as a nation, because of what the American people have done, because of the incredible work of our healthcare workers, because of a partnership with governors in every state, we did just that. We slowed the spread. We flattened the curve. We saved lives. …
And we hear this in Florida, we hear this in Texas and elsewhere, is that roughly half of the new cases are Americans under the age of 35, which is, at a certain level, very encouraging news, as the experts tell us, because, as we know so far, in this pandemic, that younger Americans are less susceptible to serious outcomes of the coronavirus. And the fact that we are finding more younger Americans who have contracted the coronavirus is a good thing.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we’re joined by Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer, former senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, author of a number of books, including Ebola: Story of an Outbreak and The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance, as well as Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health.
Laurie, welcome back to Democracy Now! There’s so much to unpack here. You have Vice President Pence speaking at the first public briefing of the coronavirus task force with the scientists, Birx and Fauci, on Friday, after two months not saying people should wear masks, talking about the “remarkable progress” of the United States, and then, on Sunday, after enormous criticism, finally wearing a mask in Dallas. Just talk about the state we are in. The globe has topped 10 million cases — a quarter of them are in the United States — as well as a half a million deaths — and again, a quarter of them are in the United States, when we have just over 4% of the population.
LAURIE GARRETT: Amy, I was thinking about that I think the first time I was on this show talking about COVID-19, it didn’t have a name yet. We just said “the coronavirus” or “Wuhan virus” at the time. And it was February, and I told you that best-case scenario was we would get out of this in 36 months. Well, it’s been — what? — five months since then, and I do think we have at least three years ahead of us.
This has just been a massive case of denial, of idiotic government policy, of the lack of any strategic planning, any really specific strategic goal. And I’m not just speaking of the United States. Almost the entire world has screwed this up. Even in Europe, where they’ve managed to bring their epidemic down after great pain and suffering, and in places like Japan, where they never really had a serious spike because they took such excellent, proactive steps, the whole world’s efforts and all the sacrifices that people have made elsewhere in the world are imperiled by our out-of-control pandemic.
And as you said, we represent about a quarter of the entire global burden. If you add in the next big three — Brazil, India and Russia — you make up half of the entire global total of this pandemic. And what that means is that unless we control our efforts in our country and in those other three, the whole world gets imperiled by reinfection and reinfection and reinfection, coming from American travelers, Brazilian travelers, Indian travelers, Russian travelers.
So we have a duty not just to ourselves and to Americans, that we hopefully care about, senior Americans in nursing homes we hopefully care about, but we have a duty to the whole planet, and in particular to countries that don’t have the resources we have, that don’t have the capacity to conquer their own outbreaks, whether they’re desperately poor or they lack an entire infrastructure of health or both. So, Amy, we’re in very, very dire straits right now.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk about what has to be done. You have that quote of the vice president talking about young people. At the beginning, there was no sense of what was happening to young people, because everyone was told to shelter at home, and it was the sickest people and the dying who were going to the hospital. But now there’s much more chance, though there was in places like Germany and China to get information from them, to learn about what’s happening to young people and the spike in the infections in young people. And when you address this, if you can talk about the different kinds of effects? You’ve got the respiratory effects that we all know about, lungs filling up, that can be seen, but then you also have what looks like the vascular effects, kids stroking out, you know, having strokes, getting blood clots. Talk about the two different ways of presenting, and what this means.
LAURIE GARRETT: Well, it’s more than two, Amy, actually. This virus affects the entire body. And the more we look at it and the longer we have this epidemic go on, so that we see more and more cases, it’s looking like just about every single organ system in the entire human body is affected by this virus, directly or indirectly.
I think because the initial presentations in China were all about pneumonia, we tended to think of it as a respiratory disease, but really profoundly, it’s a cardiovascular disease. The entire cardiovascular system is affected by infection with this virus. And we’re beginning to understand that some people who have seemingly asymptomatic or very mild infections may in fact have long-lasting problems in their bodies that result from having been exposed to the virus, so that it’s a whole host of factors.
I mean, we know the virus can infect the brain. And the long-standing repercussions of a neurological infection can be quite profound, including long-term depression, loss of smell, loss of taste, certain hearing problems, visual problems and certain kinds of cognitive issues.
We see the entire blood vascular system is affected. Blood vessels can be constricting. You can see people having strokes, having tachycardia events, having a host of different issues related to plaque buildup or not. Interestingly, taking statins seems to be helpful, so that implies that some of the same mechanism that are involved with cholesterol buildup and plaque formation as a contributor to heart disease may somehow have a similar role with this virus.
And the renal problems, the kidney problems, are really profound. Many people who have recovered and are out of hospital, after weeks of struggling with this virus, have permanent kidney damage.
And we’re beginning more and more to realize that, you know, this isn’t like having the flu — you get over it, you have a couple weeks where you’re still a little shaky, and then, boom, you know, after that period of time, you’re A-OK. This is not like that. People are having permanent damage. Even Guillain-Barré syndrome, the neurological partial paralysis syndrome that affects the limbs, has turned up with this virus.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk about the means of prevention and what it means that President Trump has equated wearing a mask with being weak, wearing a mask — and not wearing a mask with being a Trump supporter. You now have the Republicans, like Mitch McConnell, wearing a mask. Liz Cheney tweeted her father, Dick Cheney, the former vice president, wearing a mask, saying real men wear masks. So the Republican Party is getting it, especially as Florida and Texas, their numbers just skyrocket. But President Trump insists on not wearing a mask and says testing should be slowed down because it just — you find more cases that way, and if you didn’t test, you wouldn’t find those cases.
LAURIE GARRETT: Look, Amy, let’s be clear. This whole situation in the United States is a failure to develop a federal strategy. So we have no real overarching strategic plan that creates a webbing between the various states so that we don’t have a situation where states are competing against each other or undercutting one another, as is now the case and has been for months now.
And the problem is that without a federal strategic plan and without real, genuine federal targets, the president is simply using the whole COVID issue to coincide with his reelection needs. So, he doesn’t think he gets reelected if he appears on camera all the time wearing a mask. He doesn’t think that’s a good look for a president who’s trying to come across like a real winner, like somebody who built the economy and conquered the virus and made life better again for Americans. What does the mask imply? Well, it implies there’s a threat out there, and that threat hasn’t been conquered by the fearless leader.
I just feel that the president has — you know, maybe three, four months ago, it was possible to say, “Well, maybe there’s more to this than the president’s reelection. Maybe there’s some strategic issues in the background that we don’t know about, that the White House is considering.” But this far down the road, looking at the situation in Texas, in Arizona, in Florida, in Arkansas, in Oklahoma, in South Carolina — we can go down the list — it’s 30 states on the rise, with at least 10 of them really spectacularly on the rise.
AMY GOODMAN: So, can you explain why masks are so important? It may be obvious, but at the beginning, perhaps they were playing it down because the country didn’t have enough masks even for the healthcare workers. But why the simple process of putting on a mask can mean that you’re saving tens of thousands of lives across the country? And then talk about: Do you think states, like Florida, California, Texas, Arizona, should be shutting down, sheltering in place? They had defied the CDC guidelines, Florida and California, not only to a plateau, to flatline, but — to flatten the curve, rather, but to wait a few weeks to see that the rate was going down.
LAURIE GARRETT: Early in the epidemic, when we thought this was a very similar virus to SARS, I actually said you don’t need to wear a mask outdoors. It didn’t work for SARS. It won’t work for this. It’s really not relevant. But I’ve learned my lesson, and I think the whole entire medical and scientific community have learned a lesson.
You know, back in February and early March, we didn’t realize how deeply contagious this virus is. And it’s contagious in two ways that involve your mask, wearing a mask. The first is the kind of propellant that comes from coughing or sneezing and [coughs], and you’re creating a plosive, sort of propelling droplets forward. In that situation, the droplets may actually be visible to the naked eye; they may not even be microscopic. But the good news is, they will go out, but they’re contained within heavy water droplets, so gravity takes over, and they fall to the ground.
The much worse, which is what’s carried by asymptomatic carriers and people with very mild infections, involves no coughing, involves just normal patterns of speech, as I am doing right now, involves normal breathing, involves the kind of slightly accelerated breathing that comes with being a jogger or having some kind of exercise. And in those situations, you’re propelling virus in microscopic-size water droplets that cannot be seen, and they are not as gravitationally affected. They will go outwards and linger and get caught in air streams and move around within an enclosed space for hours and hours and hours on end. And in that way, you, as an individual walking without a mask on into a store, into a restaurant, into a friend’s house, and standing there having normal speech, are basically contaminating the atmosphere of the space. And as long as their windows are closed or it’s not a good air flow-through space, the contamination will remain for a considerable amount of time. So, you don’t even know you’re infected. You don’t know you’re a carrier. You have no particular symptoms. You’re 25 years old. You feel fearless. What could possibly threaten you? But you just managed to threaten a whole group of people you got in contact with.
I mean, Amy, you probably have been following the case of the Harper’s bar in East Lansing, Michigan. They opened up when Michigan started opening up. It was legal, what they were doing. The bar was a very popular hot spot in that college town, packed with twenty-somethings. Everybody took their masks off, you know, or they had them dangling from one ear, you know, as like a fashion statement. A lot of drinking. And now, last count, more than 80 people have been contact traced to having COVID directly because they went to that bar. Well, the only way to deal with that situation is to shut the whole bar down, disinfect the entire place, open all the windows, put fans in, blow the place clean.
And this is what we’re dealing with all over the entire United States now, is situations where people refuse to wear a mask. They take it as a political — you know, “Don’t tread on me, baby. I have a right in America. You can’t tell me what to do.” Well, it’s true. I can’t tell you. I can’t walk in and make you put on your seatbelt, unless I’m a cop. I can’t make you wear a motorcycle helmet, unless I’m a cop. But both of those are things that affect only you. You know, everybody in your car won’t die because you didn’t wear a seatbelt, but you will die.
But this is a situation where we’re asking you to be a good citizen and give a damn about the people around you. And if you can’t do that, if you can’t manage to care about them the way you would, say, with secondhand smoking, or you would with various kinds of pollution that you might use, pesticide you spray on your front lawn as the wind blows it into your neighbor’s windows — if this is your attitude — your neighbors can just go ahead and have that pesticide because you felt like killing ants on your front lawn — then you’re not a good American, and you’re not a good Christian, and you’re not a good spiritual being. You’re a jerk.
AMY GOODMAN: The issue of testing. While President Trump says everyone can get a test, I have a friend right here who just got a test, took seven days to get the results of that test. There is no way to make plans or to operate in a way of opening up when it takes that long, if you’re lucky enough to get one. In Texas, people waited hours and hours and hours. In Arizona, the lines were off the charts just to get one test. But, in fact, public health professionals are saying you should be getting many tests as you try to reopen the country. What is wrong? Why aren’t they spending — they spend a trillion dollars on bailouts for the wealthiest people in the United States. What about tests and masks?
LAURIE GARRETT: Oh dear, this is so complicated. Those of you who haven’t already may want to go online and watch the segment on last night’s 60 Minutes about why all the antibody tests are a mess. These are the tests, sometimes called serology tests, that measure whether you ever have been infected, not whether you are right now. And then the nucleic acid tests are meant to determine whether you have virus in your body at this moment.
The FDA has essentially, you know, thrown up its hands and let the market get flooded with garbage. There are so many tests out there that just simply don’t work or give completely inaccurate, unreliable results, that states have spent millions and millions of dollars buying bogus products, because, again, we have no federal strategy, no federal system of being a gatekeeper in determining which tests really work and then distributing them as needed to the states. So the states have been in this Wild Wild West situation of competing against not only other states, but other countries, with less than honest, shady dealers in places like southern China or in the Philippines and all over the world, and being sold just utter crap.
AMY GOODMAN: So, how can that be turned around?
LAURIE GARRETT: Well, you need a federal government that gives a darn about taking the reins in this epidemic. And I’m sorry, but this government shows absolutely no signs of doing so.
AMY GOODMAN: Laurie Garrett, I want to thank you so much for being with us, Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer, former senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
When we come back, we’ll look at the police killing of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old African American massage therapist who was attacked almost a year ago by Aurora, Colorado, police, as he said to them, “I’m an introvert. I’m different.” We’ll speak with his family’s attorney. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Violinists Ashanti Floyd and Lee England Jr. joining others at a Justice for Elijah McClain protest over the weekend in Aurora, Colorado, a violin vigil because Elijah played the violin.


democracynow--2020-07-02--Did the Army Ignore a Soldier's Murder? Questions Mount over Vanessa Guillén Disappearance

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The Quarantine Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , as we turn now to the devastating story of Vanessa Guillén , the missing 20-year-old Fort Hood soldier , whose family said Wednesday her remains were likely found in a shallow grave near the Texas Army base Tuesday , ending a painful search that began months earlier when Guillén first went missing April 22nd .
The Army said Wednesday one suspect is in custody @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her as the estranged wife of a former soldier at Fort Hood , that suspect .
A second suspect in the case , a soldier who has not yet been named , took his own life in Killeen , Texas , as officers approached him Tuesday .
This news comes after months of anguish for Vanessa Guillén ’ s family , who say she was sexually harassed by a higher-up prior to her disappearance and that the military was slow to investigate when she went missing .
Family members gathered in Washington , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Vanessa and to ask Congress to launch an independent investigation into the young soldier ’ s death .
Vanessa ’ s sister Lupe addressed the crowd .
AMY GOODMAN : Mayra Guillén , Vanessa Guillén ’ s older sister , also addressed reporters , saying she had met the suspect that reportedly died by suicide Tuesday when she first visited the military base after her sister ’ s disappearance .
AMY GOODMAN : And this is Vanessa Guillén ’ s mother Gloria speaking at an emotional news conference last week outside Fort Hood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ AMY GOODMAN : Leaders in Fort Hood are holding a news conference on Vanessa Guillén ’ s disappearance this afternoon .
Well , for more , we go to Washington , D.C. , where we ’ re joined by Vanessa ’ s family attorney , Natalie Khawam .
We welcome you to Democracy Now !
An incredibly emotional news conference yesterday , the family driving from Texas to Washington , D.C. And it ’ s only there that they learn , after months of demands , that the Army says they found remains @ @ @ @ @ @ @ understand happened to Vanessa , Natalie Khawam ?
NATALIE KHAWAM : Khawam .
Sure .
Thank you .
Yes , we understand that Vanessa was murdered by Aaron Robinson , and he took her body over to that shallow gravesite , where he buried her .
And unfortunately , they just found her remains a couple days ago .
They are going to confirm this in the next 48 to 72 hours .
However , witness statements , and the accomplice to this murder has discussed how it was done , and they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because they also have her hair .
AMY GOODMAN : So , can you explain what — can you explain what Vanessa was saying , leading up to her disappearance , her concerns , the very person who she said was harassing her ?
NATALIE KHAWAM : Sure .
The person that was harassing her , this Aaron Robinson , this was her sergeant .
And he had — she was taking a shower one time , and she was in the women ’ s locker room , and he walked in and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was showering .
She saw him , and she said , “ Please leave .
This makes me very uncomfortable.
” You know , she didn ’ t know how to report it .
She did report it to her family .
She reported it to her friends .
She even reported it to the soldiers on base .
When they asked , “ Why don ’ t you report it to , you know , your commander or sergeants and stuff ?
” and she just said that it wouldn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it , because she was afraid to lose her job .
They would demote her .
And she knew of other instances where they did not take those reports seriously , and that would make her life more difficult on the base .
AMY GOODMAN : And he ’ s the one who took his own life on Tuesday when they approached him ?
NATALIE KHAWAM : That ’ s correct .
They had him on the base .
They told him not to leave .
And he ran on foot .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ information .
I sat with the CID and the general last night , ’ til 8 p.m. last night , and learned a lot of the details as to what occurred .
But we understand it was two hours later , after he took off , that they were able to find him in the parking lot , and he took his life .
AMY GOODMAN : And who is in custody then ?
NATALIE KHAWAM : This is his accomplice .
AMY GOODMAN : And who is she ?
AMY GOODMAN : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long ?
You hear the emotional news conference of her mother outside Fort Hood — of course , Fort Hood named for a Confederate general , but a massive base in Texas .
You ’ ve been pushing for answers now for months .
Was it the cry of the family to say , “ We want an independent congressional investigation , ” and actually coming to Washington , D.C. , that forced the base to actually look for these remains , ultimately finding them , most likely ?
NATALIE KHAWAM : Yeah @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a lot of noise to be heard , unfortunately , because her death , it seemed like they took that as just another person , you know , another person that is missing on Fort Hood , another person that is sexually harassed .
They did not take this case seriously .
When I got into this case , I went head first , and I said , “ This is not right .
You are not being transparent .
You had opportunities , more than once , to give me answers .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to give me answers , I will get the answers , but you ’ re not going to like the way I get them.
” And we did what we had to do .
I told the family , “ Get here to D.C. ” They drove over .
And unfortunately , right when we got to D.C. — when they got to D.C. , they found out that they found Vanessa ’ s body .
And last night , they told us a lot more information .
And at this point now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a congressional investigation .
This should not happen .
Families who let their loved ones go and join the military , they let them to go join the military because they want to serve the country .
They don ’ t go there to get sexually harassed or sexually assaulted .
NATALIE KHAWAM : They surely don ’ t go there to go missing .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Hawaii congressmember , former Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard , speaking at the news conference yesterday in Washington , D.C. AMY GOODMAN : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , if you can talk about something you also mentioned yesterday at the news conference , talking about the scores of people who have died at Fort Hood ?
In fact , as they were looking for the remains of Natalie [ sic ] , they found other bones ?
NATALIE KHAWAM : The remains of Vanessa ?
Yes .
They found — AMY GOODMAN : The remains of Vanessa , sorry .
NATALIE KHAWAM : No problem .
I get it a lot .
They found Gregory Morales , who was another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I tell you , within the last couple years , there have been several incidences of soldiers killed on the base , missing on the base .
There is major human trafficking going on at that base .
There ’ s sex — I mean , there is a ring of sex prostitution rings .
I mean , I ’ m reading and learning , and I get phone calls .
My original area of law is whistleblowing law .
And , you know , thank God for all the people ; I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when I took on this case , I learned so much about Fort Hood , and people contacting me and giving me hints , information , examples , videos , and saying , “ I want you to see what goes on on this base.
” And , you know , it ’ s devastating .
It ’ s devastating to know that our soldiers are on that base and they ’ re so unsafe .
Yesterday , when I was meeting with a general and I asked him about cameras , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cameras .
I said , “ You ’ re going to tell me that this base , that got shot up a few years ago , has no cameras ?
” He said , “ That ’ s correct.
” And I said , “ Really ?
Because I ’ m going to tell you , one of my insiders took the FaceTime and took me through the base and showed me cameras.
” And he said that they were not operational .
I almost fell over .
I said , “ So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ security ?
” Fake cameras .
I don ’ t know what to say other than that base needs to be looked into .
They need a congressional investigation .
This young woman , who signed up to serve our country , should not have gone missing .
You can ’ t tell me that there ’ s no cameras , that we couldn ’ t see what had happened , how he murdered her , because there ’ s no cameras .
Unacceptable .
AMY GOODMAN : Lupe , her younger sister @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shut down .
If you can talk about the protests outside Killeen right now , and also the whole issue of the family finding out about the bones , you said , from the media , not from the military ?
She ’ s a soldier .
NATALIE KHAWAM : That ’ s correct .
I got a text from the Post , and — “ Have you seen — have you heard about the bones ?
” I thought , “ What are they talking about ?
This is for Morales .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ week old , ” because , you know , they ’ re always on top of everything .
And I said , “ What are you talking about ?
You ’ re talking about Morales ?
It was from over the weekend.
” “ No , it seems like it was a few hours ago.
” “ Are you sure ?
” “ Yeah , a few hours ago.
” I immediately call Tim Miller , who is part of EquuSearch , and I said , “ Do you know anything about this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , her body .
We were walking on her body the whole entire time.
” I almost fell over .
How do you talk to your client about this ?
Like , I am getting phone calls from reporters before I ’ m getting phone calls from the CID , before I ’ m getting phone calls from the base .
It ’ s really disheartening .
It just really makes you think , “ Does anyone give a damn ?
” What is going on in our society ?
How is this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I want to thank you for being with us , the attorney for the family of Vanessa Guillén , the missing Fort Hood soldier whose remains , they believe , have been found in a shallow grave near the Army installation in Texas .
That does it for our show .
I thank you so much for joining us .
Have a safe holiday .
Tomorrow , a Democracy Now !
special with Cornel West and Angela Davis .
Remember , stay safe and wear that mask .
I ’ m Amy @ @ @ @ @ @ @

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we turn now to the devastating story of Vanessa Guillén, the missing 20-year-old Fort Hood soldier, whose family said Wednesday her remains were likely found in a shallow grave near the Texas Army base Tuesday, ending a painful search that began months earlier when Guillén first went missing April 22nd.
The Army said Wednesday one suspect is in custody in connection with her disappearance, describing her as the estranged wife of a former soldier at Fort Hood, that suspect. A second suspect in the case, a soldier who has not yet been named, took his own life in Killeen, Texas, as officers approached him Tuesday.
This news comes after months of anguish for Vanessa Guillén’s family, who say she was sexually harassed by a higher-up prior to her disappearance and that the military was slow to investigate when she went missing.
Family members gathered in Washington, D.C., Wednesday to demand justice for Vanessa and to ask Congress to launch an independent investigation into the young soldier’s death. Vanessa’s sister Lupe addressed the crowd.
LUPE GUILLÉN: My sister, Vanessa Guillén, was sexually harassed. … They didn’t keep my sister safe. They always try to cover up for each other. Why? My sister’s a human, too. She deserves respect. She deserves to be heard. Because if this can happen to my sister, it can happen to anyone else. … How can this happen on a military base? How can this happen while she was on duty? … They don’t care about us. My sister is an example of it. My sister did not deserve to suffer. My sister did not deserve this.
AMY GOODMAN: Mayra Guillén, Vanessa Guillén’s older sister, also addressed reporters, saying she had met the suspect that reportedly died by suicide Tuesday when she first visited the military base after her sister’s disappearance.
MAYRA GUILLÉN: I really can’t speak on what my family feels at the moment. My mom, she couldn’t make it. She is feeling really ill. … They lied to us since day one. When I first went up to that base, that subject, I met him. Not knowing that he had something to do with it, I felt — something was telling me that he did something. And I wasn’t wrong, apparently. He still had the nerve, that same day, to laugh in my face.
AMY GOODMAN: And this is Vanessa Guillén’s mother Gloria speaking at an emotional news conference last week outside Fort Hood Army base in Killeen, Texas.
GLORIA GUILLÉN: [translated] They took too long in searching for my daughter. I begged them since the beginning to search for my daughter. From the beginning, I demanded for this base to shut down, so that the more than 30,000 soldiers here would search for my daughter. And they did nothing. … I demand justice, and I demand respect for me and my daughter. … Because, God forbid, if my daughter is found dead, I will shut down this base. I will move heavens and oceans, and this base will be shut down, because this base is decayed. They say this is the best place. The best place for what? To kidnap and rape? This is not fair!
AMY GOODMAN: Leaders in Fort Hood are holding a news conference on Vanessa Guillén’s disappearance this afternoon.
Well, for more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Vanessa’s family attorney, Natalie Khawam.
We welcome you to Democracy Now! An incredibly emotional news conference yesterday, the family driving from Texas to Washington, D.C. And it’s only there that they learn, after months of demands, that the Army says they found remains. Can you talk about what you understand happened to Vanessa, Natalie Khawam?
NATALIE KHAWAM: Khawam. Sure. Thank you. Yes, we understand that Vanessa was murdered by Aaron Robinson, and he took her body over to that shallow gravesite, where he buried her. And unfortunately, they just found her remains a couple days ago. They are going to confirm this in the next 48 to 72 hours. However, witness statements, and the accomplice to this murder has discussed how it was done, and they believe that this is her remains, because they also have her hair.
AMY GOODMAN: So, can you explain what — can you explain what Vanessa was saying, leading up to her disappearance, her concerns, the very person who she said was harassing her?
NATALIE KHAWAM: Sure. The person that was harassing her, this Aaron Robinson, this was her sergeant. And he had — she was taking a shower one time, and she was in the women’s locker room, and he walked in and sat down and watched her while she was showering. She saw him, and she said, “Please leave. This makes me very uncomfortable.”
You know, she didn’t know how to report it. She did report it to her family. She reported it to her friends. She even reported it to the soldiers on base. When they asked, “Why don’t you report it to, you know, your commander or sergeants and stuff?” and she just said that it wouldn’t work. She was afraid to report it, because she was afraid to lose her job. They would demote her. And she knew of other instances where they did not take those reports seriously, and that would make her life more difficult on the base.
AMY GOODMAN: And he’s the one who took his own life on Tuesday when they approached him?
NATALIE KHAWAM: That’s correct. They had him on the base. They told him not to leave. And he ran on foot. I understand — yesterday, we learned more information. I sat with the CID and the general last night, ’til 8 p.m. last night, and learned a lot of the details as to what occurred. But we understand it was two hours later, after he took off, that they were able to find him in the parking lot, and he took his life.
AMY GOODMAN: And who is in custody then?
NATALIE KHAWAM: This is his accomplice.
AMY GOODMAN: And who is she?
NATALIE KHAWAM: His girlfriend.
AMY GOODMAN: So, why did it take this long? You hear the emotional news conference of her mother outside Fort Hood — of course, Fort Hood named for a Confederate general, but a massive base in Texas. You’ve been pushing for answers now for months. Was it the cry of the family to say, “We want an independent congressional investigation,” and actually coming to Washington, D.C., that forced the base to actually look for these remains, ultimately finding them, most likely?
NATALIE KHAWAM: Yeah, I think we had to make a lot of noise to be heard, unfortunately, because her death, it seemed like they took that as just another person, you know, another person that is missing on Fort Hood, another person that is sexually harassed. They did not take this case seriously.
When I got into this case, I went head first, and I said, “This is not right. You are not being transparent. You had opportunities, more than once, to give me answers. And since you’re not going to give me answers, I will get the answers, but you’re not going to like the way I get them.”
And we did what we had to do. I told the family, “Get here to D.C.” They drove over. And unfortunately, right when we got to D.C. — when they got to D.C., they found out that they found Vanessa’s body. And last night, they told us a lot more information.
And at this point now, you know, we are demanding a congressional investigation. This should not happen. Families who let their loved ones go and join the military, they let them to go join the military because they want to serve the country. They don’t go there to get sexually harassed or sexually assaulted.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Hawaii —
NATALIE KHAWAM: They surely don’t go there to go missing.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Hawaii congressmember, former Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, speaking at the news conference yesterday in Washington, D.C.
REP. TULSI GABBARD: We stand here for Vanessa, stand here for justice, and we stand here for every other servicemember who has experienced sexual harassment or assault and did not feel safe reporting it, out of fear of retaliation. … I know and understand how critical it is for our young troops, our young soldiers, to have trust in and faith in their chain of command, which is why these acts of abuse and harassment coming from within that chain of command are so destructive and have such a devastating impact on a young soldier.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Tulsi Gabbard. Natalie Khawam, if you can talk about something you also mentioned yesterday at the news conference, talking about the scores of people who have died at Fort Hood? In fact, as they were looking for the remains of Natalie [sic], they found other bones?
NATALIE KHAWAM: The remains of Vanessa? Yes. They found —
AMY GOODMAN: The remains of Vanessa, sorry.
NATALIE KHAWAM: No problem. I get it a lot.
They found Gregory Morales, who was another soldier that went missing last year. I tell you, within the last couple years, there have been several incidences of soldiers killed on the base, missing on the base. There is major human trafficking going on at that base. There’s sex — I mean, there is a ring of sex prostitution rings.
I mean, I’m reading and learning, and I get phone calls. My original area of law is whistleblowing law. And, you know, thank God for all the people; I have eyes and ears everywhere. But when I took on this case, I learned so much about Fort Hood, and people contacting me and giving me hints, information, examples, videos, and saying, “I want you to see what goes on on this base.” And, you know, it’s devastating. It’s devastating to know that our soldiers are on that base and they’re so unsafe.
Yesterday, when I was meeting with a general and I asked him about cameras, they said they didn’t have any cameras. I said, “You’re going to tell me that this base, that got shot up a few years ago, has no cameras?” He said, “That’s correct.” And I said, “Really? Because I’m going to tell you, one of my insiders took the FaceTime and took me through the base and showed me cameras.” And he said that they were not operational. I almost fell over. I said, “So, we now have fake cameras as security?” Fake cameras.
I don’t know what to say other than that base needs to be looked into. They need a congressional investigation. This young woman, who signed up to serve our country, should not have gone missing. You can’t tell me that there’s no cameras, that we couldn’t see what had happened, how he murdered her, because there’s no cameras. Unacceptable.
AMY GOODMAN: Lupe, her younger sister, called for the base to be shut down. If you can talk about the protests outside Killeen right now, and also the whole issue of the family finding out about the bones, you said, from the media, not from the military? She’s a soldier.
NATALIE KHAWAM: That’s correct. I got a text from the Post, and — “Have you seen — have you heard about the bones?” I thought, “What are they talking about? This is for Morales. This is, you know, a week old,” because, you know, they’re always on top of everything. And I said, “What are you talking about? You’re talking about Morales? It was from over the weekend.” “No, it seems like it was a few hours ago.” “Are you sure?” “Yeah, a few hours ago.”
I immediately call Tim Miller, who is part of EquuSearch, and I said, “Do you know anything about this bones?” “Oh, yeah, her body. We were walking on her body the whole entire time.” I almost fell over.
How do you talk to your client about this? Like, I am getting phone calls from reporters before I’m getting phone calls from the CID, before I’m getting phone calls from the base. It’s really disheartening. It just really makes you think, “Does anyone give a damn?” What is going on in our society? How is this happening?
AMY GOODMAN: Natalie Khawam, I want to thank you for being with us, the attorney for the family of Vanessa Guillén, the missing Fort Hood soldier whose remains, they believe, have been found in a shallow grave near the Army installation in Texas.
That does it for our show. I thank you so much for joining us. Have a safe holiday. Tomorrow, a Democracy Now! special with Cornel West and Angela Davis. Remember, stay safe and wear that mask. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.


democracynow--2020-07-02--Barbara Ransby on the Biden Problem: Social Movements Must Defeat Trump & Also Hold Dems Accountable

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
I ’ m Amy Goodman .
This is The Quarantine Report .
As the antiracist uprising and movement to defund police continues across the country , President Trump called the phrase “ Black Lives Matter ” a “ symbol of hate ” Wednesday .
He made the charge in a tweet attacking New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio ’ s plan to paint “ Black Lives Matter ” in huge , large letters on Fifth Avenue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ city ’ s plan is , quote , “ denigrating this luxury Avenue.
” This came just days after the president approvingly retweeted a video Sunday of a man in The Villages retirement community in Florida shouting “ white power ” at antiracist protesters .
Trump shared the video with the caption , “ Thank you to the great people of The Villages .
The Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats will Fall in the Fall , ” unquote .
The man who shouted “ white power ” was driving a golf cart with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its windshield .
The video was removed from Trump ’ s Twitter feed about three hours later .
Meanwhile , Trump is also doubling down on his defense of the statues of racists , slave owners and colonizers that protesters have been pulling down across the country .
Last week , he signed an executive order to prosecute people who deface federal monuments , and withhold federal funds from cities that don ’ t protect the statues .
On Tuesday , he tweeted he would veto any bill that renames military bases named @ @ @ @ @ @ @ others .
In the same tweet , he called Senator Elizabeth Warren “ Pocahontas.
” Cherokee writer Rebecca Nagle tweeted , quote , “ Just a reminder that when Trump calls Warren Pocahontas the person being harmed isn ’ t the white woman who spent most of her adult life falsely claiming to have Native 'heritage ' .
It ’ s Native people , especially the Powhatan.
” Well , our next guest , a fierce advocate of Black Lives Matter , says that while we must defeat Trump in November , we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That ’ s the focus of professor Barbara Ransby ’ s latest piece for In These Times headlined “ Our Biden Problem.
” In it , she writes , quote , “ [ I ] f Biden is nobody ’ s dream , Trump is a nightmare .
… Do we hold our noses yet again and support a candidate so grossly out of sync with our values , or do we sit on the sidelines and let an aspiring fascist hold power ?
” Barbara Ransby is a historian , author @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Black Lives .
Her latest book , Making All Black Lives Matter : Reimagining Freedom in the 21st Century .
Welcome back to Democracy Now !
, Professor Ransby .
AMY GOODMAN : As Joe Biden came out this week in Delaware to give a speech blasting Trump ’ s approach to the coronavirus , if you can talk about the decision that people have to make in November , and what you ’ ve decided ?
BARBARA RANSBY : Right .
Well , thank you for having me again .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s a difficult discussion .
And , you know , I will vote for Joe Biden , essentially as a way to vote against Trump .
But I think we need to be sober and clear about what we ’ re doing and why we ’ re doing it .
I think it would be false to become cheerleaders for Joe Biden , and I think that ’ s a lot of what electoral politics sort of trains us to do .
You know , we have to defend our guy at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ usually a guy — and we have to mute criticisms .
But I think people are tired of being lied to by politicians and by people who organize for politicians .
And I think it ’ s fair to say that Joe Biden is not our dream candidate , by any means , to gear ourselves up to both defeat Trump , but also to hold Joe Biden accountable for the progressive agenda that is in motion right now .
I think the other lesson in this is that — you know , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think this one is probably the most important of our lives , and I don ’ t think anyone should sit it out .
I don ’ t think we have that luxury .
So let me be clear about that .
But what this moment also teaches us is that people in the street are voting for a certain agenda that whoever is elected is going to have to contend with .
Now , as much as Trump is championing his racism and trying to mobilize his base around racist ideas , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Minneapolis to New York to L.A. , under one of the most racist presidents that this country has seen .
So , I think , in the same way that a movement arose under Barack Obama , even though that was a very different kind of historic presidential administration , we also see this movement , and movement including a lot of white people , rising up under Trump and actually moving the needle on progressive change .
So , we should be critical of Joe Biden .
We should be ready to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But we should be clear about the need to defeat Trump in November .
I think we can hold both of those things .
AMY GOODMAN : On Wednesday , Trump tweeted , ” NYC is cutting Police $ 's by ONE BILLION DOLLARS , and yet the @ NYCMayor is going to paint a big , expensive , yellow Black Lives Matter sign on Fifth Avenue , denigrating this luxury Avenue .
… Maybe our GREAT Police , who have been neutralized and scorned by a mayor who hates & disrespects them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hate be affixed to New York ’ s greatest street.
” Can you talk about President Trump referring to Black Lives Matter as a “ symbol of hate ” ?
BARBARA RANSBY : Yeah , it ’ s just one of a litany of outrages coming from President Trump .
It ’ s said to be provocative .
It ’ s said to be insulting .
It ’ s said to be denigrating .
And it ’ s not surprising , sadly , because the mantra of his administration has been to stoke @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
To say that “ Black lives matter ” — an affirming statement — is insulting is just to underscore how little Black lives actually matter to him .
But what I also want to say about that , you know , there ’ s been the occupation at City Hall in New York , Nelini Stamp and a number of wonderful young activists who have been leading protests all across this country , including in New York City .
The statement “ Black lives matter ” is the beginning of a conversation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a conversation .
So , I think the artists who have done murals all across the country , the beautiful illustration in Washington , D.C. , which not only wrote “ Black Lives Matter , ” but then activists came along and wrote , in the same font , in the same-sized letters , “ Defund the Police ” — you know , there ’ s a very specific message there about defunding police but also funding our people .
And so , there ’ s push around participatory budgeting .
There @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the kinds of social programs that have been defunded over the years , that are causing such suffering among our people .
AMY GOODMAN : As a growing movement calls for defunding the police , Joe Biden is pushing to increase police budgets .
In an op-ed for USA Today , he called for 300 million more dollars to go toward so-called community policing .
Biden wrote , quote , “ I do not support defunding police .
The better answer is to give police departments the resources they need to implement meaningful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dollars on completing those reforms.
” Earlier this month — last month , Biden faced criticism for remarks he made about police training , during a meeting with African American community leaders at Bethel AME Church in Wilmington , Delaware .
This is what he said .
AMY GOODMAN : Police should shoot him in the leg .
Professor Ransby ?
BARBARA RANSBY : Right .
I mean , Biden is so out of touch on this question and many others .
It ’ s really depressing .
What we can hope for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is surrounded by people smarter and more committed and clearer than he is .
And I hope that that will be true .
I think he can also be pushed .
I mean , I was heartened by the unity task forces that were set up several weeks ago with people like AOC and Pramila Jayapal and others , Sara Nelson .
I was very heartened by that .
I don ’ t know what ’ s happened to those task forces .
I see the new DNC Platform Committee is not inclusive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yeah , I mean , that ’ s extremely out of touch .
You know , Mariame Kaba wrote a brilliant piece in The New York Times a couple weeks ago , really one of our former Chicago activists , now in New York , but who has done so much research , along with Angela Davis and Ruthie Gilmore and others , around abolition , both of prisons and police .
And she lays out the case that many of the reforms , and including bloating police budgets , have only pulled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more both dangerous and incompetent interventions in situations where other skills and other interventions are necessary .
So , I don ’ t know that Biden has read that literature , but I don ’ t really think it ’ s a question of education .
I think he has to be pushed with enormous resolve and enormous force by the movement that ’ s growing , that people want defunding and want funding of other kinds of services and interventions in our communities .
AMY GOODMAN : Let me ask you about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ want to first go to Jamaal Bowman , the former middle school principal , who defeated New York Congressmember Eliot Engel , the 16-term Foreign Affairs Committee chair , in an upset victory in last week ’ s primary .
Bowman ran on a Green New Deal , Medicare for All platform , recently joined protests demanding an end to racism and police brutality .
Yesterday , he spoke about his win and campaign tactics on Democracy Now !
AMY GOODMAN : So , you have the apparent victory of Bowman here in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kentucky , former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath has been declared the winner over the progressive state Representative Charles Booker in last week ’ s closely watched Democratic Senate primary .
McGrath received 45.4 % of the vote ; Booker received 42.6 % .
It was incredibly close , even though McGrath outspent Booker by a margin of 10 to 1 .
Booker ’ s popularity soaring in recent weeks as he took part in Black Lives Matter protests and spoke against police violence .
McGrath will now go on to face Senate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So , can you talk about what ’ s happening in these races around the country ?
BARBARA RANSBY : Right .
I think that ’ s really important when we talk about electoral work , Amy .
I mean , Booker ’ s near win , even though it wasn ’ t an absolute win , is significant and shouldn ’ t be undermined or shouldn ’ t be minimized .
Sometimes we see wins as absolute .
So , the fact that he was able to garner so much momentum , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speaks to potential future wins , particularly in the South .
Now , Jamaal Bowman , you know , what a great candidate .
I mean , if we could clone more people like him — former middle school principal , humble guy , smart , courageous , really not afraid to take a stand around progressive issues , including foreign policy issues like Palestine , which is often so controversial for politicians , so difficult for politicians to take a principled stand in support of Palestine .
So I think that is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , several years — a couple years ago , we were able to elect nine progressives , several socialists , to the City Council , and they have been able to create space for all kinds of discourse that simply wouldn ’ t have been possible otherwise .
We haven ’ t had the kind of wins that we want to have just yet , but there are a lot of things in the works , and those city councilpeople are working — those alderpeople are working closely with movement activists .
So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ballot , when we look elections at the local level , there is really cause for hope .
And I also want to say , these are not just triumphant individuals who emerge out of nowhere .
I want to give props to Justice Democrats , I want to give props to the Working Families Party , both of which endorsed Jamaal Bowman .
I also want to give props to the Electoral Justice Project , people like Kayla Reed and Jessica Byrd , coming out of the Movement for Black Lives , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and really pushed a lot of us on the left to take the electoral work more seriously , to be ambitious for certain kinds of wins .
So , I think while the Democratic Party is still wedded to corporate interests , there is a left flank in the Democratic Party .
We ’ ll see how that plays out over time .
But people are pushing for victories small and large , and I think Jamaal Bowman ’ s victory is a large one .
AMY GOODMAN : Barbara Ransby , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us , historian , author , activist adviser to the Movement for Black Lives .
Thanks so much for joining us .
When we come back , we look at the disappearance and likely murder of Vanessa Guillén , a 20-year-old soldier at Fort Hood last seen in April .
There have been arrests .
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. This is The Quarantine Report. As the antiracist uprising and movement to defund police continues across the country, President Trump called the phrase “Black Lives Matter” a “symbol of hate” Wednesday. He made the charge in a tweet attacking New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio’s plan to paint “Black Lives Matter” in huge, large letters on Fifth Avenue near Trump Tower. Trump said the city’s plan is, quote, “denigrating this luxury Avenue.”
This came just days after the president approvingly retweeted a video Sunday of a man in The Villages retirement community in Florida shouting “white power” at antiracist protesters. Trump shared the video with the caption, “Thank you to the great people of The Villages. The Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats will Fall in the Fall,” unquote. The man who shouted “white power” was driving a golf cart with a “Trump 2020” sign on its windshield. The video was removed from Trump’s Twitter feed about three hours later.
Meanwhile, Trump is also doubling down on his defense of the statues of racists, slave owners and colonizers that protesters have been pulling down across the country. Last week, he signed an executive order to prosecute people who deface federal monuments, and withhold federal funds from cities that don’t protect the statues. On Tuesday, he tweeted he would veto any bill that renames military bases named after Confederate General Robert E. Lee or others.
In the same tweet, he called Senator Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas.” Cherokee writer Rebecca Nagle tweeted, quote, “Just a reminder that when Trump calls Warren Pocahontas the person being harmed isn’t the white woman who spent most of her adult life falsely claiming to have Native 'heritage'. It’s Native people, especially the Powhatan.”
Well, our next guest, a fierce advocate of Black Lives Matter, says that while we must defeat Trump in November, we also have to organize against Joe Biden. That’s the focus of professor Barbara Ransby’s latest piece for In These Times headlined “Our Biden Problem.” In it, she writes, quote, “[I]f Biden is nobody’s dream, Trump is a nightmare. … Do we hold our noses yet again and support a candidate so grossly out of sync with our values, or do we sit on the sidelines and let an aspiring fascist hold power?” Barbara Ransby is a historian, author and activist adviser to the Movement for Black Lives. Her latest book, Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the 21st Century.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Professor Ransby.
BARBARA RANSBY: Thanks, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: As Joe Biden came out this week in Delaware to give a speech blasting Trump’s approach to the coronavirus, if you can talk about the decision that people have to make in November, and what you’ve decided?
BARBARA RANSBY: Right. Well, thank you for having me again. It’s an important discussion, and it’s a difficult discussion. And, you know, I will vote for Joe Biden, essentially as a way to vote against Trump. But I think we need to be sober and clear about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. I think it would be false to become cheerleaders for Joe Biden, and I think that’s a lot of what electoral politics sort of trains us to do. You know, we have to defend our guy at all costs — and it’s usually a guy — and we have to mute criticisms. But I think people are tired of being lied to by politicians and by people who organize for politicians. And I think it’s fair to say that Joe Biden is not our dream candidate, by any means, to gear ourselves up to both defeat Trump, but also to hold Joe Biden accountable for the progressive agenda that is in motion right now.
I think the other lesson in this is that — you know, presidential elections are important, and I think this one is probably the most important of our lives, and I don’t think anyone should sit it out. I don’t think we have that luxury. So let me be clear about that. But what this moment also teaches us is that people in the street are voting for a certain agenda that whoever is elected is going to have to contend with. Now, as much as Trump is championing his racism and trying to mobilize his base around racist ideas, we are still making wins, from Minneapolis to New York to L.A., under one of the most racist presidents that this country has seen. So, I think, in the same way that a movement arose under Barack Obama, even though that was a very different kind of historic presidential administration, we also see this movement, and movement including a lot of white people, rising up under Trump and actually moving the needle on progressive change.
So, we should be critical of Joe Biden. We should be ready to hold Joe Biden accountable come January. But we should be clear about the need to defeat Trump in November. I think we can hold both of those things.
AMY GOODMAN: On Wednesday, Trump tweeted, ”NYC is cutting Police $'s by ONE BILLION DOLLARS, and yet the @NYCMayor is going to paint a big, expensive, yellow Black Lives Matter sign on Fifth Avenue, denigrating this luxury Avenue. … Maybe our GREAT Police, who have been neutralized and scorned by a mayor who hates & disrespects them, won't let this symbol of hate be affixed to New York’s greatest street.” Can you talk about President Trump referring to Black Lives Matter as a “symbol of hate”?
BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah, it’s just one of a litany of outrages coming from President Trump. It’s said to be provocative. It’s said to be insulting. It’s said to be denigrating. And it’s not surprising, sadly, because the mantra of his administration has been to stoke racism. So this is another example. To say that “Black lives matter” — an affirming statement — is insulting is just to underscore how little Black lives actually matter to him.
But what I also want to say about that, you know, there’s been the occupation at City Hall in New York, Nelini Stamp and a number of wonderful young activists who have been leading protests all across this country, including in New York City. The statement “Black lives matter” is the beginning of a conversation; it’s not the end of a conversation. So, I think the artists who have done murals all across the country, the beautiful illustration in Washington, D.C., which not only wrote “Black Lives Matter,” but then activists came along and wrote, in the same font, in the same-sized letters, “Defund the Police” — you know, there’s a very specific message there about defunding police but also funding our people. And so, there’s push around participatory budgeting. There’s push around investment in all the kinds of social programs that have been defunded over the years, that are causing such suffering among our people.
AMY GOODMAN: As a growing movement calls for defunding the police, Joe Biden is pushing to increase police budgets. In an op-ed for USA Today, he called for 300 million more dollars to go toward so-called community policing. Biden wrote, quote, “I do not support defunding police. The better answer is to give police departments the resources they need to implement meaningful reforms, and to condition other federal dollars on completing those reforms.” Earlier this month — last month, Biden faced criticism for remarks he made about police training, during a meeting with African American community leaders at Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Delaware. This is what he said.
JOE BIDEN: The idea that instead of standing there and teaching a cop when there’s an unarmed person coming at him with a knife or something, shooting him in the leg instead of the heart is a very different thing.
AMY GOODMAN: Police should shoot him in the leg. Professor Ransby?
BARBARA RANSBY: Right. I mean, Biden is so out of touch on this question and many others. It’s really depressing. What we can hope for with a Biden administration is that he is surrounded by people smarter and more committed and clearer than he is. And I hope that that will be true.
I think he can also be pushed. I mean, I was heartened by the unity task forces that were set up several weeks ago with people like AOC and Pramila Jayapal and others, Sara Nelson. I was very heartened by that. I don’t know what’s happened to those task forces. I see the new DNC Platform Committee is not inclusive of all those progressive voices.
But yeah, I mean, that’s extremely out of touch. You know, Mariame Kaba wrote a brilliant piece in The New York Times a couple weeks ago, really one of our former Chicago activists, now in New York, but who has done so much research, along with Angela Davis and Ruthie Gilmore and others, around abolition, both of prisons and police. And she lays out the case that many of the reforms, and including bloating police budgets, have only pulled police forces toward more violence, toward more both dangerous and incompetent interventions in situations where other skills and other interventions are necessary.
So, I don’t know that Biden has read that literature, but I don’t really think it’s a question of education. I think he has to be pushed with enormous resolve and enormous force by the movement that’s growing, that people want defunding and want funding of other kinds of services and interventions in our communities.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about these primary victories and losses. I want to first go to Jamaal Bowman, the former middle school principal, who defeated New York Congressmember Eliot Engel, the 16-term Foreign Affairs Committee chair, in an upset victory in last week’s primary. Bowman ran on a Green New Deal, Medicare for All platform, recently joined protests demanding an end to racism and police brutality. Yesterday, he spoke about his win and campaign tactics on Democracy Now!
JAMAAL BOWMAN: We connected with those who have been — who had been mostly disenfranchised and ignored by Congressman Engel in our political system for decades. We wanted to connect with them first. We didn’t just target those who consistently vote in primaries. We targeted everyone. Those who are registered Democrats but have become disengaged from the system, we wanted to let them know that their voices mattered, that they were important, and we needed their brilliance and experience to help us craft the policy that we’re going to be fighting for in Washington.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you have the apparent victory of Bowman here in New York, but then, in Kentucky, former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath has been declared the winner over the progressive state Representative Charles Booker in last week’s closely watched Democratic Senate primary. McGrath received 45.4% of the vote; Booker received 42.6%. It was incredibly close, even though McGrath outspent Booker by a margin of 10 to 1. Booker’s popularity soaring in recent weeks as he took part in Black Lives Matter protests and spoke against police violence. McGrath will now go on to face Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in November. So, can you talk about what’s happening in these races around the country?
BARBARA RANSBY: Right. I think that’s really important when we talk about electoral work, Amy. I mean, Booker’s near win, even though it wasn’t an absolute win, is significant and shouldn’t be undermined or shouldn’t be minimized. Sometimes we see wins as absolute. So, the fact that he was able to garner so much momentum, I think, is really significant and speaks to potential future wins, particularly in the South.
Now, Jamaal Bowman, you know, what a great candidate. I mean, if we could clone more people like him — former middle school principal, humble guy, smart, courageous, really not afraid to take a stand around progressive issues, including foreign policy issues like Palestine, which is often so controversial for politicians, so difficult for politicians to take a principled stand in support of Palestine. So I think that is a major victory.
Here in Chicago, several years — a couple years ago, we were able to elect nine progressives, several socialists, to the City Council, and they have been able to create space for all kinds of discourse that simply wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. We haven’t had the kind of wins that we want to have just yet, but there are a lot of things in the works, and those city councilpeople are working — those alderpeople are working closely with movement activists. So, I think when we look down ballot, when we look elections at the local level, there is really cause for hope.
And I also want to say, these are not just triumphant individuals who emerge out of nowhere. I want to give props to Justice Democrats, I want to give props to the Working Families Party, both of which endorsed Jamaal Bowman. I also want to give props to the Electoral Justice Project, people like Kayla Reed and Jessica Byrd, coming out of the Movement for Black Lives, who have done so much voter education and really pushed a lot of us on the left to take the electoral work more seriously, to be ambitious for certain kinds of wins.
So, I think while the Democratic Party is still wedded to corporate interests, there is a left flank in the Democratic Party. We’ll see how that plays out over time. But people are pushing for victories small and large, and I think Jamaal Bowman’s victory is a large one.
AMY GOODMAN: Barbara Ransby, I want to thank you for being with us, historian, author, activist adviser to the Movement for Black Lives. Thanks so much for joining us.
When we come back, we look at the disappearance and likely murder of Vanessa Guillén, a 20-year-old soldier at Fort Hood last seen in April. There have been arrests. Stay with us.