democracynow--2020-10-21--"Break 'Em Up": As DOJ Targets Google, Zephyr Teachout Urges Breakup of More Big Tech Monopolies

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : The Department of Justice has sued the internet giant Google in a massive antitrust lawsuit that will have major implications for the rest of Big Tech and may even lead to Google ’ s breakup .
Eleven states joined the lawsuit , the largest of its kind against a tech company in more than two decades .
It accuses Google of engaging in illegal practices to maintain a monopoly on the market , including by spending billions of dollars each year on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ appear as the default search engine on handheld devices and browsing services .
Through these practices , Google , quote , “ owns or controls search distribution channels accounting for roughly 80 percent of the general search queries in the United States , ” according to the Department of Justice .
The DOJ complaint reads , in part , quote , “ The Google of today is a monopoly gatekeeper for the internet , and one of the wealthiest companies on the planet … Google has used anticompetitive tactics to maintain and extend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ search services , search advertising , and general search text advertising — the cornerstones of its empire , ” unquote .
The complaint continues , quote , “ Absent a court order , Google will continue executing its anticompetitive strategy , crippling the competitive process , reducing consumer choice , and stifling innovation , ” unquote .
For more , we ’ re joined by Zephyr Teachout , professor of law at Fordham University and author of the new book Break ’ Em Up : Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag , Big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this month , Professor Teachout testified at the Subcommittee on Antitrust , Commercial and Administrative Law Judiciary Committee investigation into competition in digital markets .
Zephyr Teachout , welcome back to Democracy Now !
Can you talk about the significance of this lawsuit and what it means ?
ZEPHYR TEACHOUT : Thank you for having me .
It is an incredibly important lawsuit , and it is clearly just the beginning of what should be a series of both lawsuits at the federal and state level — keep your eyes on the states @ @ @ @ @ @ @ incredible democratic crisis we have of Big Tech really becoming a form of private , for-profit government that is taking over so many parts of our lives .
As you mentioned , it has been decades since we have seen a antitrust case of this kind , not just against Big Tech , but in general .
The last big one , of course , was Microsoft .
And as most people understand , the case against Microsoft was actually essential in leading to the innovations that followed in Silicon Valley .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , you ’ ve seen these Big Tech giants consolidating power and then protecting their power through illegal means .
And what this complaint lays out is now years and years of illegal practices of Google coming to not just dominate , but then illegally protect its monopoly in this area .
And just being a person in the world , you know what a monopoly Google is , that search is an essential part of all of our lives .
It ’ s an essential gateway through which everybody has to pass @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suit comes right after the major report by Cicilline , the House Antitrust Subcommittee report , which really took pretty direct aim at enforcers for their pathetic failure to do their job with existing antitrust laws , and called for Congress to act because of the nature of the democratic crisis we face .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And , Zephyr Teachout , I wanted to ask you about some of the revelations in the complaint , specifically the close ties between some of these tech giants , like Google and Apple , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Google is arguing that the default — that its use of its search as a default on Apple equipment is not a big deal because the user can switch it .
But at the same time , it was revealed that spending $ 8 billion to $ 12 billion — paying Apple $ 8 billion to $ 12 billion a year just to have Google ’ s search be the default on all Apple equipment ?
ZEPHYR TEACHOUT : Yeah .
No , this is a really important revelation .
I mean , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lawsuit where those of us who have been watching this field are saying this suit should have been brought a long time ago .
A lot of Google ’ s behavior is really obvious .
It ’ s obvious there ’ s a monopoly , and it ’ s obvious that it ’ s been using its power to maintain its monopoly , using its contractual power to do so .
Looking at the relationship with Apple is really important , because here you have Google paying Apple .
And I think it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in my book , which is that we are dealing with something akin to Mafia power , where you have a handful of big companies that theoretically compete , but they ’ re also supporting each other in growing their power , and they are effectively competing against democracy .
It ’ s an alternate form of governance .
And so , here you have Apple getting rich off of Google maintaining its monopoly .
And what I think this points to is the importance of people understanding that this suit only is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the beginning .
The Antitrust Subcommittee , Cicilline ’ s investigations , was absolutely revelatory .
And this was a House committee with five staffers going up against these four Big Tech firms .
And we learned about self-dealing behavior on Amazon ’ s part , the way that Apple operates .
And we have enforcers who have just been sitting on the sidelines for decades , kind of acting as if there ’ s something magical about tech , that we — they ’ re acting in two ways .
One is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tech , that if we actually enforce basic laws , then you can ’ t have nice things — tech will go away .
In fact , all of history suggests the opposite , that antitrust is essential for innovation .
And this is something the suit talks about .
But it also shows just how deeply both , honestly , Democrats and Republicans have bought into this really dangerous idea that we don ’ t have an anti-monopoly problem unless you can precisely point to consumer prices going up .
But I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , because I think it ’ s really important to understand how this relates to the moment we ’ re living in .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Well , I wanted to ask — JUAN GONZÁLEZ : I wanted to ask you , though , in terms of this issue of Democrats and Republicans , could you comment about the decision of Attorney General William Barr to bring this lawsuit just before the elections ?
Apparently , many of the lawyers who were working on this case felt that they were not yet ready @ @ @ @ @ @ @ general moved forward .
And also , that there was an investigation of Google back during the Obama years , where , apparently , some Obama-era justice officials felt that they should be moving forward on antitrust , but that didn ’ t happen back then .
Could you talk about how the Republican administration is dealing with it , Trump administration now , and how Obama dealt with it several years back ?
ZEPHYR TEACHOUT : I mean , we had a real revolving door problem with Obama and Google , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Obama years to bring antitrust cases , to be aggressive enforcers .
And this is one of the things the Cicilline report really lays out , is this decades of nonenforcement .
I do think it ’ s important — look , Barr should be impeached .
He should have been impeached a while ago .
He is lawless .
He has undermined the rule of law .
And I have been regularly calling for his impeachment and have zero respect there .
But this is a pretty narrow , slam-dunk case .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ it in partisan terms .
I want to point to the statement of Attorney General Tish James yesterday , a very powerful statement , which is clear that they are going forward with a Google investigation .
And I ’ ll actually be really interested to see if they even expand it beyond what — this kind of pretty narrow , but pretty central claim .
I also want to say something that Amy mentioned that is really important to understand about this case .
When we ’ re talking about remedies , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a search engine which has become basically public infrastructure , but it ’ s profit-seeking , data-mining , privacy-destroying , small-business-crushing public infrastructure ?
What do you do ?
Well , the legal recourse we have under current law is to break it up .
And that is not off the table in this suit .
In fact , structural remedies — when you see structural remedies , that ’ s code for breaking up — is mentioned in the lawsuit .
But one of the things this moment then — this lawsuit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going forward , it pushes the ball back to Congress , because we may decide , you know , we want to have a search engine that we all share ; we just shouldn ’ t have it be profit-seeking , nontransparent , self-serving .
We might want to then move to a public utility model , where you can have a search engine , but the search engine doesn ’ t rely on targeted ads and the sucking up of individual personal and , by the way , political data in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this lawsuit sort of squarely puts Congress in the position to say , “ What kind of public communications infrastructure do we want to have ?
” AMY GOODMAN : Zephyr Teachout , senior vice president of Google affairs , Kent Walker , responded to the lawsuit in an article titled “ A deeply flawed lawsuit that would do nothing to help consumers.
” In it , Walker writes , “ People use Google because they choose to , not because they ’ re forced to , or because they can ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nothing to help consumers .
To the contrary , it would artificially prop up lower-quality search alternatives , raise phone prices , and make it harder for people to get the search services they want to use.
” If you could respond to this and follow through on the earlier point you wanted to make about the real-life harms that are done here ?
ZEPHYR TEACHOUT : Yeah , yeah .
I mean , look , this is — it ’ s not a surprising press release .
It ’ s the same @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It 's basically what Standard Oil was saying .
“ Look , people are choosing us — even though we are forcing our product on those with whom we contract with.
” But I do want to talk about the real-life harms .
What the complaint talks about is the harms to innovation — and that ’ s quite real — and the harms to privacy .
So , if you have — right now if you are angry about how Google is gathering up your data , if you ’ re angry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ basically , it ’ s an ad company ; we call it a search company , but it makes its money through the targeted ad business model — the recourse is to go beg Google to be better .
And we know how well that goes .
So , when you actually have a competitive market , with DuckDuckGo , which is — or Bing or Yahoo actually competing on grounds of saying , “ Hey , we ’ re going to protect your privacy better .
We ’ re going to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t self-serving , isn ’ t based on targeted ads , ” you actually lead to both more innovation and better consumer protection .
The direct harm that the complaint doesn ’ t talk about , though , is that because of Google ’ s monopoly , it charges an enormous amount , outrageous amounts , to people who need to advertise on it .
And that ’ s when we ’ re thinking about the small businesses who are currently struggling right now .
And so those small businesses then , having @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to get known , push that cost onto their workers .
And there ’ s recent research showing that — the ways in which monopoly power is a major driver of inequality .
And that ’ s something that isn ’ t in the suit but we need to understand , is when you have monopoly chokepoints at the center of our economy , they use that power to go suck value out of businesses , who then turn around and push that harm onto workers .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: The Department of Justice has sued the internet giant Google in a massive antitrust lawsuit that will have major implications for the rest of Big Tech and may even lead to Google’s breakup. Eleven states joined the lawsuit, the largest of its kind against a tech company in more than two decades. It accuses Google of engaging in illegal practices to maintain a monopoly on the market, including by spending billions of dollars each year on deals with Apple and other companies to appear as the default search engine on handheld devices and browsing services. Through these practices, Google, quote, “owns or controls search distribution channels accounting for roughly 80 percent of the general search queries in the United States,” according to the Department of Justice.
The DOJ complaint reads, in part, quote, “The Google of today is a monopoly gatekeeper for the internet, and one of the wealthiest companies on the planet … Google has used anticompetitive tactics to maintain and extend its monopolies in the markets for general search services, search advertising, and general search text advertising — the cornerstones of its empire,” unquote.
The complaint continues, quote, “Absent a court order, Google will continue executing its anticompetitive strategy, crippling the competitive process, reducing consumer choice, and stifling innovation,” unquote.
For more, we’re joined by Zephyr Teachout, professor of law at Fordham University and author of the new book Break ’Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money. Earlier this month, Professor Teachout testified at the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law Judiciary Committee investigation into competition in digital markets.
Zephyr Teachout, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you talk about the significance of this lawsuit and what it means?
ZEPHYR TEACHOUT: Thank you for having me.
It is an incredibly important lawsuit, and it is clearly just the beginning of what should be a series of both lawsuits at the federal and state level — keep your eyes on the states — and legislation to deal with this incredible democratic crisis we have of Big Tech really becoming a form of private, for-profit government that is taking over so many parts of our lives.
As you mentioned, it has been decades since we have seen a antitrust case of this kind, not just against Big Tech, but in general. The last big one, of course, was Microsoft. And as most people understand, the case against Microsoft was actually essential in leading to the innovations that followed in Silicon Valley.
But in the last 10, 15 years, you’ve seen these Big Tech giants consolidating power and then protecting their power through illegal means. And what this complaint lays out is now years and years of illegal practices of Google coming to not just dominate, but then illegally protect its monopoly in this area. And just being a person in the world, you know what a monopoly Google is, that search is an essential part of all of our lives. It’s an essential gateway through which everybody has to pass.
And, I mean, this suit comes right after the major report by Cicilline, the House Antitrust Subcommittee report, which really took pretty direct aim at enforcers for their pathetic failure to do their job with existing antitrust laws, and called for Congress to act because of the nature of the democratic crisis we face.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Zephyr Teachout, I wanted to ask you about some of the revelations in the complaint, specifically the close ties between some of these tech giants, like Google and Apple, that — because, on one hand, Google is arguing that the default — that its use of its search as a default on Apple equipment is not a big deal because the user can switch it. But at the same time, it was revealed that spending $8 billion to $12 billion — paying Apple $8 billion to $12 billion a year just to have Google’s search be the default on all Apple equipment?
ZEPHYR TEACHOUT: Yeah. No, this is a really important revelation. I mean, there’s some aspects of this lawsuit where those of us who have been watching this field are saying this suit should have been brought a long time ago. A lot of Google’s behavior is really obvious. It’s obvious there’s a monopoly, and it’s obvious that it’s been using its power to maintain its monopoly, using its contractual power to do so.
Looking at the relationship with Apple is really important, because here you have Google paying Apple. And I think it helps just clarify something that I argued in my book, which is that we are dealing with something akin to Mafia power, where you have a handful of big companies that theoretically compete, but they’re also supporting each other in growing their power, and they are effectively competing against democracy. It’s an alternate form of governance. And so, here you have Apple getting rich off of Google maintaining its monopoly. And what I think this points to is the importance of people understanding that this suit only is the beginning and has to only be the beginning.
The Antitrust Subcommittee, Cicilline’s investigations, was absolutely revelatory. And this was a House committee with five staffers going up against these four Big Tech firms. And we learned about self-dealing behavior on Amazon’s part, the way that Apple operates. And we have enforcers who have just been sitting on the sidelines for decades, kind of acting as if there’s something magical about tech, that we — they’re acting in two ways. One is that there’s something magical about tech, that if we actually enforce basic laws, then you can’t have nice things — tech will go away. In fact, all of history suggests the opposite, that antitrust is essential for innovation. And this is something the suit talks about. But it also shows just how deeply both, honestly, Democrats and Republicans have bought into this really dangerous idea that we don’t have an anti-monopoly problem unless you can precisely point to consumer prices going up.
But I want to talk about the harm here, because I think it’s really important to understand how this relates to the moment we’re living in.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, I wanted to ask —
ZEPHYR TEACHOUT: And I — go ahead.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you, though, in terms of this issue of Democrats and Republicans, could you comment about the decision of Attorney General William Barr to bring this lawsuit just before the elections? Apparently, many of the lawyers who were working on this case felt that they were not yet ready, but for some reason the attorney general moved forward. And also, that there was an investigation of Google back during the Obama years, where, apparently, some Obama-era justice officials felt that they should be moving forward on antitrust, but that didn’t happen back then. Could you talk about how the Republican administration is dealing with it, Trump administration now, and how Obama dealt with it several years back?
ZEPHYR TEACHOUT: I mean, we had a real revolving door problem with Obama and Google, in particular, and a failure during the Obama years to bring antitrust cases, to be aggressive enforcers. And this is one of the things the Cicilline report really lays out, is this decades of nonenforcement.
I do think it’s important — look, Barr should be impeached. He should have been impeached a while ago. He is lawless. He has undermined the rule of law. And I have been regularly calling for his impeachment and have zero respect there.
But this is a pretty narrow, slam-dunk case. And I would be wary of understanding it in partisan terms. I want to point to the statement of Attorney General Tish James yesterday, a very powerful statement, which is clear that they are going forward with a Google investigation. And I’ll actually be really interested to see if they even expand it beyond what — this kind of pretty narrow, but pretty central claim.
I also want to say something that Amy mentioned that is really important to understand about this case. When we’re talking about remedies, what do you do when you have a search engine which has become basically public infrastructure, but it’s profit-seeking, data-mining, privacy-destroying, small-business-crushing public infrastructure? What do you do? Well, the legal recourse we have under current law is to break it up. And that is not off the table in this suit. In fact, structural remedies — when you see structural remedies, that’s code for breaking up — is mentioned in the lawsuit.
But one of the things this moment then — this lawsuit does is, while it’s going forward, it pushes the ball back to Congress, because we may decide, you know, we want to have a search engine that we all share; we just shouldn’t have it be profit-seeking, nontransparent, self-serving. We might want to then move to a public utility model, where you can have a search engine, but the search engine doesn’t rely on targeted ads and the sucking up of individual personal and, by the way, political data in the way that it currently does. So this lawsuit sort of squarely puts Congress in the position to say, “What kind of public communications infrastructure do we want to have?”
AMY GOODMAN: Zephyr Teachout, senior vice president of Google affairs, Kent Walker, responded to the lawsuit in an article titled “A deeply flawed lawsuit that would do nothing to help consumers.” In it, Walker writes, “People use Google because they choose to, not because they’re forced to, or because they can’t find alternatives. This lawsuit would do nothing to help consumers. To the contrary, it would artificially prop up lower-quality search alternatives, raise phone prices, and make it harder for people to get the search services they want to use.” If you could respond to this and follow through on the earlier point you wanted to make about the real-life harms that are done here?
ZEPHYR TEACHOUT: Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, this is — it’s not a surprising press release. It’s the same thing that Microsoft said in '98. It's basically what Standard Oil was saying. “Look, people are choosing us — even though we are forcing our product on those with whom we contract with.”
But I do want to talk about the real-life harms. What the complaint talks about is the harms to innovation — and that’s quite real — and the harms to privacy. So, if you have — right now if you are angry about how Google is gathering up your data, if you’re angry about the way that Google is — basically, it’s an ad company; we call it a search company, but it makes its money through the targeted ad business model — the recourse is to go beg Google to be better. And we know how well that goes. So, when you actually have a competitive market, with DuckDuckGo, which is — or Bing or Yahoo actually competing on grounds of saying, “Hey, we’re going to protect your privacy better. We’re going to do search in a way that isn’t self-serving, isn’t based on targeted ads,” you actually lead to both more innovation and better consumer protection.
The direct harm that the complaint doesn’t talk about, though, is that because of Google’s monopoly, it charges an enormous amount, outrageous amounts, to people who need to advertise on it. And that’s when we’re thinking about the small businesses who are currently struggling right now. And so those small businesses then, having to pay more just to get seen, to get known, push that cost onto their workers. And there’s recent research showing that — the ways in which monopoly power is a major driver of inequality. And that’s something that isn’t in the suit but we need to understand, is when you have monopoly chokepoints at the center of our economy, they use that power to go suck value out of businesses, who then turn around and push that harm onto workers.


democracynow--2020-10-21--Headlines for October 21, 2020

Headlines for October 21, 2020

Security forces in Nigeria opened fire on protesters in Lagos Tuesday as authorities imposed a 24-hour curfew to stem growing demonstrations against police brutality .
There are conflicting accounts of how many protesters were shot .
Amnesty International said it had received “ credible but disturbing evidence ” that protesters had been killed .
One Nigerian police officer told The New York Times that 11 protesters had died .
Dozens of protesters have also been hospitalized .
Some witnesses posted videos on social media where rapid gunfire could be heard .
The killings in Nigeria come two weeks after protests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police known as SARS , the Special Anti-Robbery Squad , which has long been accused of committing torture , murder and extortion .
The killings on Tuesday sparked outrage from Nigerians across the globe .
The soccer star Odion Ighalo , who plays for Manchester United , posted this video online .
Odion Ighalo : “ I ’ m not the kind of guy that talks about politics , but I can ’ t keep quiet anymore for what is going on back home in Nigeria .
I will say , Nigerian government @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world for killing your own citizens , sending military to the streets to kill unharmful protesters because they are protesting for their rights .
It ’ s uncalled for.
” Here in the United States , Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden urged Nigerian authorities to “ cease the violent crackdown on protesters in Nigeria .
”

Security forces in Nigeria opened fire on protesters in Lagos Tuesday as authorities imposed a 24-hour curfew to stem growing demonstrations against police brutality. There are conflicting accounts of how many protesters were shot. Amnesty International said it had received “credible but disturbing evidence” that protesters had been killed. One Nigerian police officer told The New York Times that 11 protesters had died. Dozens of protesters have also been hospitalized. Some witnesses posted videos on social media where rapid gunfire could be heard.
Witness: “Please tell people. Please tell people. People are having to run. They’re shooting at them at the Lekki toll gate. Please tell social media.”
The killings in Nigeria come two weeks after protests began against a branch of the Nigerian police known as SARS, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, which has long been accused of committing torture, murder and extortion. The killings on Tuesday sparked outrage from Nigerians across the globe. The soccer star Odion Ighalo, who plays for Manchester United, posted this video online.
Odion Ighalo: “I’m not the kind of guy that talks about politics, but I can’t keep quiet anymore for what is going on back home in Nigeria. I will say, Nigerian government, you guys are a shame to the world for killing your own citizens, sending military to the streets to kill unharmful protesters because they are protesting for their rights. It’s uncalled for.”
Here in the United States, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden urged Nigerian authorities to “cease the violent crackdown on protesters in Nigeria.”


democracynow--2020-10-23--"It's Criminal": Biden Slams Trump as Gov't Can't Find Parents of 545 Children Separated at Border

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 spend the hour looking at the final presidential debate , after President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden faced off in Nashville , Tennessee , Thursday night .
Moderator Kristen Welker was the first of the moderators in this presidential debate season to ask about immigration .
AMY GOODMAN : We go now to Phoenix , Arizona , to bring Erika @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s advocacy chief at RAICES Action , the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services , also host of the podcast Homeland Insecurity .
As you listen to this discussion , Erika , these 545 children , this has been raised — the government was forced to admit this as groups like the ACLU and others can not find the parents of these children who are still in the United States .
Explain this situation and what Trump has responded .
ERIKA ANDIOLA : Yes .
So , there are still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have not been able to be reunited with their parents .
And we have to remember why that is .
And the reason for that is that the majority of these children were not tracked .
Their parents were actually not tracked by the U.S. government when they were taken away from their parents and from their family members .
And so , what Trump said , and what he claims , that he ’ s taking care of these children , that he wasn ’ t the one who was putting them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he ’ s saying , they ’ re really lies .
And also , I want to make sure that we ’ re not just focused on the cages .
What the cages are , really , is they ’ re these structures that were created by the Border Patrol — which migrants actually call them perreras , which is like dog kennels , right ?
— that are used to hold immigrants or migrants who come , not just the children , but also individuals , adults and families , when they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to make sure that that doesn ’ t happen anymore .
And yes , that was there under the Obama administration and even before that .
What Trump did was that he literally created a policy called “ zero tolerance , ” which took children away from their families at the border so that they would send the message — that ’ s what Trump would say , and his administration — to other migrants so that they wouldn ’ t come anymore into the United States .
And so , “ zero @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump , and he is not owning up to that .
He did it , and these children are still trying to figure out how to find their parents , and the United States is not doing enough to be able to make that happen .
AMY GOODMAN : I want to go back to debate moderator Kristen Welker of NBC , again , the first to raise in the presidential debates the issue of immigration .
AMY GOODMAN : Erika Andiola , if you can respond to the Obama-Biden record and also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ release ” ?
Trump falsely said only 1 % of people show up for immigration hearings .
It ’ s something like 75 % .
ERIKA ANDIOLA : That ’ s correct .
There is a lot there .
And the first thing I ’ ll say is that it is something that I found really positive to hear Biden say that they made a mistake .
I think they made many mistakes , and let ’ s just be clear on that .
It wasn ’ t just that they didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ You know , that needed Congress to pass , and they didn ’ t push hard enough .
But also , in the meantime , they created a deportation system and a detention system that now has been used and even made worse by Donald Trump .
And so , I want to make sure that that is said , because we have to fix both mistakes if Biden is elected .
We have to make sure that we are , yes , pushing Congress to have a path to citizenship for undocumented @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same time , that we are dismantling this deportation and detention machine that was really strengthened by the Obama administration and now terribly used by the Trump administration .
Now , with Trump saying this , you know , with “ catch and release , ” with everything that he ’ s now pointing back to the Obama administration , well , he has made all of this even worse .
And the fact is that what he ’ s done right now with asylum seekers is completely inhumane .
Now we have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for migrants .
And so , what you have is people who are stuck now in Mexico waiting because of “ Remain in Mexico ” policy , or MPP , who are now camping in tents on the other side of the border with their children and now dealing with COVID .
They can ’ t get in .
And like you said , the majority of people who are allowed to come , who are allowed to share their story of why they need to be in this country , seeking asylum @ @ @ @ @ @ @ go see a judge , they show up .
We know this .
Our attorneys represent these migrants and immigrants , and we know that they show up and that we show up to court when we have to do it .
We just need to be given the chance .
And Trump has completely dismantled that .
AMY GOODMAN : I want to end with an exchange between Trump and Biden on combating climate change .
AMY GOODMAN : I wanted to bring Rashad Robinson of Color of Change PAC back into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of climate crisis .
RASHAD ROBINSON : I thought it was a big step for Biden to be so clear .
I know his campaign is walking back some aspects of it , but the larger piece , to speak so clearly on the stage about oil .
And then you have Donald Trump on the other end , at every turn , not actually , like , issuing a belief about anything , but speaking specifically to states , talking about the strategy .
It ’ s sort of what he does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seeing the result of a lot of work and effort and activism , of pushing the Democratic Party , of raising the stakes on what we are facing in terms of climate and in terms of what has been allowed by major corporations , to be able to pollute our environment , and particularly to be able to put so much pollution right at the back door of Black and Brown communities .
AMY GOODMAN : And , Erika Andiola , you tweeted last night that you grew up near an ExxonMobil plant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about .
Ten seconds .
ERIKA ANDIOLA : We do .
And again , as the pandemic right now shows , every time that there ’ s something happening in the environment , something that is happening outside of our control , people of color , communities of color , Black communities , Native American communities , undocumented people , are the ones who suffer the most .
And so we need to make sure that , yes , climate change is at the top of the agenda of the next president .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t know what Biden is going to do , but at this point we know what Trump has not done and what he has done .
So we ’ ve got to — AMY GOODMAN : We have to leave it there .
Erika Andiola — AMY GOODMAN : — and Rashad Robinson , thanks so much .
I ’ m Amy Goodman .
Special thanks to Julie Crosby .

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 spend the hour looking at the final presidential debate, after President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden faced off in Nashville, Tennessee, Thursday night. Moderator Kristen Welker was the first of the moderators in this presidential debate season to ask about immigration.
KRISTEN WELKER: The United States can’t locate the parents of more than 500 children. So, how will these families ever be reunited?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Their children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they’re brought here, and they used to use them to get into our country. We now have as strong a border as we’ve ever had. We’re over 400 miles of brand-new wall. You see the numbers. And we let people in, but they have to come in legally. And they come in through —
KRISTEN WELKER: But how will you reunite these kids with their families, Mr. President?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But let me just tell you. Let me just tell you. They built cages. You know, they used to say I built the cages. And then they had a picture in a certain newspaper, and it was a picture of these horrible cages, and they said, “Look at these cages. President Trump built them.” And then it was determined they were built in 2014. That was him. They built cages.
KRISTEN WELKER: Do you have a plan to reunite the kids with their families?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yes, we’re working on it very — we’re trying very hard. But a lot of these kids come out without the parents. They come over through cartels and through coyotes and through gangs.
KRISTEN WELKER: Vice President Biden, let me bring you into this conversation.
JOE BIDEN: Those 525 —
KRISTEN WELKER: Quick response, and then another question to you.
JOE BIDEN: These 500-plus kids came with parents. They separated them at the border to make it a disincentive to come to begin with. “Be real tough. We’re really strong.” And guess what. They cannot — it’s not coyotes, didn’t bring them over. Their parents were with them. They got separated from their parents. And it makes us a laughingstock and violates every notion of who we are as a nation.
KRISTEN WELKER: Let me ask you a follow-up question.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Kristen, they did it. We changed the policy.
KRISTEN WELKER: Your response to that?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They did it. We changed —
JOE BIDEN: We did not separate the —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They built the cages. They — who built the cages, Joe?
JOE BIDEN: Let’s talk about what we’re talking about.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Who built the cages, Joe?
JOE BIDEN: Let’s talk about what we’re talking about. What happened? Parents were ripped — their kids were ripped from their arms and separated. And now they cannot find over 500 of sets of those parents, and those kids are alone, nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. It’s criminal. It’s criminal.
KRISTEN WELKER: Let me ask you about immigration.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Kristen, I will say this.
KRISTEN WELKER: Ten seconds, and then I need to ask a question.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They went down. We brought reporters, everything. They are so well taken care of.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Phoenix, Arizona, to bring Erika Andiola into this conversation. She’s advocacy chief at RAICES Action, the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, also host of the podcast Homeland Insecurity.
As you listen to this discussion, Erika, these 545 children, this has been raised — the government was forced to admit this as groups like the ACLU and others cannot find the parents of these children who are still in the United States. Explain this situation and what Trump has responded.
ERIKA ANDIOLA: Yes. So, there are still kids here in the United States who have not been able to be reunited with their parents. And we have to remember why that is. And the reason for that is that the majority of these children were not tracked. Their parents were actually not tracked by the U.S. government when they were taken away from their parents and from their family members. And so, what Trump said, and what he claims, that he’s taking care of these children, that he wasn’t the one who was putting them in cages, all these things that he’s saying, they’re really lies.
And also, I want to make sure that we’re not just focused on the cages. What the cages are, really, is they’re these structures that were created by the Border Patrol — which migrants actually call them perreras, which is like dog kennels, right? — that are used to hold immigrants or migrants who come, not just the children, but also individuals, adults and families, when they first cross the border. We need to make sure that that doesn’t happen anymore. And yes, that was there under the Obama administration and even before that.
What Trump did was that he literally created a policy called “zero tolerance,” which took children away from their families at the border so that they would send the message — that’s what Trump would say, and his administration — to other migrants so that they wouldn’t come anymore into the United States. And so, “zero tolerance” policy was created by Donald Trump, and he is not owning up to that. He did it, and these children are still trying to figure out how to find their parents, and the United States is not doing enough to be able to make that happen.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to debate moderator Kristen Welker of NBC, again, the first to raise in the presidential debates the issue of immigration.
KRISTEN WELKER: Mr. Vice President, the Obama administration did fail to deliver immigration reform, which had been a key promise during the administration. It also presided over record deportations, as well as family detentions at the border, before changing course. So why should voters trust you with an immigration overhaul now?
JOE BIDEN: Because we made a mistake. It took too long to get it right. Took too long to get it right. I’ll be president of the United States, not vice president of the United States. And the fact is, I’ve made it very clear: Within a hundred days, I’m going to send to the United States Congress a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people. And all of those so-called DREAMers, those DACA kids, they’re going to be immediately certified again to be able to stay in this country and put on a path to citizenship. …
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: He had eight years to do what he said he was going to do. And I’ve changed.
JOE BIDEN: We did.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Without having a specific, we got rid of “catch and release.” We got rid of a lot of horrible things that they put in and that they lived with. But he had eight years he was vice president. He did nothing, except build cages to keep children in.
KRISTEN WELKER: Vice President Biden, your response?
JOE BIDEN: Wrong. The “catch and release,” you know what he’s talking about there? If, in fact, you had a family come across and they were arrested, they in fact were given a date to show up for their hearing. They were released. And guess what. They showed up for a hearing. And this is the first president in the history of the United States of America that anybody seeking asylum has to do it in another country. That’s never happened before in America.
AMY GOODMAN: Erika Andiola, if you can respond to the Obama-Biden record and also this whole issue of “catch and release”? Trump falsely said only 1% of people show up for immigration hearings. It’s something like 75%.
ERIKA ANDIOLA: That’s correct. There is a lot there. And the first thing I’ll say is that it is something that I found really positive to hear Biden say that they made a mistake. I think they made many mistakes, and let’s just be clear on that. It wasn’t just that they didn’t do immigration reform right away. You know, that needed Congress to pass, and they didn’t push hard enough. But also, in the meantime, they created a deportation system and a detention system that now has been used and even made worse by Donald Trump. And so, I want to make sure that that is said, because we have to fix both mistakes if Biden is elected. We have to make sure that we are, yes, pushing Congress to have a path to citizenship for undocumented people, but also, at the same time, that we are dismantling this deportation and detention machine that was really strengthened by the Obama administration and now terribly used by the Trump administration.
Now, with Trump saying this, you know, with “catch and release,” with everything that he’s now pointing back to the Obama administration, well, he has made all of this even worse. And the fact is that what he’s done right now with asylum seekers is completely inhumane. Now we have literally almost dismantled the entire asylum process for migrants. And so, what you have is people who are stuck now in Mexico waiting because of “Remain in Mexico” policy, or MPP, who are now camping in tents on the other side of the border with their children and now dealing with COVID. They can’t get in. And like you said, the majority of people who are allowed to come, who are allowed to share their story of why they need to be in this country, seeking asylum, and are given the chance to go see a judge, they show up. We know this. Our attorneys represent these migrants and immigrants, and we know that they show up and that we show up to court when we have to do it. We just need to be given the chance. And Trump has completely dismantled that.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to end with an exchange between Trump and Biden on combating climate change.
JOE BIDEN: I have a transition from the oil industry, yes. … It has to be replaced by renewable energy over time. Over time. And I’d stop giving to the oil industry. I’d stop giving them federal subsidies. You won’t get federal subsidies to the gas — excuse me, to solar and wind.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah.
JOE BIDEN: Why are we giving it to the oil industry?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We actually do —
KRISTEN WELKER: All right.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: — give it to solar and wind.
KRISTEN WELKER: We have one final question.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And that’s maybe the biggest statement. …
KRISTEN WELKER: Mr. President?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: He is going to destroy the oil industry. Will you remember that, Texas? Will you remember that, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma?
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Rashad Robinson of Color of Change PAC back into this. Thirty-second response on the issue of climate crisis.
RASHAD ROBINSON: I thought it was a big step for Biden to be so clear. I know his campaign is walking back some aspects of it, but the larger piece, to speak so clearly on the stage about oil. And then you have Donald Trump on the other end, at every turn, not actually, like, issuing a belief about anything, but speaking specifically to states, talking about the strategy. It’s sort of what he does.
I do think that we are seeing the result of a lot of work and effort and activism, of pushing the Democratic Party, of raising the stakes on what we are facing in terms of climate and in terms of what has been allowed by major corporations, to be able to pollute our environment, and particularly to be able to put so much pollution right at the back door of Black and Brown communities.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Erika Andiola, you tweeted last night that you grew up near an ExxonMobil plant. You know what frontline communities are about. Ten seconds.
ERIKA ANDIOLA: We do. And again, as the pandemic right now shows, every time that there’s something happening in the environment, something that is happening outside of our control, people of color, communities of color, Black communities, Native American communities, undocumented people, are the ones who suffer the most. And so we need to make sure that, yes, climate change is at the top of the agenda of the next president. And, you know, we don’t know what Biden is going to do, but at this point we know what Trump has not done and what he has done. So we’ve got to —
AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there. Erika Andiola —
ERIKA ANDIOLA: Yeah. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: — and Rashad Robinson, thanks so much. I’m Amy Goodman. Special thanks to Julie Crosby.


democracynow--2020-10-23--Biden Admits Past Mistake Supporting Crime Bill as Trump Defends Attacks on Black Lives Matter

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org .
I ’ m Amy Goodman .
This is The Quarantine Report , as we continue to cover the final presidential debate .
President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden sparred Thursday on their records over race and criminal justice .
Let ’ s turn to debate moderator Kristen Welker of NBC .
AMY GOODMAN : We ’ re joined right now by Rashad Robinson , spokesperson for Color of Change PAC .
Welcome @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Your response to what they ’ re saying there and overall to the debate ?
RASHAD ROBINSON : You know , I mean , I think one of the things , that when these conversations happen about race , we oftentimes sort of hear a whole bunch of disparities , or we hear candidates trying to talk about what they ’ re going to do for the community .
And , you know , that , I think , is helpful to some extent , but I think that what we ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I hope we can see more from the Democrats is actually really leaning into how racial justice is not just about what you ’ re going to do for the community .
Racial justice is also a strategy about how we actually win on the wide range of things that we can win on , from healthcare to climate to so much more , because part of the problems of why we don ’ t have the things that we need in this country is because of systems set up around racial inequality @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just follow the ball that Donald Trump lays down about sort of the sort of racism that ’ s at the heart of his campaign , some of the sort of racial enabling and racism that ’ s at the heart of the Republican Party .
We know all of that .
What are we going to actually do to motivate people not just to hate Trump , but to love the other side in return ?
I think that ’ s going to be the ongoing task , not just about winning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s about having the power to actually overcome the barriers that oftentimes stand in the way of moving us forward on the issues that impact sort of the climate around race , that impact Black and Brown communities every single day .
AMY GOODMAN : Can you talk about COVID when it comes to the African American community , when it comes to communities of color all over this country , the disproportionate effect ?
RASHAD ROBINSON : Yeah , I mean , I think that this is part of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how we need to unlock the power of racial justice , right ?
So , when we talk about COVID , we will hear folks say Black folks are dying .
But , in fact , Black folks are being killed by government action , by corporate power , by an insurance industry .
When we talk about the structural issues that impact Black communities in a passive voice , rather than an active voice , we spend all of our time talking about how do we fix Black people and Black families @ @ @ @ @ @ @ harm and hurt as .
I mean , we do this across the board , whether it ’ s saying Black people are less likely to get a loan from the bank , instead of actually saying banks are less likely to give loans to Black people .
And so , when we talk about COVID , it ’ s not that COVID , the disease itself , is racist .
It ’ s that America is racist , and the structures and the systems that we have set up have simply exposed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ talk about these problems in a passive voice , when we talk about these things like it ’ s just happening to the community , not that the poverty and inequality and racism is part of a manufactured structure , that there ’ s corporate power and other systems at every turn benefiting from the sort of impact of these decisions , then we end up sort of really focused on treating communities like they are vulnerable rather than actually treating communities like they ’ ve been targeted , attacked , exploited .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ different set of solutions when we talk about the structural problems in an active voice rather than a passive voice , because when we talk about it in an active voice , we actually focus on solving the problems at hand rather than trying to fix people .
AMY GOODMAN : I wanted to talk about , for a moment , the debate moderator .
Kristen Welker is the first woman of color , the first African American woman to preside over , to moderate a presidential debate since Carol Simpson did in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these last weeks , President Trump went after her viciously , tweeting against her .
Yesterday he released the 60 Minutes interview before 60 Minutes released it .
He was interviewed by Lesley Stahl and then walked out of it .
And he attacked Lesley Stahl .
And then he said , and Kristen Welker is even worse .
RASHAD ROBINSON : Yeah , I mean , you know , and then you saw him on stage sort of playing and saying nice things to her before and after .
This is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump .
I mean , and I think part of what we have to recognize is all the ways he ’ s been able to do this his whole career .
I saw a clip going around yesterday of sort of an interview that he had with Connie Chung years ago , and then the things that he said about her afterwards , right ?
This is a president that got here because so many folks enabled him .
He was on NBC ’ s platform , on Celebrity Apprentice , once a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he was going around the country spreading a racist conspiracy theory about President Obama and was allowed to continue to have that platform .
And when that happens , we sort of lower the standards of what ’ s acceptable and create sort of a situation where some of these things are just allowed as acceptable part of the debate .
But the thing I want to say about the debate moderator , Kristen Welker , is that I think that she really leaned in in a way that we did not see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she followed up .
She really used the opportunity to press both candidates on the issues and try to get them to answer the question .
And for folks who are activists out there listening , for people who have been showing up to protest and showing up to raise their voice , whether it ’ s online or offline , in this moment , I think activism was on the stage in a very interesting way .
And I think that ’ s important , because we haven ’ t had town @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had the sort of opportunities to question the candidates up front , for those moments for immigrant activists and BLM activists and others and climate activists to press the candidates in forums that were sort of more open .
But on that stage , I think what you saw was Kristen actually pushing these candidates as a result of the larger activism in the space , the way that the conversations and movements on the street have actually changed the dialogue .
And whether it was the first debates that we saw on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a whole new set of issues being talked about , from reparations to racial injustice to white supremacy , for the first time on a presidential debate , I think back to being in middle school during that Carol Simpson debate , and probably the first debate I watched at home with my family , really coming off of getting to understand and learn about the presidential debate when my parents in 1988 gave some of our vacation money to Jesse Jackson ’ s presidential run , and I think about how far @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how far we are at talking about these issues .
And I think what ’ s going to be important , if Joe Biden becomes the president , is that we recognize that we can ’ t mistake the presence of our issues on debate stage for the power to actually change the rules .
And we ’ re going to have to press and push and challenge and build power .
And for folks who are out there , they ’ re going to have to invest in Black and Brown infrastructure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that we get the type of change that makes people ’ s participation valuable and over the years can be a force multiplier for more people to want to participate in our democracy because they see the result of the type of change that participation brings about .
AMY GOODMAN : I want to go to debate moderator Kristen Welker of NBC .
AMY GOODMAN : So , there ’ s Joe Biden and Trump , Trump taking on the crime bill .
Rashad Robinson , if you can respond ?
RASHAD ROBINSON @ @ @ @ @ @ @ misinformation and disinformation .
I think this is part of the challenge that organizations like mine have in sort of parsing this through , where Donald Trump is somehow trying to make himself an advocate for criminal justice reform or even drug reform , when we know his history and even how the First Step Act came about .
I ’ m not here to defend the Democrats on criminal justice reform .
I ’ m here to say that they are the party that we have the best chance of pushing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re the folks most likely to be nervous about disappointing us on this issue .
But both parties have a lot of work to do .
And that is without false equivalencies .
I think the thing that ’ s important here is that Biden , Joe Biden , and his campaign are acknowledging the flaws and the problems in previous decisions about how they dealt with drug policy , about how they dealt with criminal justice , acknowledging on the stage last week that the '94 crime bill was a mistake .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That 's a representation of a lot of pushing , challenges from those outside and inside of the campaign .
And now we need to see that translate into the type of energy and heat necessary to actually make changes on those things , and the type of changes that are not just sort of the cosmetic changes that stop the bleeding , but actually the type of changes that restore people ’ s lives and dignities , that have been stolen , for them .
You know , we have drug @ @ @ @ @ @ @ simply designed to target and exploit Black people , and it starts all the way down with marijuana , that is essentially legal for rich people and for white people in this country , and we still see Black and Brown people being locked up , all the way up to all the disparities in other drugs .
It has failed .
It has not worked .
And we actually have to build systems of harm reduction , systems that actually allow for people to have the things that they need and people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that they need , as well .
But I do think that is a fundamental change in the conversation and the debate .
But I do think , once again , you ’ ve got this sort of showman in Donald Trump that ’ s willing to say anything .
And he ’ s trying a very interesting dance on the stage — on one hand , making these deep appeals to law enforcement , on the other hand , trying to make these appeals to Black men at the same time — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of can be confusing and complicated , but because he ’ s such a showman , sometimes it can get over .
And that misinformation and disinformation about where he actually stands on the issue is part of why we have to continue to challenge .
But it ’ s also why the Democrats can ’ t just make this about hating Trump .
They also have to continue to fight and build and put out the policies that are going to change lives and remove barriers and systems that have stood in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Rashad Robinson is spokesperson for Color of Change PAC .
When we come back , we ’ ll also be joined by Erika Andiola , the immigrant rights activist , and get her response to the issue raised of the 545 immigrant children in this country — where are their parents ?
— that the Trump administration separated from them .
Stay with us .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. This is The Quarantine Report, as we continue to cover the final presidential debate. President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden sparred Thursday on their records over race and criminal justice. Let’s turn to debate moderator Kristen Welker of NBC.
KRISTEN WELKER: Mr. President, you’ve described the Black Lives Matter movement as a “symbol of hate.” You’ve shared a video of a man chanting “white power” to millions of your supporters. You’ve said that Black professional athletes exercising their First Amendment rights should be fired. What do you say to Americans who say that kind of language from a president is contributing to a climate of hate and racial strife?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, you have to understand, the first time I ever heard of Black Lives Matter, they were chanting, “Pigs in a blanket,” talking about police — pigs, pigs, talking about our police. “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon.” I said, “That’s a horrible thing.” And they were marching down the street. And that was my first glimpse of Black Lives Matter. I thought it was a terrible thing. As far as my relationships with all people, I think I have great relationships with all people. I am the least racist person in this room.
KRISTEN WELKER: Well, what do you say to Americans who are concerned by that rhetoric and by the videos?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know what to say. I got criminal justice reform done and prison reform and Opportunity Zones. I took care of Black colleges and universities. I don’t know what to say. …
JOE BIDEN: Abraham Lincoln here is one of the most racist presidents we’ve had in modern history. He pours fuel on every single racist fire, every single one. Started off his campaign coming down the escalator saying he’s getting rid of those “Mexican rapists.” He’s banned Muslims because they’re Muslims. He has moved around and made everything worse across the board. He says to the — about the Proud Boys, last time we were on stage here, he said, “I tell them to stand down and stand ready.” Come on. This guy has a dog whistle about as big as a foghorn.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined right now by Rashad Robinson, spokesperson for Color of Change PAC.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Rashad. Your response to what they’re saying there and overall to the debate?
RASHAD ROBINSON: You know, I mean, I think one of the things, that when these conversations happen about race, we oftentimes sort of hear a whole bunch of disparities, or we hear candidates trying to talk about what they’re going to do for the community. And, you know, that, I think, is helpful to some extent, but I think that what we’re oftentimes seeing — I think what I hope we can see more from the Democrats is actually really leaning into how racial justice is not just about what you’re going to do for the community. Racial justice is also a strategy about how we actually win on the wide range of things that we can win on, from healthcare to climate to so much more, because part of the problems of why we don’t have the things that we need in this country is because of systems set up around racial inequality.
And so we shouldn’t just follow the ball that Donald Trump lays down about sort of the sort of racism that’s at the heart of his campaign, some of the sort of racial enabling and racism that’s at the heart of the Republican Party. We know all of that. What are we going to actually do to motivate people not just to hate Trump, but to love the other side in return? I think that’s going to be the ongoing task, not just about winning elections. It’s about governing. It’s about having the power to actually overcome the barriers that oftentimes stand in the way of moving us forward on the issues that impact sort of the climate around race, that impact Black and Brown communities every single day.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about COVID when it comes to the African American community, when it comes to communities of color all over this country, the disproportionate effect?
RASHAD ROBINSON: Yeah, I mean, I think that this is part of, I think, the challenge of how we need to unlock the power of racial justice, right? So, when we talk about COVID, we will hear folks say Black folks are dying. But, in fact, Black folks are being killed by government action, by corporate power, by an insurance industry. When we talk about the structural issues that impact Black communities in a passive voice, rather than an active voice, we spend all of our time talking about how do we fix Black people and Black families, rather than fixing the structures that harm and hurt as. I mean, we do this across the board, whether it’s saying Black people are less likely to get a loan from the bank, instead of actually saying banks are less likely to give loans to Black people. And so, when we talk about COVID, it’s not that COVID, the disease itself, is racist. It’s that America is racist, and the structures and the systems that we have set up have simply exposed all these challenges.
But when we talk about these problems in a passive voice, when we talk about these things like it’s just happening to the community, not that the poverty and inequality and racism is part of a manufactured structure, that there’s corporate power and other systems at every turn benefiting from the sort of impact of these decisions, then we end up sort of really focused on treating communities like they are vulnerable rather than actually treating communities like they’ve been targeted, attacked, exploited. It actually leads us to a very different set of solutions when we talk about the structural problems in an active voice rather than a passive voice, because when we talk about it in an active voice, we actually focus on solving the problems at hand rather than trying to fix people.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to talk about, for a moment, the debate moderator. Kristen Welker is the first woman of color, the first African American woman to preside over, to moderate a presidential debate since Carol Simpson did in 1992. And at every turn in these last weeks, President Trump went after her viciously, tweeting against her. Yesterday he released the 60 Minutes interview before 60 Minutes released it. He was interviewed by Lesley Stahl and then walked out of it. And he attacked Lesley Stahl. And then he said, and Kristen Welker is even worse.
RASHAD ROBINSON: Yeah, I mean, you know, and then you saw him on stage sort of playing and saying nice things to her before and after. This is the showman, right? This is Donald Trump. I mean, and I think part of what we have to recognize is all the ways he’s been able to do this his whole career. I saw a clip going around yesterday of sort of an interview that he had with Connie Chung years ago, and then the things that he said about her afterwards, right?
This is a president that got here because so many folks enabled him. He was on NBC’s platform, on Celebrity Apprentice, once a week, with corporate sponsors, while he was going around the country spreading a racist conspiracy theory about President Obama and was allowed to continue to have that platform. And when that happens, we sort of lower the standards of what’s acceptable and create sort of a situation where some of these things are just allowed as acceptable part of the debate.
But the thing I want to say about the debate moderator, Kristen Welker, is that I think that she really leaned in in a way that we did not see in the last debate. I think she followed up. She really used the opportunity to press both candidates on the issues and try to get them to answer the question.
And for folks who are activists out there listening, for people who have been showing up to protest and showing up to raise their voice, whether it’s online or offline, in this moment, I think activism was on the stage in a very interesting way. And I think that’s important, because we haven’t had town hall meetings. We haven’t had the sort of opportunities to question the candidates up front, for those moments for immigrant activists and BLM activists and others and climate activists to press the candidates in forums that were sort of more open.
But on that stage, I think what you saw was Kristen actually pushing these candidates as a result of the larger activism in the space, the way that the conversations and movements on the street have actually changed the dialogue. And whether it was the first debates that we saw on the Democratic side, where you saw a whole new set of issues being talked about, from reparations to racial injustice to white supremacy, for the first time on a presidential debate, I think back to being in middle school during that Carol Simpson debate, and probably the first debate I watched at home with my family, really coming off of getting to understand and learn about the presidential debate when my parents in 1988 gave some of our vacation money to Jesse Jackson’s presidential run, and I think about how far some of these conversations have come, how far we are at talking about these issues.
And I think what’s going to be important, if Joe Biden becomes the president, is that we recognize that we can’t mistake the presence of our issues on debate stage for the power to actually change the rules. And we’re going to have to press and push and challenge and build power. And for folks who are out there, they’re going to have to invest in Black and Brown infrastructure to actually channel that energy, so that we get the type of change that makes people’s participation valuable and over the years can be a force multiplier for more people to want to participate in our democracy because they see the result of the type of change that participation brings about.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to debate moderator Kristen Welker of NBC.
KRISTEN WELKER: Crime bills that you supported in the '80s and ’90s contributed to the incarceration of tens of thousands of young Black men who had small amounts of drugs in their possession. They are sons, they are brothers, they're fathers, they’re uncles, whose families are still to this day, some of them, suffering the consequences. So, speak to those families. Why should they vote for you?
JOE BIDEN: One of the things is that in the '80s we passed 100% — all 100 senators voted for it — a bill on drugs and how to deal with drugs. It was a mistake. I've been trying to change it since, and particularly the portion on cocaine. That’s why I’ve been arguing that, in fact, we should not send anyone to jail for a pure drug offense. They should be going into treatment, across the board. That’s what we should be spending money on. That’s why I set up drug courts, which were never funded by our Republican friends. They should not be going to jail for a drug or an alcohol problem; they should be going into treatment. Treatment. That’s what we’ve been trying to do. That’s what I’m going to get done, because I think the American people have now seen that in fact it was a mistake to pass those laws relating to drugs. But they were not in the crime bill.
KRISTEN WELKER: OK. Sir?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But why didn’t he get it done? See, it’s all talk, no action, with these politicians. Why didn’t he get it done? “That’s what I’m going to do when I become president.” You were vice president, along with Obama as your president, your leader, for eight years. Why didn’t you get it done? You had eight years to get it done. Now you’re saying you’re going to get it done. Because you’re all talk and no action, Joe.
JOE BIDEN: We got a lot of it done.
KRISTEN WELKER: Your response?
JOE BIDEN: We released 38,000 —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You didn’t get anything done.
JOE BIDEN: We got 38,000 prisoners left from the — out of —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You got nothing done.
JOE BIDEN: Thirty-eight thousand prisoners were released from federal prison. We have — there were over a thousand people who were given clemency. In fact, we’re the ones that put in the legislation saying we could look at pattern and practice of police departments and what they were doing, how they were conducting themselves. I could go on. But we began the process. We began the process. We lost an election. That’s why I’m running, to win back that election and change his terrible policy.
AMY GOODMAN: So, there’s Joe Biden and Trump, Trump taking on the crime bill. Rashad Robinson, if you can respond?
RASHAD ROBINSON: It’s just so much misinformation and disinformation. I think this is part of the challenge that organizations like mine have in sort of parsing this through, where Donald Trump is somehow trying to make himself an advocate for criminal justice reform or even drug reform, when we know his history and even how the First Step Act came about.
I’m not here to defend the Democrats on criminal justice reform. I’m here to say that they are the party that we have the best chance of pushing to do the right thing. They’re the folks most likely to be nervous about disappointing us on this issue. But both parties have a lot of work to do. And that is without false equivalencies.
I think the thing that’s important here is that Biden, Joe Biden, and his campaign are acknowledging the flaws and the problems in previous decisions about how they dealt with drug policy, about how they dealt with criminal justice, acknowledging on the stage last week that the '94 crime bill was a mistake. And I think that that is important. That's a representation of a lot of pushing, challenges from those outside and inside of the campaign.
And now we need to see that translate into the type of energy and heat necessary to actually make changes on those things, and the type of changes that are not just sort of the cosmetic changes that stop the bleeding, but actually the type of changes that restore people’s lives and dignities, that have been stolen, for them.
You know, we have drug laws on the books that are just simply designed to target and exploit Black people, and it starts all the way down with marijuana, that is essentially legal for rich people and for white people in this country, and we still see Black and Brown people being locked up, all the way up to all the disparities in other drugs. It has failed. It has not worked. And we actually have to build systems of harm reduction, systems that actually allow for people to have the things that they need and people to have the privacy in their lives that they need, as well.
But I do think that is a fundamental change in the conversation and the debate. But I do think, once again, you’ve got this sort of showman in Donald Trump that’s willing to say anything. And he’s trying a very interesting dance on the stage — on one hand, making these deep appeals to law enforcement, on the other hand, trying to make these appeals to Black men at the same time — and doing it in ways that sort of can be confusing and complicated, but because he’s such a showman, sometimes it can get over.
And that misinformation and disinformation about where he actually stands on the issue is part of why we have to continue to challenge. But it’s also why the Democrats can’t just make this about hating Trump. They also have to continue to fight and build and put out the policies that are going to change lives and remove barriers and systems that have stood in people’s way.
AMY GOODMAN: Rashad Robinson is spokesperson for Color of Change PAC. When we come back, we’ll also be joined by Erika Andiola, the immigrant rights activist, and get her response to the issue raised of the 545 immigrant children in this country — where are their parents? — that the Trump administration separated from them. Stay with us.