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- [00:16]
Amy Goodman
From New York. This is Democracy now, that movement to
- [00:20]
Dr. Abdul El Sayed
get money out of politics, put money in your pocket, pass Medicare for all. It is a big movement. What we showed is that the power of our many is greater than the power of their money.
- [00:30]
Amy Goodman
We'll go to Michigan to speak with Dr. Abdul El Sayed, now the Democratic nominee for Senate. He's taking on the Democratic establishment and the Trump endorsed Republican nominee Mike Rogers in the general election. And to Kansas to speak with State Senator Cindy Holscher, the Democratic nominee for governor in Kansas. She's pushing for a statewide moratorium on new data centers.
- [00:58]
State Senator Cindy Holscher
What I won't do, though, is I won't be pushing and supporting programs and policies that sell us out to corporations or billionaires.
- [01:07]
Amy Goodman
But first, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche made private assurances to anti abortion activists that the Trump administration is working to stop abortion in every state. Rest assured that we're working, you know,
- [01:25]
Juan Gonzalez
hand in hand with HHS and the FDA and the White House and President Trump's team to get permanent solutions so the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state.
- [01:42]
Amy Goodman
We'll speak to the nation's Abortion Access correspondent, Amy Littlefield. And finally, playwright Cesar Alvarez will be with us to talk about the Potluck, a musical about the 1979 Greensboro massacre in which five protesters were killed by the Ku Klux Klan. Cesar himself was named after two of the victims. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy now, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. President Trump signed two new executive orders aiming to restrict birthright citizenship. The move comes months after the Supreme Court rejected Trump's earlier effort to abolish birthright citizenship, a right that's enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. White House adviser Stephen Miller spoke at the signing ceremony.
- [02:41]
Amy Littlefield
The president is using his authority as
- [02:43]
Dr. Abdul El Sayed
commander in chief to sign first an executive order using the new ruling the Supreme Court issued to expand the definitions
- [02:50]
Amy Littlefield
of people who are ineligible for birthright citizenship.
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Dr. Abdul El Sayed
That includes, for example, alien enemies of the United States, members of foreign terrorist
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Amy Littlefield
organizations, and large categories of people who lobby and act on behalf of foreign governments.
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Amy Goodman
A second executive order targets so called birth tourism. The American Civil Liberties Union blasted Trump's move, saying, quote, birthrights citizenship is guaranteed by the Constitution. No additional executive order can change the meaning of the Constitution. The ACLU said Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has announced she will vote against Todd Blanche to be attorney general. His confirmation now hinges on the vote of Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, whom Trump helped defeat in a primary earlier this week. Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine said she'll vote against Blanche. In a statement today, Murkowski, quote, I take issue with the handling of the release of the Epstein files, the sweeping immunity protections granted to the president, his family and their businesses, the statements that have been made to anti abortion groups, and the repeated targeting of individuals ranging from former administration staff to sitting U.S. senators, unquote. Blanche is Trump's former personal attorney. Even if the Senate does not confirm Blanche, he could stay in his current role as acting attorney general. We'll have more on Blanche after Headlines the Washington Post reporting President Trump clashed with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week during a meeting at Camp David. The Post reports Trump wanted to know why he'd apparently been misled about how the war in Iran led to the Pentagon facing extreme munitions shortages, particularly in long range guided missiles and air defense interceptors. On Monday, Trump publicly denied the US Was facing a munition shortage, but at the same time he called for, quote, long term jail sentences, unquote, for those suspected of leaking information about U.S. weapon supplies. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan have signed a joint defense agreement stating any armed attack against any one of the three states shall be regarded as an attack against them all. Unquote. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shabaz Sharif traveled to Mecca to sign the agreement with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The deal comes at a time when Iran is threatening more attacks on energy infrastructure in the region region if Gulf leaders don't use their leverage to press President Trump to end the war on Iran. Meanwhile, in Israel, the head of the Mossad has fired two top officials at the spy agency over a failed plan to topple Iran's government. One of the fired officials headed Mossad's intelligence directorate. The other was the head of the agency's Iran division. In news from Yemen, Houthi fighters killed at least 30 Yemeni forces aligned with Yemen's Saudi backed government. The deaths occurred when the Houthis launched missile and drone attacks, attacks on Yemeni military camps. Al Jazeera described the attack as the fiercest military escalation in Yemen since 2022. 3 Human rights groups say Israel committed a war crime by intentionally targeting and killing the Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil in April. Her colleague and photojournalist Zainab Faraj was also critically injured in the same strike. On Thursday, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Lebanese rights group the Legal Agenda released separate investigations into the attack. The reports found Israel had knowledge that the journalists were civilians and that Israeli forces deliberately obstructed Lebanese medical teams from reaching them for hours, at one point firing stun grenades at Lebanese Red Cross workers. To see our coverage of this case, go to democracynow.org President Trump's so called Gaza Board of Peace has issued its first construction contract for a military outpost in Gaza to house 150 Moroccan troops. Meanwhile, UNICEF reports at least 300 Palestinian children have been killed in Gaza since Israel agreed to a so called ceasefire that began in October. UNICEF's regional director in the Middle east said, quote, a ceasefire that leaves an average of one child dead each and every day is failing children, unquote. Earlier this week, a sixth grader in Gaza named Khaled Al Ashram was reportedly struck by direct fire from Israeli troops while he was sitting at his school desk. A bullet pierced his hand and wrist. In Tennessee, two term Republican Representative Andy Ogles has lost his House primary in a major upset. Former state Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher won the race with 53% of the vote. Ogles lost despite being backed by Trump. Meanwhile, in Memphis, State Representative Justin Pierson easily won the Democratic House primary after running a campaign focused in part on opposing the construction of large artificial intelligence data centers. A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to pay $567 million to a fund aimed at addressing the social media giant's role in a worsening mental health crisis among teens and children. This comes in addition to the $375 million that a new Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay in the same case. Jury found the company had knowingly harmed children and concealed child sexual exploitation on its platforms. To see our coverage of the case, go to democracynow.org the Senate Homeland Security Committee, led by Rand Paul, has voted to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress. During a recent hearing. Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times when questioned about his handling of the COVID 19 pandemic and the origins of of the coronavirus. Senator Paul has said he may send the contempt resolution directly to the Justice Department. Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire criticized the move to hold Dr. Fauci in contempt. The goal was to wait for Dr. Fauci to make any kind of misstatement and then have a weaponized Department of Justice file criminal charges for that new statement that would not have been covered by the pardon, leaving Dr. Fauci little choice but to invoke his constitutional right to not walk directly into a trap. The Trump administration's announced plans to overhaul Head Start, the nation's early education and nutrition program for children living in poverty. The proposed measure would rescind hundreds of federal regulations overseeing Head Start, including mandates to provide assistance for parents of children with disabilities. Advocates warn the move will completely gut Head Start, which was first enacted over 60 years ago under the Health and Human Services Department. Now run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Annually, Head Start serves more than 700,000 children from birth to age 5. The Federal Communications Commission has voted to repeal the national cap on television station ownership in a move that could lead to greater media consolidation. The media group Free Press has announced plans to challenge the FCC's move. Jessica Gonzalez is co chair of Free Press.
- [10:28]
Amy Littlefield
The FCC does not have authority to do this because that statute was set by Congress and only Congress can change a law. So Free Press and allies plan to sue the FCC to halt this blatant attempt to hand over more media into the hands of Trump's oligarch cronies. And we believe that we will win.
- [10:54]
Amy Goodman
And in a victory for academic freedom, the University of Minnesota has paid $250,000 settlement to the Israeli American historian Roz Siegel after rescinding an offer to lead the university's center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies two years ago. The school had hired Siegel to lead the center, but rescinded the offer under pressure from donors who objected to Professor Siegel's accusation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. In a statement, Professor Siegel said, quote, this settlement represents a successful refusal to accept the world of lies that blur an ongoing genocide and a commitment to continue the intertwined struggles for truth, justice and accountability in Palestine and on our campuses, Dr. Ross Siegel said. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman in New York, joined by Democracy Now's Juan Gonzalez in Chicago. Hi, Juan.
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Juan Gonzalez
Hi, Amy. And welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world.
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Amy Goodman
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche privately assured anti abortion activists that the Trump administration is working to make Dobbs permanent, unquote, nationwide. He made the pledge on a call hosted by the White House Faith Office with the religious group Intercessors for America, which posted a recording of the call online. Blanche acknowledged the Trump administration's push to restrict abortion is moving slower than supporters want, but promised it was committed to stopping abortion across the country. On the call, Blanche also pledged to crack down on abortion pills.
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Dr. Abdul El Sayed
Rest assured that we're working hand in
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Juan Gonzalez
hand with with HHS and the FDA
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Amy Goodman
and the White House and President Trump's team to get permanent solutions so that
- [13:04]
Juan Gonzalez
the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state.
- [13:10]
Amy Goodman
In response, Democratic Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota said, quote, todd Blanche made clear in these secret calls with anti choice activists that he wants to resurrect the Comstock act, an antiquated anti vice law from before women had right to vote to ban sending medication abortion in the mail. Republicans will likely do what they always do and confirm Blanche's attorney general despite all of this. And once again, women across America will pay the price, the senator said. For more we go to Boston where we're joined by Amy Littlefield, Nation's abortion Access correspondent. Her recent book is titled Killers of My Investigation into the Mysterious Death of Abortion Rights. Amy, welcome back to Democracy Now. Can you talk about the significance of this private secret unclear what language to use call that the acting Attorney General Todd Blanche had with anti abortion activists and what exactly he promised?
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Amy Littlefield
Right. I mean, it's a little hard to parse, Amy, exactly what he promised because for someone who wants to be the chief law enforcement official in the United States, his words don' make a lot of legal sense. He talked about making the Dobbs decision permanent in every state. Well, Dobbs was a Supreme Court ruling that said states could make their own abortion policies. And it's not as if anti abortion activists like the ones he was speaking to on the call were clamoring to make Dobbs permanent. That's not the issue. They're angry because Dobbs has not met their goal of ending all abortions across this country. And so I don't know if this was a private attempt by Blanche to try to placate those activists, even though in public he has not made this type of commitment, although he has, you know, made some allusions to potentially reviewing options to enforce the Comstock act in his confirmation hearing. So fortunately, the intrepid reporters at Politico followed up with him and clarified with the Justice Department that he is talking about going after abortion pills by mail, which of course have been a lifeline for abortion access in the dozen or more states where abortion is banned.
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Juan Gonzalez
And Amy, what specifically is the Comstock act and what does it cover?
- [15:36]
Amy Littlefield
Right. So there are two different avenues basically that that could be used here if Blanche is confirmed to go after abortion pills, one of them. And because he alluded to the FDA and HHS, that suggests perhaps he's going to use the FDA's ongoing purported safety review of mifepristone, the first drug that's used in a medication abortion protocol to try to go after mifepristone by mail under supposed safety concerns, even though this is a drug that's been on the market for more than 25 years, has been studied more than 100 times. The other option, the nuclear option, is the Comstock Act. This is a nationwide could serve if abortion opponents are right in their reading of it, if the courts agree with their reading of it, could essentially be revived as a de facto nationwide abortion ban that would apply even in blue states. And that's because it banned the mailing of any lewd, lascivious or filthy items. Now I'm quoting from the law there, okay? And if this sounds like a law that dates back to the Ulysses S. Grant administration, that's because it is. This was brought forward by sexual purity crusaders who were angry about, you know, racy medical textbooks and also drugs and devices being used for contraception and abortion. So that's the context, the historical context of this law. Right. It had not been used in litigation for almost a century when anti abortion activists started trying to revive it in the wake of the Dobbs decision because they understood that a zombie law that had been on the books since 1873 was their best shot at banning abortion across the country. So what the Comstock act could be used to do is to try to stop the mailing of abortion drugs and devices. Now, if that were broadly interpreted, it could apply to latex gloves that might be used in an abortion or syringes. You know, it could be broadly interpreted to shut down not just mail order abortions, but also clinic based care, depending on how it's read. And it's also important to note that the, you know, anti vice crusaders who were, who brought about this law originally used it to also go after information and speech. Right. So the implications of this zombie law from the Victorian era are chilling indeed.
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State Senator Cindy Holscher
Amy.
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Amy Goodman
The Senate has voted 51 to 44 to confirm Dr. Erica Schwartz to head the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During her confirmation hearing, Schwartz came under fire for saying, quote, abortion surveillance is absolutely critical. This is what she said.
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Amy Littlefield
Abortion surveillance is absolutely a critical component of what the CDC is currently doing. Also want to also make sure that certain states are not conflating emergency services and hiding abortions in that emergency services case definition. We need to make sure that we're pulling out true abortions and making sure that we're really having clear case definitions regarding abortions. So the data is actually accurate.
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Amy Goodman
So that's Dr. Erica Schwartz, who's been confirmed as head of the CDC. Can you explain abortion surveillance, Amy Littlefield?
- [18:43]
Amy Littlefield
I mean, on the one hand, Amy, I want to make a joke about this because Find the Hidden Abortion sounds like a terrible board game that J.D. vance makes his kids play on a Friday night. On the other hand, I think we have to take this very seriously, because if there's one lesson from the second Trump administration, it's that things that sound joke worthy can very quickly become public policy and rule of law. And so what she's talking about here is weaponizing CDC data about the number of abortions that take place in the country every year, data that states report to the cdc, and somehow combing that data to look for hidden abortions. Now, what she's talking about here, Amy, are miscarriages. She's talking about emergency situations where people show up to the emergency room bleeding, maybe suffering from a fever. They need emergency care. And what's so egregious about her words here is that we know that people are dying precisely because of the fear of the type of surveillance she's talking about invoking. Right? We know that doctors are delaying care for people suffering miscarriages. We know they're sending them home from hospitals. And we know that people like Portia Ghomesi, people like Nevaeh Crane have died in states like Texas as a result. Right? So to invoke this fear will have a chilling effect. And it just comes back to really the only law that matters when it comes to abortion access, Amy, across time and place. And it's one that I talk about in my book, Killers of Roe. Abortion bans do not stop abortion. We're seeing that now. The number of abortions has gone up since Dobbs because of abortion pills by mail. Right? Abortion bans do not stop abortion. What they do is they kill and harm the people who need them.
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Juan Gonzalez
And Amy, you mentioned that abortions have gone up. You were part of a recent podcast, the Post Roe Surprise. More Abortions. Could you expound a little bit about that in the last minute we have left?
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Amy Littlefield
So this most recent episode of Reveal, we looked at the Post Roe Surprise, which was more abortions. The number of abortions went up. And we look at three women who are integral to this landscape. One is Dr. Angel Foster, who runs a telemedicine service called the map that's shipping 6,000 medication abortion kits per month. And they are serving states where abortion is banned, operating under laws that protect clinicians like her in states like Massachusetts. Then we look at Kristin Hawkins, the president of Students for Life, who I'VE been following around the country for the last several months. It's been a wild ride. And her efforts to pressure the Justice Department to revive the Comstock Act. And finally, we look at Lena, an abortion pill courier. Lena flies overseas, fills up her suitcase with enough medication abortion to undermine any state's abortion ban, flies back into the country, gets in her car with all these pills, turns up the music, listens to Taylor Swift, drives away, heads back home to her cat, and nobody has ever caught her. And this is going completely undetected. These sophisticated networks of circulating abortion pills, pills person to person, no matter what the FDA tries to do with mifepristone, no matter what the Trump administration tries to do, whether it's the Comstock act or not, people like Lina are out there serving other people in their community friend to friend. These are pills that can be pressed into the palm of your hand. And the federal government has only dystopian options at its disposal to try to stop these drugs. And we may see those dystopian options and harms coming as a result. But the bottom line here is that because of people like Lena, they are not going to stop abortions in this country. As we know, these abortion bans only kill and harm the people who need abortions.
- [22:29]
Amy Goodman
Amy Littlefield, nation's abortion access correspondent, a journalist who focused on reproductive rights, health care and religion. Her new book, killers of My Investigation into the Mysterious Death of Abortion Rights. Amy recently contributed to the new episode for Reveal headlined the Post Roe Surprise. More abortions coming up. We speak with the state senator, Cindy Holscher of Kansas, now the Democratic nominee for governor. She's pushing for statewide moratorium on new data centers. Then Dr. El Sayed Ann will talk about a play in New York about the 1979 massacre of protesters in Greensboro, North Carolina, a massacre committed by the Ku Klux Klan. Stay with us.
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Ruben Flores
You'd never believe it. They ended apart hiding in South Africa and elected Mandela president. The Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union broke up. There is this deadly disease that was killing mostly gay men. So the government acted like it didn't exist, but it did and still does. Terrorists attacked New York and D.C. and the world Trade center collapsed. So we went to war again. There is this giant conversation happening on computers between nearly everyone on Earth. It is a mess and it's incredible. America had its first black president. A bunch of people took over a park near Wall street for weeks, which forced everyone to start talking about income inequality.
- [24:14]
Amy Goodman
On the national news, Mandela, from Cesar Alvarez's musical The potluck will be joined by Cesar later in the broadcast. This is Democracy now. Democracynow.org, i'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez as we turn to Kansas, where State Senator Cindy Holtscher Tuesday won the primary to be the Democratic nominee for governor. She defeated State Senator Ethan Corson, who was backed by the outgoing Democratic Kansas Governor Laura Kelly. Overland Park Mayor Kurt Skoog was also in the race. Holscher's victory is seen as a defeat for establishment Democrats in the state. She'll now face the Republican Ty Masterson in November. Ty is the president of the Kansas State Senate and has been endorsed by President Trump. The fight over data centers became a defining issue of the Kansas race. This is State Senator Hoelser and opponent State Senator Corson in a debate last month hosted by PBS Kansas.
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Amy Littlefield
With respect to data centers, Senator Hoelser also continues to deliberately mislead you by not telling you that she voted for an incentive program to attract data centers to this state.
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State Senator Cindy Holscher
Things look a lot different a year after a bill brought forward last year. And I have heard from the people. I'm not going to dig in on a bad vote. I'm going to listen to the people. I'm going to listen to the experts. We have to have guardrails in place to protect our resources and our communities.
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Amy Goodman
For more, we go to Overland Park, Kansas, where we're joined by State Senator Cindy Holscher, the Democratic nominee for governor, who's proposed a statewide moratorium for new data centers. Congratulations on your victory on Tuesday, State senator and gubernatorial nominee. Can you explain your platform? And start with something that's become clear from polls across the country among Democrats and Republicans, the nationwide opposition to these AI data centers.
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State Senator Cindy Holscher
Yeah. Thank you so much, Jamie, for having me. It's great to be here. And yeah, exactly. There's nationwide opposition to these new data centers, talking about the hyperscale versions that have been coming into states all across the nation. So in terms of my platform, you know, the main focus really is on affordability in terms of addressing lack of access to affordable health care, childcare and housing, addressing our high property taxes and making sure our schools are funded. But the data centers do come into play here in terms of affordability because what we've seen happen across the nation as some of these facilities come into communities, we see they suck up the resources in terms of water, we see energy usage causing utility bills to skyrocket. So certainly not things that you want to have happen during an affordability crisis anyway that you wouldn't want to have happen on any given day. But like I said, during an affordability crisis, even more of a concern. So what we've seen across Kansas, similar to what we've seen across the nation, is just this huge pushing back by commun. And I really noticed it well, like this February and March as I was doing town halls across the state, that the opposition quite adamant that they want to ensure guardrails are in place to prevent the exploitation of resources and people is really what it comes down to.
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Juan Gonzalez
And Senator, I wanted to ask you on your position on immigration. The for profit prison company Corecivic has announced the sale of of its Leavenworth prison to ice, likely negating months of legal battles by city officials to ensure humane treatment of immigrants detained there. Could you talk about that situation and your position on the administration's continued raids on immigrants?
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State Senator Cindy Holscher
Well, I've been part of that battle and was part of the battle pushing back against the reopening of that facility in Leavenworth. And you know, that was over a year in terms of the community pushing back and faith leaders pushing back. And I joined with them at council meetings and in Topeka too, to protest and to push back. And what we saw happen there was really the result of Corecivic putting immense pressure on the community and threatening to sue and basically threatening to bankrupt the city in terms of the timeframe that it would take for them to really get what they wanted there in terms of all the pressure they were putting on the community. It's been an issue here in terms of the raids we've seen, even though it's Kansas and people may think there's not much happening here in terms of ice. We're seeing raids carried out in several communities across the state. I actually joined in several weeks ago. There was the threat of a raid at a boys and girls club here close to my community. I joined with neighbors and stood outside that facility for three hours as a human deterrent to ensure that nothing would happen there. And here's the thing. I'm going to push back against the policies that Trump is pushing. I'm going to push back against the horrible policies that we're seeing to give ICE more power. But I'm going to pull every lever as governor to protect our neighbors. What we've seen here, Trump and ice, they are overstepping their boundaries and it's just wrong what we're seeing happen in our communities and people are voicing concern. And I think several months ago we heard people say things like, oh, it's not going to happen here and they weren't very worried about. But now that they've seen these raids in their communities, it's really been an eye opener.
- [30:06]
Amy Goodman
Let me ask you about the Kansas voters rejecting a Republican backed ballot measure that could have made it easier to ban abortion in the future. Though abortion did not appear on the ballot, the measure was about making members of the state Supreme Court electable by popular vote. Can you talk about how this seemingly technical issue became a proxy battle for the future of abortion rights in Canada? Francis?
- [30:32]
State Senator Cindy Holscher
Certainly. Well, we know this. We had the vote in August of 2022 in terms of access to reproductive health care when the GOP was making an attempt to outlaw abortion here. So that was a big attempt on their part that fell. It was defeated. I believe 60, 40 was the vote. And so what we've seen since then is the continuation of this push to try to eliminate access to reproductive health care here in Kansas. So this was the latest round or the latest version of. And with this particular amendment, you're right, it was in regard to changing the way Supreme Court justices are selected because essentially what the GOP figured is they can find ways to buy those positions. If it's an election process similar to what we've seen in terms of mag extremists taking over our legislature. What we've seen is a large amount of money poured into these elections. So essentially that's what they were hoping for, make it into an election system where Elon Musk or whoever else can come help buy these positions and get the laws changed. So this was very much about abortion access, but also voting rights as well as funding of our schools because those are three agenda items that the GOP has not been able to fulfill over the past few years. So again, this was an attempt to try to check the boxes on those three items through a different kind of backdoor attempt.
- [31:58]
Juan Gonzalez
And Senator, Kansas was among four Midwestern states along with Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin that in 2018 flipped their governorships to Democrats. But now this time around, the state is considered the most difficult electoral fight for Democrats to hold. What's your sense of when Kansas was under complete Republican rule in the Senate House and the governor's office?
- [32:25]
State Senator Cindy Holscher
Well, the fact of the matter is right now we have a super majority in the legislature of GOP extremists. And, and I mean, you know, we have an affordability crisis and we have people who are struggling out there, yet we aren't seeing those issues addressed. What we've seen in just this past session was two Charlie Kirk bills and a bathroom bill. I mean, that's not putting money in people's pockets. So we have a legislature again dominated by mag extremists that is not addressing the needs of the people. So. So what we've seen too is again, this affordability crisis. As Kansas was looking at these issues and the legislature was seeing what was going on, their response has been continued giveaways to billionaires and corporations, which leaves regular people behind. And so when you hear people say the system's being rigged against us. Yes, because again, we've seen this just replaying of big giveaways, tax breaks for the wealthy, and again, leaving regular folks behind.
- [33:28]
Amy Goodman
Kansas state send Tuesday won the Democratic primary race. She is now the Democratic nominee for governor of Kansas. Coming up, we'll speak to the Democratic nominee for senate in Michigan, Dr. Abdul El Sayed. But first, playwright Cesar Alvarez will be with us to talk about the Potluck, their musical about the 1979 Greensboro Mass. In which five people were killed by the Ku Klux Klan. Cesar was named after two of the victims.
- [34:06]
Ruben Flores
It's an amazing time to be alive. And can you believe Mandela got elected? We never would have predicted that. It would have seemed too idealistic to have imagined it. But I guess history, it turns out more bizarre than we like to admit. Oh, and a socialist Jew was running for president. A white supremacist killed a woman at a protest in Charlottesville and got convicted of murder. It's sad that the conviction is big news, but it made me think of here like we do almost every day. We all get together every year. We talk politics on the beach and we drink halfway decent beer. I stayed in the struggle since now I have my own business. I know what a capitalist. But I help activists do better work. I better get back to work. I have this i6 meeting tomorrow.
- [35:18]
Amy Goodman
Mandela, from Cesar Alvarez's play the Potluck. This is democracy now. Democracynow.org, i'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. We turn now to the Potluck. It's a musical about the 1979 Greensboro massacre in which five protesters in North Carolina at an anti Klan rally there were gunned down by the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi party party. Those killed were members of the Communist Workers Party. Ten other activists were injured. No one was convicted, but a jury did find the Greensboro police liable for cooperating with the KKK in a wrongful death. In 2020, Greensboro City Council passed a resolution apologizing for the attack and the police department's complicity in the killings. Composer and play Playwright Cesar James Alvarez was born in Greensboro a year after the murders. Their parents were among the survivors of the massacre. In a tribute to their parents, murdered friends, Cesar is named for two of those who were killed. Cesar Cauce, a Cuban immigrant and union organizer, and James Waller, a pediatrician and president of the local textile workers union union. This legacy and the weight of telling the story today form the backbone of Cesar Alvarez's new musical, the Potluck, presented by soho Rep and Intar, currently playing at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater in New York through this Sunday, August 9th. For more, we're joined by composer and playwright Cesar Alvarez. Cesar, I met you a few nights ago seeing this astounding play you talk about. I mean, what you did with this play. It's so odd to say a massacre musical, but so many people don't even know what happened in 1979. And then your families, your own close connection to the victims.
- [37:28]
Cesar Alvarez
Yeah, it was a real puzzle to figure out when I was kind of invited and asked by this commission to try to tell this story because. Because part of me wanted to just tell the story and tell the story, which is a story that's been so distorted over the years by the narratives around it and also deal with the real fact of what it has meant to grow up in the aftermath of this state sanctioned murder and to carry the name of these fallen comrades and to feel called, to do, to somehow answer the work that they were doing. So the piece itself doesn't abandon the puzzle. It actually becomes a showing of that dilemma which so many of us carry, of how do we heal from these traumas that have happened to our families and to our ancestries? And how do we answer the call in a way that's authentic and that actually is going to make a difference? And the piece then becomes this kind of attempt, this ritual, to unveil what teachings we can gain from this history.
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Juan Gonzalez
And Cecil, I'm wondering if you can share what your parents told you as you were growing up about the massacre. And also your musical is based on an annual survivors meeting in North Carolina where they have a potluck paella. Why this tradition? How has this been part of the Helium reflection for survivors?
- [39:03]
Cesar Alvarez
Yeah, I don't ever remember not knowing about the Greensboro massacre. I only remember a slow accumulation of new information. As I got older, I started to get more facts and more images, and at a certain point, I actually saw the footage. And so it's this strange experience of it's always been in the background of my life. It's always Been known to me that this is who I was named after and why I am even here. And so, in a way, the piece became this untangling, and the potluck is this. Yeah, it's an event that for the last 47 years, our community has come together and utilize this kind of technology of the potluck as a healing ritual. But the piece itself actually brings forth that architecture. And the architecture of the potluck is one that's so elemental in that it is a request that everyone come together and everyone bring what they have. And we're all going to meet each other at a shared goal, which is that we need to nourish one another and be together. And there's something that happens in a potluck which is a clash, which is like a macaroni salad next to hand rolled sushi. And it's not necessarily the ideal pairing. However, what ends up happening in the event is an acknowledgement of our difference and an acknowledgement of our shared goals. So the piece itself actually invokes the dissonance of what it means to be in solidarity and to be working together across difference for something that we all need. And I just find that that idea and that practice, which was given to me as a gift by my community, is one that is absolutely essential if we're going to imagine a way forward in this moment of overlapping cataclysms. How do we get together across difference? How do we meet one another?
- [41:05]
Amy Goodman
Cesar, if you can explain the police complicity, how did this massacre take place?
- [41:14]
Cesar Alvarez
Well, this is a moment in the south when the klan was really on the resurgence, and my parents were organizing textile mills and working together to kind of get the communities, the working class communities in Greensboro borough organized around class consciousness and around improving their workforce, their work conditions. And they identified that the Klan was actually kind of operating as the fascist arm of the government in that way. And actually, the government was in direct collusion with the klan. They had paid informants in the Klan, and the Greensboro police handed the permit of the protest to the Klan and to the paid informants, and they vacated the premises when they knew the Klan was actually going to come in. And so the minute it happened, everyone knew in our community that they had been set up. And over years and years and years and years, including a truth and reconciliation commission in Greensboro, this was all established as fact. But the reality is, is the government was utilizing this fascistic faction in order to do its bidding, which was to repress really, really radical thought around working class solidarity. And what ended up Happening is these five heroes and really leaders were assassinated and targeted directly by the government and by the group. And the reverberations of this were massive through many, many, many communities and movement spaces. And the loss of these incredible leaders is still felt. And really with the piece, I'm trying to actually feel the loss and also to ask them as martyrs in the spirit world, what do we have to learn and how can we alchemize this into something that can do good, good for this moment.
- [43:19]
Juan Gonzalez
And Cesar, the decision to show graphic footage from the documentary because there was film footage of it and to give your audience members the option to step out if they don't want to watch it. Can you talk about that?
- [43:34]
Cesar Alvarez
Yeah. We tried to do the piece where we just showed the footage because it felt really important for people to really actually confront what happened. And a lot of people aren't necessarily in the space to be able to just see that in the context of a theater piece. We tried it without the footage and it was a huge loss because I think a lot of people couldn't access what had really gone down. And we created this solution which I'm really in love with, which is that in the piece, we people to decide whether they want to see the footage. It's a seven minute clip that's in my mother's documentary, Red November, Black November, or if they want to step outside and honor the five in a different way. And so what we end up doing is a simultaneous event, which one is a ritual and one is a real encounter with the video footage and the truth of what happened. And then we come back together, which again is a moment of solidarity and is acknowledgement that in movement spaces and in organizing, we can't all access the same things. But we have to be able to figure out how to create multiplicity multiple ways through. Because we have a shared goal, which is to alchemize this tragedy, to learn from it and get to move forward better than we were before. And so in the piece we ask you to decide and we ask you also not to judge people's decisions. Decisions let people figure out how they're going to navigate their own way. But the reality is you can't experience the whole piece unless you come twice, because they're actually two different paths through the story.
- [45:10]
Amy Goodman
Cesar, you're named after two of the five victims. Your father in the play is played by Ruben Flores. He has the most powerful song talking to his best friend, Cesar, who you're named for, who was killing, killed about what he's missed in life. I wanted to play Once, once again, a bit of that song. Do you want to introduce it for everyone?
- [45:44]
Cesar Alvarez
Yeah. I think that, you know, my whole life growing up, I always thought about these five as kind of saints. And I think I didn't know them. I only got to hear about them, hear how wonderful they were, hear how brilliant they were, hear how committed they were, were to imagining a world that would work better for all of us. And the gift of this piece was that I actually got to think in an imaginative space and in a spiritual space. What would I say to them? What would I. What could I say to them? And what might they say back? And then in going through that process, I actually got to ask my dad that very question, which opened up this whole heart journey for him about, oh my God, there's so many things I would want to tell my friend about what's gone wrong and what's gone right. And how amazing it is that something like Mandela could be elected president, which at the time in the 70s would have seemed like science fiction to them. And so it kind of creates this moment of you really don't know what's going to happen in history. You really don't know what can be possible in movement, space, spaces. And this moment of my dad wanting to share that with his friend becomes a really, really important touchstone in the piece.
- [46:59]
Amy Goodman
And while your name is Cesar Alvarez, they called him Cesar, right? His real name was Cesar Jose. And you even joke about that in the film. But just let's hear a little from that film. Sorry, let's hear a little of that song again. It is performed by Ruben, Ruben Flores.
- [47:20]
Ruben Flores
We were really following liberation movements all over, especially in Latin America and South Africa. You'd never believe it. They ended apart hiding South Africa and elected Mandela president. The Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union broke up. There is this deadly disease that was killing mostly gay men. So the government acted like it didn't exist, but it did and still does. Terrorists attacked New York and D.C. and the world Trade center collapsed. So we went to war again. There is this giant conversation happening on computers between nearly everyone on Earth. It is a mess and it's incredible. America had its first black president. A bunch of people took over a park near Wall street for weeks, which forced everyone to start talking about income inequality on the national news. You would have thought it was great. Also, the economy nearly collapsed in 2008. There is this thing called a meme, which is a self replicating idea. So things spread fast now in ways that are both good and bad. I suppose cars can drive themselves if you can afford one of those. Phones and cameras and computers are all one thing and about the thickness of a few dimes. And we communicate with hieroglyphs instead of words. Sometimes the earth is warming up because of pollution.
- [49:17]
Amy Goodman
Ruben Flores singing Mandela from Cesar Alvarez's play, a musical called the Potluck. It's being presented by soho Rep and introduced at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater in New York City until Sunday, August 9th. We want to thank Cesar Alvarez for joining us. This is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. As we Turn now to Dr. Abdul El Sayed, the winner of Tuesday's Democratic Senate primary in Michigan and a major blow to the Democratic establishment and aipac. Abdul Al Assad won the primary despite being vastly outspent by his opponent, Congressmember Haley Stevens. Pro Israel and pro corporate super PAC spent over $60 million to oppose Abdul Al said, a former public health official who campaigned on a platform of Medicare for all, ending military aid to Israel and getting money out of politics. He'll face the Trump endorsed Republican nominee former Congressman Mike Rogers in November's general election election. If Dr. Al Sayed wins, he would become the first Muslim senator in the country. At a rally in Nevada after the primary, President Trump accused Dr. Al said of hating Jewish people in Israel and said, quote, when I watch Abdulwell, this is President Trump in his own words.
- [50:47]
Juan Gonzalez
When I watch Abdul, he's full of.
- [50:55]
Amy Goodman
Doctor Abdul El Sayed was born and raised in the Detroit area to Egyptian immigrant parents called out Republicans on Wednesday, including his opponent, Mike Rogers, after the National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a statement that referred to him by his full name, Abdulrahman Mohammed El Sayed.
- [51:21]
Dr. Abdul El Sayed
They think that you want to use my whole name against me, Mike. Listen, man, if you can't say the name, it's Abdurrahman. Keep the name out your damn mouth. I'll be happy to give you lessons.
- [51:33]
Amy Goodman
For more, we're joined now from Ann arbor, Michigan by Dr. Abdel El Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan. Welcome to Democracy Now. Dr. El Sayed, can you talk about your victory and what it means and what it means the next day to stand with your Democratic opponents as you all came together for the general election in November.
- [51:56]
Dr. Abdul El Sayed
Amy, thank you so much for having me. We're honored and excited to have earned 750,000 stakes in democracy from folks across the state of Michigan who believed that our message to get money out of Politics put money in pockets past. Medicare for all is the way forward for our state and for our country. It's an answer to the challenges that they face. We came through an unprecedented amount of outside spending against us. Nearly $70 million got outspent 1121. But the power of our message and the power of the people who carried it up and down our state, knocking 200,000 doors in the last two weeks of the campaign alone, they made the difference for us. We have an opportunity now, though, to unite around the opportunity that unites us all, which is way bigger than any differences we might have had in the primary, which is to defeat Mike Rogers, who is, of course a bootlicker for Trump and would be a rubber stamp for everything Donald Trump wants to do for the next two years should he be elected. This is a guy who spent his time in Congress voting to raise prescription drug prices because he took over a million dollars from the pharmaceutical industry. He's a guy who helped architect the legislation that kicked off the opioid epidemic when I was in high school. And we have to defeat him because of course, he's enthralled to Donald Trump. He would rubber stamp these wars that are raising our gas prices. He would rubber stamps stamp the continued assault on our government for which we have to now be dodging lettuce because it's not safe. So we have an opportunity to come together across our differences to build something that is about beating Trumpism, beating Mike Rogers. And I'm looking forward to the next 13 weeks.
- [53:26]
Juan Gonzalez
And Dr. El Sayed, Medicare for all universal health care has been at the heart of your campaign. Why do you think it has resonated so much? And how, if you want were to succeed and be elected to the Senate, how would you accomplish this when it has eluded the universal health care, has eluded so many previous Democratic administrations in the past?
- [53:51]
Dr. Abdul El Sayed
Yeah, well, and thank you for the question because I think it is at the heart of what so many people are suffering right now. There's not a place that I go across the state where people don't tell me, I'm so worried about what happens if I get sick and I'm insured because my deductible is what, $6,000, $10,000? It would put me into bankruptcy. Bankruptcy. Which is why across this country we hold $225 billion in medical debt. Nearly a third of households in this country carry that debt. We don't have to have that. What Medicare for All would be is guaranteed health insurance through the government without having to Worry about a co, pay a deductible, a premium. It's there from cradle to grave. You don't lose it. If you turn 26 or get married, get divorced, get a job, lose a job, turn 65 always, you can lose health insurance right now and you don't have to worry about being in network or out of network, you are covered. That opportunity, that security, is something people across my state want so deeply. Now we have an opportunity, I think, rather than to shy away from our biggest, boldest ideas, to carry them forward with us, to have the conversations about what's possible in the communities where they tell us that nobody's interested. Well, turns out people really are. I've been up and down the state, 110 different cities. You can go up north, you can be at a church in Detroit, you can be in Grand Rapids. People are asking, how are you going to secure health care for me and my family? Family, Medicare for all would do just that. Now look, we've got two years under this administration while I'll be in the U.S. senate. And my job is to throw as much sand in the gears into the Trump administration as possible. But to use that two years as a pathway, as a guide ramp for the next Democratic president who will get this done. And I think by going out, having the conversation, persuading around the power of ideas, that's how we win. That's how we won this primary. That's how we look forward to winning the general. And I look forward to helping show a pathway for forward through Michigan for whoever is bold enough to pick up the idea that we really can't have health care in this country moving forward.
- [55:34]
Juan Gonzalez
You've also campaigned against military interventions and unconditional military support for Israel and other countries. How do you feel the American electorate is moving in terms of this issue? And what would you do to shift these priorities in the spending of the federal government away from the military into what other programs?
- [55:57]
Dr. Abdul El Sayed
Well, in an era where many of us can't afford basic things like groceries or rent or health care, the idea that your government is sending your tax dollars to buy bombs and tanks for foreign governments seems anathema. That money could be spent to fix your potholes, rebuild your kids school that looks like it did 50 years ago. And we need that money spent here. On top of that, we have an opportunity to remind ourselves where that kind of militarism ends up. It ends up in foreign wars we have no business fighting. You think about the consequences of this war in Iran. Illegal, unjustifiable, wrong but all it's done is showed the ayatollahs that they have a chokehold on the world's energy supply. And it's raised our gas prices to nearly $5 a gallon. We have an opportunity to finally turn against that kind of military, which is exactly what Donald Trump said he would. But, of course, he's taken us to I don't know how many conflagrations in the last year alone. We need to end that. And Mike Rogers, the guy I'm running against, he would be a check. I mean, he would be a rubber stamp for exactly, exactly what Donald Trump wants to do. And we need a check, which is why we're going to take him on. We're going to show him for who he is. A corporatist who can't wait to do the bidding of Donald Trump. And I think we can offer a real check on Trumpism in the U.S. senate starting next year.
- [57:11]
Amy Goodman
And Dr. Al said, your response to President Trump saying you hate Jewish people. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, using your full name, of course, reminiscent of Barack Hussein Obama. Obama, you embracing that. And President Trump saying you're full of.
- [57:28]
Dr. Abdul El Sayed
Well, look, at the end of the day, when you don't have ideas, all you have is hate. And we knew exactly what the playbook was going to be. Here's the reality of it. My name is not raising your gas prices. My name is not the reason we're in an illegal war. My name is not the reason you can't afford your health care. My name is not the reason that you can't afford your rent or your insurance. Their bad ideas are. And so if the best they've got against getting money out of politics, putting money in pockets, passing Medicare for all, is to point to my name and say that they can't pronounce it, then I think we're going to have a pretty good time over the next 13 weeks, prosecuting the case against a kind of politics that is corrupted, corrupting, and devastating the future of our country. We've got an opportunity, I think, though, to think beyond that. I think people are sick and tired of this politics of hatred. They're sick and tired of. Of politicians who are interested in exploiting government for their own means, which is exactly what Mike Rogers did while he was in Congress making $14 million after he left to move to a McMansion in Florida, which is what Donald Trump is doing now. And we're offering an alternative. A doctor who rebuilt the Health Department, eliminated medical debt, put Narcan in vending machines, for free. And yes, happens to be named Abd Al Rahman Mohammed said.
- [58:36]
Amy Goodman
Dr. Abdul El Sayed, we want to thank you for being with us. We're going to continue the conversation for five minutes. Posted@DemocracyNow.com Dr. Abdul Al Sayed is Democratic Senate nominee from Michigan. That does it for our show. I'll be in Scotland on Tuesday and London on Wednesday. Check our website@democracynow.org I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez.