Transcripts For LINKTV Democracy Now 20240713

Concerns. Pres. Trump because of all we have done, the risk to the American People remains very low. We have the greatest experts in the world really come in the world right here. We are ready to adapt and we are ready to do whatever we have to as the disease spreads, if it spreads. Amy as trump spokeke up it was reported a person was diagnosed with the coronavirus in california, who had not traveled to any of the affected regions of the world nor had known contact with anyone who did. It is called community spread. We will speak with Pulitzer Prize winning Science Writer Laurie Garrett who says trump has sabotaged americas coronavirus response. We will also talk to science investigative journalist sonia shah about the connection between coronavirus and climate change. Her book pandemic tracking contagion from cholera to ebola and beyond. Then as trump leaves india, the death toll from antimuslim violence in new delhi has risen to at least 34. 20 to 25 people started beating me. The rest were standing by as if they were watching a show. There were thousands behind them. They kept hitting me. No one came forward to save me. Somehow, some people came from the other side. I was unconscious. I did not have much consciousness. My clothing was drenched in blood. Amy we will go to new delhi for the latest. All that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. U. S. Health officials said wednesday they have identified the first case of a Coronavirus Infection by a person who had not travel to any of the affected regions of the world nor had known contact with anyone else who did. The case in Northern California came as governments worldwide took increasingly severe measures to stop the transmsmission of the virus, whh causes respiratory trouble and is sometimes fatal. In saudidi arabia, officicials e bebeen muslim pilgrims fromm enentering the country to visit the holy cities of mecca and medina. In south k korea, the number of coronavirus cases has passed 1700, making it the largest outbreak outside of china. The u. S. And south korea wednesday called off joint military exercises indefinitely. Meanwhile, japan says the 2020 summer olylympics are still scheduduled to take place in the capital tokyo. In the u. S. , President Trump has sought repeatedly to dismiss the threat of the virus, tweeting on wednesday morning low ratings fake news msdnc cnn are doing Everything Possible to make the caronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible. Likewise their incompetent do nothing democrat comrades are all talk, no action. Usa in great shape President Trump tweeted, misspelling the word coronavirus. Trumps comments prompted alarm among covers numbers, but democrat and republican. This is joe kennedy of massachusetts questioning health and Human Services secretary alec cesar on wednesday alec cesar on wednesday. I dont want to panic over this, either. The stock market is crashing. He is outright contradicting everything that you all have just said. Clubs at think he expressing confidence with no medical basis. That is what you just explained to us. He is expressing he is expressing that the American People need to take a breath here, that there is no change to anyones daily life from this, that the country has a plan. We have pandemic plans. Amy later on wednesday, President Trump held a News Conference at the white house saying he has cap Vice President mike pencece to coordinate fedel response to the coronavirus. Kids is not a Public Health expert and as governor of indiana, slashed Public Health spending and widely blamed for an outbreak of hiv in his home state. Meanwhile, the centers for Disease Control and prevention in atlanta is warning the true number of u. S. Coronavirus cases might be higher than reported because test kit sent out nationwide earlier this month includeded a faulty component. After the headlines, we will spend the rest of the hour discussing the growing threat of the coronavirus. Wisconsin, gunmen opened fire inside a sprawling brbrewery wednesday, killing fie people before taking his own life. The shooter was i identified asa 51yearold m man who worked att the factory y complex. X. Police have not yet identififiea motive in ththe killing. In immigration news, and report by physicians for human rights finds the trump administrations separation of families at the u. S. Mexico border is tantamount to torture. The report studied 17 adults and nine children separated for about two months under trumps socalled zero tolerance policy, finding people experienced shock, terror, and grief constituting cruel, unusual, and degrading treatment. The report warns of longlasting effects of family separations with people put at higher risk of anxiety, depression, psycycsis, and addiction, alalog with hheher rates of chrhronic medical conditions like cardrdiovascular disease and premature death. In arizona, federal prosecutors dropped a misdemeanor charge wednesday against humanitarian aid volunteer scott warren, one day before he was to be sentenced for driving on protected lands to drop water, food, and other aid to migrants crossing the sonoran desert. The single misdemeanor count was the last charge faced by scott warren, who at one point faced up to 20 years in federal prison for felony charges of harboring migrants after he provided food, water, and shelter to a pair of men who barely survived their journey into the u. S. After a first trial ended in a hung jury, scott warren was acquitted of felony charges in a second trial. To see our full coverage of the warren case, including our trip with him on a water drop in the sononoran desert last summe, go to democracynow. Org. The house of representatives voted 410 to 4 thursday to make lynching a federal hate crime. The emmett till antilynching act was named for the 14yearold africanamerican boy whose killing 65 years ago remains one of the most horrific examples of racial terror in the jim crow south. If signed into law by President Trump, the bill will finally end what proponents say have been 200 failed attempts to pass similar legislation in the past. This is california democrat, africanamerican congresswoman karen bass, who cosponsored the antilynching bill. Noted, theditorial elatioion of the audience witnessing a lynching as follows girls giggled as the fly spat on the blood that dripped from the negros nose. Public spectacles. As i said, their advertised in newspapers and postcards were sold. Souvenirs were made from victims remains. Amy federal officials said wednesday theyve arrested five members s of a farright White Nationalist group who were conspiring to threaten and intimidate journalists and activists around the United States. U. S. Prosecutors say members of the neonazi group atomwaffen threatened black and jewish journalists in arizona and the seattle area, while others harassed and threatened an unnamed reporter from propublica. That reporter is likely journalist a. C. Thompson, whos written extensively about atomwaffen and one of its leaders, john cameron denton, who was among those arrested on wednesday. In media news, abc has suspended veteran correspondent david wright after a farright activist published secretly recorded video in which he complains about President Trump and corporate control of the mass media. In the sevenminute, highlyedited video posted online by the Group Project vetatas, wght t isverheard callg himsela socialt who favors nioional althth iurancece and statg g therare e tomany billionair a and t bigig a wealth gap. Wright goes on to say the ommercial imperaveve is incoatatibleith h ne, andnd blas a abcs s pant compa disney for croppromong i its entertainmenbrbrandsn shows like good morning americaca. Projecveveritais a a rhtwinin group atat oft sets upting operatnsns tarting joualists d planneparenthond acvists byecordingovert videos andeleasingeceptive edit footage the groups founr, james okeefe,as convied on a sdemeanocharge aer he tempted wiretaphe phone of theu. S. Senor mary landeu in 20. Inesponse its latt sting operatn, mediaritic da oomkin cled projt verita wi some, b said in this case the group had done the u. S. A favor. Froomkin wrote the groups sneaky surveillance has uncovered someone speaking profound truths about how commercial pressures have skewed corporate medias politicalnews values not toward making things up, but toward turning it all into shallow, valueneutral entertainment. In s saudi arabia,a, u. S. Marins he joioint mitary y exercises wednesday wiwith their sauaudi coununterparts on the kingng abdulaziz z nala b base. The woworkings were e widely ses a warnining to iran. The joint exercises came as Houthi Rebels in northern yemen launched a new offenensive followowing the rececent increan the n number of u. S. S. Backed sasaudiled coalalition airstrts in yemenen, more than n people e 100,000 died and far more e have been displacaced since sauaudi arab begegan its warar on yemenn 2015 with the support of the obama administration. In philadelphia, seven jewish activists were arrested tuesday outside joe bidens campaign headquarters, calling on the president ial contender to skip the annual conference of aipac, the American Israel Public Affairs committee. Members of the progressive Jewish Organization if not now are demandining biden reverse decades of support for israels occupation of the west bank and gaza first, as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and later as Vice President. The protest came as the president ial campaigns of Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg said they would not attend this years aipac Conference Following similar moves by Senators Elizabeth Warren and bernie sanders. In a statement, if not now cofounder Dani Moscovitch wrote even moderates in the Democratic Party are now refusing to attend a conference by a rightwing lobby that allies with bigots just to shield the Israeli Government from any consequences for denying the Palestinian People freedom and dignity. Billionaire former new york city mayor and democratic president ial hopeful Michael Bloomberg is scheduled to attend the aipac conference in march as a a keynote speakeker. In puerto rico, a transgender activist was shot and killed early monday morning just hours after Someone Called Police to complain that shed used a public restroom at a mcdonalds. Disturbing video posted to social media appears to show the final moment of neulisa luciano ruizs life as her attackerers followed her in a car before opening fire with at least 10 gunshots. Local police say they suspect four teenagers were involved in the murder. Ruiz was at least the second trans or gender nonconforming person murdered in the u. S. In 2020. In c cmate news,s, the trurump administration has abruptly halted a project to protect the new york city region from flooding due to rising seas and extreme weather just weeks after President Trump mocked plans to build a sea wall to protect the city as costly, foolish environmentally unfriendly. The move ends a 19 million project by the army corps of engineers to research what steps would best protect residents of coastal new york and new jersey, along with lowlying areas of nenew york harbor. And on capitol hill, new york congressmember alexandria ocasiocortez read the entirety of the Green New Deal into the congressional record wednesday, one year after she first intrtroduced t the histoc legislatioion. Realizeze that many of my colleagueses have never eveven d the r resolutioion that they are speaking on. They have not openened a singlee word of it. And d it is actually only about i have iright in front of me just 14 pages long. So i have decided that since my colleagues some of my colleagues across the aisle could not, for some reason, read the resolution, that perhapsps this our would be spent just reading it to them. Amy the Green New Deal seeks to bring the u. S. To netzero Greenhouse Gas emissions in 10 years, while investing in Public Transit and federal jobs, fully transitioning the u. S. Electricity grid off fossil fuels, and codifying Indigenous Peoples rights to prior consent and approval for decisions that affect them. And thosose are some of the headlines this is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. The coronavirus disease that was first diagnosed in chinas Hubei Province has now spread to at least 47 countries and every continent except antarctica. The World Health Organization has declared the outbreak an International Health emergency. Nearly 3000 people have died so far r and more than 81,000 p pee have now been infected witith te virus that causes the respiratory disease cocovid19. To contain the spread of the coronavirus in japan, where the number of cases has reached 200, today Prime Minister shinzo abe called for schools to be closed. Elementary, all middle, and high schools and special needs schooools to be temporarily closed from march 2 until spring vacation. Amy y meanwhile, japan says the 2020 summer olympics are still scheduled to take place in the capital tokyo. In south korea, the number of coronavirus s cases has passed 1700, making it the largest outbreakak outside of china. At least one u. S. Soldier stationed at a base in the area has tested positive for the virus, and the u. S. And south korea have called off joint military e exercises. This comes as the government of iran says at least 245 people hahave been infectcted and 26 he died, but t experts say ththe tl is likely much higher. Meanwhile, officials in kuwait reported 43 new cacases and saui arabia has t taken the unprecedented step of barring muslim pilgrims from entering the country to visit the holy cities of mecca and medina. Here in the United States, President Trumpmp downplayeyed e threatat from coronavirus andd anannounced Vice President mike pence would be his point person to coordinate government efforts to prevent a widespread outbreak. Pres. Trump because of all we have done, the risk to the American People remains very low. We have the greatest fates really in the world experts really in the world right here. We are ready to adapt and do whatever we have to as the disease spreads if it spreads. Amy as trump spoke, a new milestone in the coronavirus outbreak was reported. In a possible example of community spread. A person was diagnosed with the virus in Northern California had not traveled to any of the affected regions of the world, nor had known contact with ananyone else who did. Officials say they dont know how the person was exposed and have begun tracing the persons contacts in order to determine how they got. On wednesday morning, trump tweeted low ratings fake news msdnc comcast and cnn are doing Everything Possible to make the caronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible. Likewise their incompetent do nothing democrat comrades are all talk, no action. Usa in great shape President Trump tweeted, misspelling the word coronavirus. This is democratic Congressmember Joe Kennedy of massachusetts questioning health and Human Services secretary alex azar on wednesday. Mr. Secretary, i dont want to panic over this, either. The stock market is crashing. He is trying to stop shes outright contradicting everything you all ive just said. Outright contradiction. I think he is expressing confidence it. Ith no basis to come on. He is expressing that the American People need to take a breath here, that there is no change to anyones daily life from this, that the country has a plan. We have pandemic plans. Amy meanwhile, the centers for Disease Control and prevention in atlanta is warning the number of cases might be higher than reported because test kit sent out nationwide earlier this month included a faulty component. To break down the news on the outbreak worldwide and here this country, were joined in new york by Laurie Garrett former , a senior fellow for Global Health at the council on Foreign Relations and a Pulitzer Prize winning Science Writer. Author of several books, including ebola story of an outbreak, the coming plague newly emerging diseases in a world out of balance, and betrayal of trust the collapse of global Public Health. She has another piece how chinas incompetence danger the world. Welcome back to democracy now talk about the first News Conference president has held at the white house as he appointed that she would not call him the czar, but appointed the Vice President pence as the person come to the point pererson on dealing with the coronavirus. Pence needed some job aside besides space for us, so now you something to do in the white house. All joking aside, pence is not a medical expert and he certainly is not s someone who has demonstrated particularly great amount of respect for science. When he was governor of the state of indiana, the Opioid Crisis started in southern indiana. Suddenly, people were injecting opioids. God and came back and told his legislature he did not leave any human being should syringe is in a system and being a drug addict. As a legislature captured him. He vetoed. According to a study published by yale university, at least 250 people got infected with hiv as a result ofof this crazy policy. Amy he also defendant planned parenthood, leading the movement and congress and they had the one hiv testing site in the area. It was the indiana model that President Trump cited in saying he was qualified to lead this effort. Lets talk about what is happening here. While it is that the u. S. Has far fewer cases of coronavirus than anywhere else, and act there is honest no testing being done. We cant say we dont have a lot of cases. The last time i looked at the count, we had tested 456 people in the entire United States. To put that in comparison, in seoul, south korea, they have tested 35,000. Youre not going to find cases if you are testing 456 people out of f 260 million americans. Youre going to miss quite a number. What we should be doing right at this moment, the most urgent thing we should be doing, is testing every single pneumonia patient that is hospitalized. Beause if there is likely to a sneak through of this epidemic, it is going to come through as a pneumonia patient. It is going to be diagnosed as the flu or some other cause. It is actually going to be this coronavirus and covid19 will break out in the hospital ward. This is what we have seen all over the world so far is these outbreaks really explode when they hit one of two things a religious site where you have large concentrations of people coming in for a religious festival of some sort, or a hospital. Suspicion is very high on amy or cruise ships. Well, that is just a petri dish. If the Health Care Workers are not really on their toes, really alert, thinking what if and they dont have the right protective gear, then as they examined that patient, they become infected. This is our problem right now. This particular case in Northern California is very worrying because the individual lived in area, was not a traveler, did not know any travelers, was a local worker of some sort we dont know a lot of details. A 61yearold male. Facilitiesous healalth getting misdiagnosed. It was the Health Providers themselves who were saying to the Public Health of california, which was in turn saying to the cdc in atlanta, we want this person tester for the coronavirus. We think that is what this is. O, itaid the cdc said, doesnt look like it, and did not do a test. Lawmakerspitol hill, grilled Senior Administration officials over their response to the crisis. This is republican senator john kennedy of louisiana, who on t tuesday blasted acting Homeland Security secretary chad wolf for struggling to produce basic facts about the coronavirus ououtbreak. Youre supposed to keep a safe. I budget supports close you are the secretary of Homeland Security and you cant tell me if we have enough respirators . Clubs what i would tell you is the budget, my budget come ouour operations are focused not only on the men and women of dhs, making sure they are protected to do their jobs, to screen individuals coming in, working with hhs you dont know the answer,r,o you . Do we have enough facemasks . For the department t of homelaland security, we do. Im asking for the americacan pepeople. F for the entire American Public . Yes. I would say, no. How short are we . I will have to get that number for you. I want to make surere i understandnd, somebobody is doig modeling on how many cases we are anticipating . Youre asking me a number of medical questions im asking you questions as your secretary o of the departmt of Homeland Security and youou e supposed to keepep a safafe andu need to know the answers to ththese questions. How far away are we from getting a vaccine . Several months. Well, that is not what we heard jus testimony about. Who is on first year . That was republican louisiana senator john kennedy questioning the head of Homeland Security chad wolf. Laurie garrett . Pretty abysmal situation. Where we are right now isoops, obliterate the entire infrastructure of endemic response at the obama adadministration had created. Why did he do it . It certainly wasnt about the money because it was not a heavily funded program. It was certainly because it waws obamas program. Amy youre talking about the unit within the centers for Disease Control. Know, something much faster vaster than that. A special division inside Homeland Security that bozo was talking from and collaborating centers in hhs, headquarters in washington, the office of Global Health affairs, and the commerce department, Treasury Department but what obama understood dealing with ebola in 2014 is that any american response had to be in all of government response. There were so many agencies overlapping and they all had little piece of the puzzle in thisase at pandemic do mental exercise with me. If we get to the situation where we are anything like what is going on in china right now, that our department of commerce, our department of transportation, and our depapartment off usda would havo collaborate to get food deliverieses all over america so that parts of america dont starve. ,ou can see in china convoys hundreds of 18 wheeler vehicles completely full of food coming into wuhan every single day. Y. Do we have the capacity to coordinate that . Administration realized, cannot corel multiple agencies and thingngs from prive sectors as well as Public Sector to come to the aid of america unless you have some one person in charge who is really the manager of it all. In his case, it was run claim who had worked under Vice President biden. He was designated with an Office Inside the white house to give orders and coordrdinate all of these various things. That was all eliminated. It is gone. Anand now they are hastily tryig to recreate something. Last night, there were many namemes tossed about of who he s going to appppoint as head of te response. He had p previously gone on the record, President Trump, saying i have great faith in secretary azar and my hhs secretary will be in charge. We are told from multiple sources that right up until they got on stage for that press briefing, axzar. He was in charge and in the president has, and heres my good friend mike pence and he is taking charge. Amy there were reports that trump was angry that azar raised concerns publicly because trump was majorly concerned a about te market and that he had brought people into the United States from the cruise ship. They were americans. They were, as you were saying, sitting in a petri dish. That cruise ship of thousands, hundreds of people got infected computer when they were in lockdown. Approaching 1000. It may end up half of the crew and passengers will be infected before that story finishes playing out. Amy out in turn to President Trump addressing reporters wednesday night on the possible on n how president obama handled the Ebola Outbreak in 2014. During the crisis, said he wanted a soul travel ban. That obama was a stubborn dope. Also said he was total joke to appoint someone to lead the people response with zero response in the medical field. Pres. Trump there listening to a lot of what i had to say. This is a much different problem that ebola. Ebola, disintegrated, especially at the beginning. They have made a lot of progress now on ebola. With ebola, you disintegrated. D. You got ebola, that was it. This one is different, much different. This is a this is like the flu. This is a much different situation than ebola. We are working on ebola right now, by the way. Were working on certain areas of the congo. The congo has ebola and caused largely by the fact they have war of people cant get there. We did not treat ebola. We can now treat people. At that time, nobody had heard of anything like this. It is a much different situation. Amy that was President Trump. Laurie garrett, you wrote a book about ebola stop but also now theyre trying to take money from the ebola budget, dealing with ebola, not to mention slash the cdc budget. The latest budget that went to congress was cuttingng Health Services in this country. Yeah. You know, we have got used to trump king apollo contradictions trumpsstatements postulates contradictions ms statements. I think part of what donald trump has been doing as he has been plain to Rush Limbaugh and the far right because they have started a narrative that says well, they have two. One is there is not any epidemic, this is all fake news, exaggerating everything to undermine trumps bid for reelection. Theres a lot of that goining o. Rush limbaugh is leading that charge. Ananother narrative coming fromm the right is this was all made in a laboratory in china and this is an evil bioterrorism something or other. And our president has to show strength at this time. Both are lies. Who play around a lot on social media, regardless of their political stance, are observing them because they dont understand where it is coming from. Amy i want to go to a cnn reporter Marshall Cohen tweeted Rush Limbaugh and rightwing fringe sites are attacking dr. Nancy messonnier, a top cdc official handling the coronavirus response, because she is rod rosensteins sister. Theyre spreading the lie that shes part of the deep state and trying to tank the markets to weaken trump. This is a clip of dr. Messonnier discussing the coronavirus crisis. Some Community Level interventions that may be most effective in reducing the spread of a new virus like School Closures are also the most likely to be associated with unwanted consequences and further disruptions. Secondary consequences of some of these measures might include missed work and loss of income. I understand this whole situation may seem overwhelming and that disruption to everyday life may be severe, but these are things that people need to start thinking about now. Amy Laurie Garrett . She is right. And we all need to be getting ready. We dont need to be distracted by this insane political situation. We need to be focused on what were going to do when this virus sweeps across america. , crazyo longer a distant idea of the kind of things i received Death Threats every time i am on your show, somebody calls and tries to kill me. Every time i am on your show, i get loonies telling me about thesee cures. And if i dont show positive response and say, oh, yea, im going to tell america tease use that junkie scraped off a tree, then they threatened me. There are people who want t any epidemic situation to be something they can exploit first set of principles they have. Or ideas. I this is not the moment for that. We have a very narrow window, america, to get our act together. Getting our act together means an individual level, Community Level, and a business level, at a school level. Amy it even seems President Trump does not understand the deadly nature of this. He was being questioned by sanjay gupta of cnn at that News Conference. Understandseem to that the coronavirus is 20 times more deadly than the flu. More like 2000 times. He completely got his numbers wrong, although his numbers are probably not as forte to begin with. He said, well, lets say it correctly rather than misinformed. The coronavirus mortality rate is running somewhere between 2 you lookpending where and whichch population grgroupsu are in. The 1918 flulu, the most devastating influenza in the history of our species, was less than 2 . So this is already more lethal than the pandemic of 1918. Gardenvariety everyday flu is fatal. 1. 1 amy final comments as we look at what is happening in the world every continent but antarctica what does it mean to have a unified response . We wont have a unified response. We dont. It is fragmented. It is fragmented within countries and among countries. Already everybody is stealing their borders. Everybody starts in, no, you can fly here. What were going to see and what is unfolding now and the reason the smart guys on the stock market are getting upset is the whole globalization andem, the chain of supply shipping, is fragmenting. It is fragmenting among fear and amid the false idea that in the age of air travel, you could somehow stop a virus by just saying, no, no, youre not allowed to land at that airport. How did this fellow way up in Northern California in a rural area get infected . We have been screening at the San Francisco airport since day one of this mess. I think the problem is we dont have a solidified response. What youre going to see, and it is already playing outcome is this attitude we already have states saying, were not going to let you to put quarantined people in our state. Ship them to another state. Masks state has plenty of on supply and were not sharing them with the bozos next door. Every tabletop exercise i have ever been in for the last 30 years roleplaying what would happen in an oututbreak, the solidarity between the states of the United States completely breaks down. States put borders. They wont let you come on a highway. They blocked goooods from leleag the state. That may be destinened for illinois, but we in indiana want no supplies. You cant take them toto illin. Amy we will leave it there now but we will continue to cover this. Laurie garrett is a former senior fellow for Global Health at the council on Foreign Relations and a Pulitzer Prize winning Science Writer. Among her books ebola story of , an outbreak, the coming plague newly emerging diseases in a world out of balance, and betrayal of trust the collapse of global Public Health. When we come back, is ththere a connection betweenen the coronanavirus and clclimate cha . Stay with h us. [music c break] amy this is democracy now , im amy goodman. We continue to look at the spread of the coronavirus with cases now diagnosed in at least 47 countries and on every continent, save antarctica. Nearly 3000 people have died so far. The world hehealth organization has to clear the outbreak International Health emergency. For more were joined from cleveland, ohio, by sonia shah, science investigative journalist and the author of pandemic tracking contagion from cholera to ebola and beyond. Her new book is titled the next great migration the beauty and terror of life on the move. Her latest article published in the nation think exotic animals , are to blame for the coronavirus . Think again. Thank you so much for joining us. What i was trying to get at in that article is the fact over the past 50 years, weve had over 300 new pathogens either kind of newly emerged that have never been seen before or come into new places wherere they hae never been before. This Novel Coronavirus is just one of a whole spate of other pathogens we have seen people in west africa, where it had never been seen before. Zika in the americas, where it had never been seen before. New kinds of mosquito borne diseases. New kinds of highly drugresistant bacterial pathogens. We know about 60 of these new pathogens originate in the bodies of animals. About 70 of those are in wild animals. But it is not because wild animals are particularly infested, it is because of the way humans and wildlife are coming into novel intimate contact. And that is because of human activity. Amy talk about this connection between Climate Crisis and ththe coronavirus. We are not hearing very much about this stop we know in a general sense that the climate ices is resulting in tensns of thousands of wiwild species movg into new places. It is scrabbling our migration patterns. That will contribute to this broader phenomenon of people and wildlife coming into new kinds of contact. We can see with, for example, deforestation that when you cut down the trees where bats reached, for example, they dont has go away. They come and roost in your back garden in your farms s and your backyards instead and that allows people and bats to commit a new kinds of contact in the micrososwitch lilive in their b, which dont t cause them any kid of disease, can spill over to human n bodies and that is how e turn animal microbes into these epidemic and pandemic causing pathogens. Amy how should this be dealt with . How should people understand the coronavirus . Disease always exist, but how are epidemics and panandemics preventable . Infectious disease is always going to exist. Humans part of the condition. Were not going to get rid of all of the microbes, nor would we want to. But pandemics are something that we can do a lot to prevent. Theres a lot we can do to protect wildlife habitat, for example, so the microbes in animals bodies stay in their bodies and dont cross over into our bodies. We can d do a lot to do active surveillance to actually look for microbes that might be turning into human pathogens, and try to contain them before they start to cause epidemics. And that is scientific work that has been really y successful the past 10 years. If we have the political will to continue funding that kind of research, there is a lot we can do to reduce the risk of pandemics. Amy this is Congress Member Jan Schakowsky questioning health and Human Services secretary alexex azor wednesday about ether the coronavirus will be affordable to all. You are saying it will for sure be affordable for anyoyone who o needs itit . I am saying we would want to ensure we work to make it affordable, but we cant control that price because we need the private sector to invest. Amy she tweeted following the hearing she gave azar Three Chances to assurance any coronavirus vaccines or treatments developed with u. S. Taxpayer dollars will be affordable and accessible to everyone and he flat out refused to do so. Sonia shah . Is reprehensible. I think there is aa wellknown understanding in the Global Community these are commodities we need to make public. This is like a real failure of leadership and it is a travesty. Amy finally, what do you feel the corporate media, the Mainstream Media is missing here that you feel is essential for people to understand . I think there is a sense and which we kind of frame narrative around disease outbreaks as something foreign, like encroachment from outside that invades us, and posits us as these passive incomes. And i think that obscures the larger story, whwhich is t thea lot of human agency involved in how we are turning microbes into pandemiccausing pathogens. I think we need to recast the whole way we talk about disease is not a problem of foreign invasion, you know, we talk a lot about places when we talk about where diseases come from. We talk about the wuhan blue or the spanish influenza, even though that did not originate in spain. There is a sense in which we want to try to make it seem like these are foreign things that are coming to get us and encroach upon us, and that is a habit that we have around a lot of other subjects as well. But i think that obscures what our ownwn role is. Theres a lot we can do and that we are doing. We are turning a lot of these mimicrobes into these pathogenic microbes instead. Amy finally, with the trumpet administration guiding the very Government Programs that were tasked to do with Something Like this, the cdc cut 80 of its efforts to prevent global disease outbreaks because it was running out of money, the department went from working and 49 countries to just 10 with President Trump with his isolationist tendencies, you know, why give money to other countries. Explain why, sonia shah. Yet the program that has been cut that probably protected us from unknown pathogens we dont know how much we have been protected from is the predict program, which funded to the usaid and funded scientist to look for microbes that might be turning into pathogens and over 10 years, they found about 900 different microbes that might be doing that and were able to contain them at their source. That is a kind of program the trumpet administration also cut. I think the reason they gave is they were uncomfortable cutting cutting edge science. Amy sonia shah, thank you for being with us, science investigative journalist, author of pandemic tracking contagion from cholera to ebola and beyond. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Wewe will link to heher p pce ie nation magazine that she just wrote called think exotic animals are to blame for the coronavirus . Think again. When we come back, as trump leaves india, the death toll from antimuslim violence in new delhi has risen to at least 34. We will go to delhi. Stay with us. [music break] amy this is democracy now , im amy goodman. We go now to india, where the death toll from antimuslim violence in delhi haharisen to at least 34,itith poce accus of standing by as do nationalist mobs assault muslims. The violence began sunday when groups of hindus attacked peaceful sitins of muslims protesting against hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modis new citizenship law, which widely restricts muslim immigration to india. This is mohammad zubair, who said he was on his way home from a local mosque in northeast new delhi when he was attacked by a mob. 20 225 people started beating me. The rest were standing by as it there were watching a show. There were thousands behind them. They kept hitting me. Nobody came forward to save me. Somehow, some people came from the other side. I was like an contras. I did not have much consciousness. My clothes were drenchched in blood. Amy Prime Minister modi said nothing as the violence continued for days, instead hosting President Donald Trump on a twoday state visit in which trump heaped praise on the indian Prime Minister. This is trump speaking about modi at a News Conference back in washington wednesday. Pres. Trump is a great gentleman, greatat leader. It is an incredible country. We were treated very, very well. We really enjoyed it. A lot of trauma gives progress was made trumans progress was made. A relationship with india is extrtraordinary right t now ande will be doing a lot of business with india. They are sending bilillions of dollllars to the United States. Amy on sunday, human rights lawyer arjun sethi called modi and trump the worst kind of fascists. He tweeted both modi and trump have criminalized minority communities, championed fake news and persecuted dissent, promoted supremacist ideologies, and played on the racism and anxiety of dominant communities. Modi broke his silence wednesday, calling for peace on twitter. But many critics have noted that the indian Prime Minister served as the chief minister of gujarat when one of indias worst antimuslim riots occurred in 2002 that left at least a 1000 people dead. After the bloodshed, the u. S. State department revoked modis visa, saying it could not grant a visa to any Foreign Government official who, was responsible for or directly carried out, at any time, particularly severe violations of religious freedom. Modi has never apologized for or explained his actions at the time. Well, for more, were joined by two o guests. From video stream in new delhi, neha dixit is an independent journalist based there. Her investigative reporting focuses on politics, gender, and social justice. Recipient of the 2019 International Press Freedom Award from the committee to protect journalists. In ithaca, new york, from cornell university, priya gopal is a University Lecturer in the faculty of english at the university of cambridge and d te author of insurgent empire author of insurgent empire anticolonial resistance british dissent. We welcome you both to democracy now lets begin with neha dixit in new delhi. Tell us what has happened there in the wake e of president nt ts trip. What took place in new delhi . Thank you, amy. In the last three days, weve seen violence in various parts of new delelhi, especially in te northeastern district. As of now, the death toll has gone up to 34. Pepeople are stitill iththe pros of finding dead bodies. Verywhere aat happened on sunday was lot. Since december 2019, several people across the National Capital have been protesting inst this is a decision citizenship amendment. There is participation of various communities against this law that excludes muslims. Per citizenship Amendment Act group, which was led by a member of the agenda party, the bjp, which is also party, a beach member incited violence as evidence saying the protesters should go back. From sunday night until yesterday evening, the violence continues. [indiscernible] most of these are workingclass muslim areas. Large mobs have been reported. Using tear bombs. All of this happening in the presence of police. There been several videos showing the police are standing while this kind of violence is mob. Meted out by the i met several people who were injured. Apart from petrol bombs and guns and torches, acid was used on several people. Which is why a lot of people have lost their eyes or have damaged places. Each time somebody tried to stop the mob from attack, the police did not t help them. Instead, they stood as bystanders. Joinedhe police also [indiscernible] this has been the situation the last three days. 34 people have been killed. The bodies are still at the hospital. Lack of government support, lack of administrative support is led to no treatment for people who have been injured. This has been going for the last 2. 5 months since the government passed the citizenship amendment exclusively is meant to keep out the Muslim Community in the country. While these protests clearly, this kind of violence was used. And not just various hate speech has been used in delhi elections, too. The silence of the prime governmente central the delhi police is under, anyonene who raises rightwing internationalist slogans or enjoys impeded become encouraged by this kind of violence from modi and the other ministers. Amy can you tell me, is this in any way, what just happened in new delhi, is it related to President Trump being there and rallyin gujarat for this in answer to trump going to hohouston and welcoming modi at that howdy modi rally . I would definitely say thehe kind of islamophobia that we have seen in the r recent past e last years in i india is also te kind of enencouraged by presidet trumump in the way he has treatd the minorities everywhere else, this kind of islamophobia is encouraged by this kind of silence also from President Trump. He was asked question during a press conference and he did not respond to it. So there is a clear connection. Also the fact that these by 70ts are emboldened like trump and also president bolsonaro from brazil who kind of shares similar principles when it comes to minorities, when it comes to climate, when it comes to various policies that leads to just lay smit. When there is no reaction, in fact endorsing her minister modi in india, there is a kind of encouragement for such things. , this is the first time not the first time, but i would say not so much in the recent past, journalists in the last three days were attacked d by ms in the presence of police. They were asked for the religion. Nonhindu journalist were not threatened. Forced to delete photos. They were brutally attacked. Some of the hindu journalist had to identify as a hindu prayers so there were let off by the mob. This is unprecedented. In this kind of a situation, now even reporting what is happening with a Certain Community has become such a problem. The other thing that happened was lots of people who were injured and were in Nursing Homes and needed to be transferred to bigger hospipita. Ambulances were not allowed by the police to enter which is why on tuesday at midnight, some of the members of the Civil Society tried to contact the high court. The high court at midnight [indiscernible] saying ambululances shshould immediately be allowed by the delhi police in step one of the judges who said delhi should not become like a 1984 situation. In 1984, several genocide of the community. Today, we hear that judge has been transferred. I also wanant to pointnt out tht the judiciary, the police, and the other people in the administration who were supposed to protect the Constitutional Rights of people in india are also under great threat under the political pressure right now. Amy i want to bring in priya gopal to this discussion. Your now at cornell university. Your twitter thread has been extremely significant in saying framework reshape the this is being seen and in the language that is being used. Please explain, professor. I think we have to drop the language of clashes and even riots and communal violence. A lot of the language, certainly in the British Press and i think in t the American Press as w we, has s been presenting this as a conflict betetween equal and opposite sides, kind of religious fight. It is not a a religious fight. We are witnessing a situatationa very deep structural violence. There is a majoritarian Supremacist Party in power in india, and mobs directly incited by senior indian politicians are roaming around in muslim majority areas, identifying muslim shops, businesses, homes, setting them on fire, identifying muslims, beating them up. There is some pushback, certainly, as you might expect, but this is not a situation of equality. I have said that any press outlet which refers to this as clashes, clashes between hindus and muslims, or even as kind of riots, is actually culpable of a dereliction of duty. And certainly, of particular analysis. This is not a situation where equal and opposite forces are in conflict. It is not even a civil war. What we have is a very dangerous supremacist ideology that is now out on the streets. I am afraid the parallels with 1930s germany are extremely clear. What has taken place in delhi in the last couple of days is comparable to win jewish businesses were attacked and set on fire. I think the world really needs to wake up to the gravity of the situation in india because we are in a situation, not unlike what was happening in germany in centurys and its 21st variation, but i think to play this out as conflicts and clashes and religious fight i think is deeply responsible. Amy and President Trump paying homage to Mahatma Gandhi and at the same time hailing his 3 billiondollar military helicopter deal with modi, the significance of trumps relationship with modi . We just have 30 seconds. Modi as we sat in the context of the global right of trumpp is a kind of apprentice to modi rather than the other way around. Trump i think watches the situation in india probably sees that as a dream come true. The using of gandhi to s sanitie what is s happening in india iss now an old story. Trumump is simply picking up a narrative that has already b ben fefederal by the indian state. But this is not gandhis india by a longshot. What we have here is violent supremacist out on the streets of india. If the world does not take notice, then like the coronavirus, this is also going to spread and we will all pay the price. Amy priya gopal, thank you for. Eing with us, lecturer and neha dixit, based in new delhi. Tune in next tuesday night for democracy now s super tuesday live special broadcast. With the intercept from 7 00 Eastern Standard Time to midnight right here at democracynow. Org and on many stations around the country. We have job openings at democracy now from producer to producing fellow to Communications Director and more. Go to o democrac