The spending the bill. We will get the latest from capitol hill and look at the legacy of california senator Dianne Feinstein, who died at the age of 90 last week. She was the longest serving woman to ever serve in the senate. Then october is National Domestic violence awareness and prevention month. We will look at the remarkable story of Domestic Violence survivor Tracy Mccarter. She is a nurse and grandmother who was jailed after her husband died of a stab wound when she defended herself during an altercation. Her imprisonment sparked outrage across the country. I stand with tracy. I stand with tracy. I stand with tracy. I stand with tracy. I stand with my mom. Amy today Tracy Mccarter joins us for her First Television interview since her murder charge was dismissed almost a year ago. All that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. The u. S. Congress narrowly averted a Government Shutdown saturday, just hours before a midnight deadline. In an unexpected reversal, House SpeakerKevin Mccarthy agreed to a plan with democrats and a majority of republicans to keep the government running until november 17. The bill does not include aid for ukraine, but it does earmark 16 billion for Disaster Relief funds. The measure quickly passed through the senate and was signed by President Biden late saturday. House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries claimed victory for the American People after the bills passage, saying it followed a complete and total surrender by rightwing extremists. Biden castigated republicans for once again manufacturing a crisis over funding the government. Pres. Biden it has to end and there should not be another crisis. There is no excuse for another crisis. Consequently, i strongly urge my republican friends in congress not to wait. Dont waste time as you did all summer. Pass a yearlong budget to agreement. Amy florida rightwing Congressmember Matt Gaetz said sunday he would move to vacate mccarthy from his post following passage of the democratbacked bill. Far right republicans had demanded steep spending cuts and funds to further militarize the southern border. Meanwhile, new york progressive Congressmember Jamaal Bowman has apologized after he pulled a fire alarm as House Democrats considered mccarthys bill before a rushed vote on the stopgap measure. Bowman said he thought pulling the alarm would open a door and that he was not trying to delay the vote. There is an investigation that has been launched into the incident. California governor gavin newsom has tapped Laphonza Butler to fill the senate seat of Dianne Feinstein after her death last thursday. Butler is the current president of emilys list, which help select proabortion Democratic Women to public office. Laphonza butler would be the first openly gay u. S. Senator representing california and fulfills newsoms pledge to appoint a black woman to the post. But despite her union background, butler more recently advised uber as it fought the California Law requiring App Companies to grant workers employee benefits. Newsom had ruled out naming a current u. S. Senate candidate for the seat, including progressive hopeful barbara lee, though Laphonza Butler could decide to join the race as interim senator. The body of late senator Dianne Feinstein was flown back to california saturday. She will lie in state at San Francisco city hall on wednesday ahead of Funeral Services thursday. Tributes continued to pour in for feinstein over the weekend. Raised in an abusive home, she went on to become the first woman mayor of San Francisco, a pioneering figure in u. S. Politics, as well as the first woman to lead the Senate Judiciary and intelligence committees. She spearheaded the 1994 bill banning certain semiautomatic firearms. Feinstein remained to the right of the Democratic Party from her time as a law and order mayor of San Francisco, through her support of u. S. Wars and invasions, including in iraq and afghanistan. In 1982, she killed a bill that would have allowed domestic partner benefits for samesex public employees. Former u. N. Weapons inspector scott ritter said on x this weekend he briefed feinstein on the lack of evidence that iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, yet she went on, like most of the Democratic Party, to back george w. Bushs illegal invasion in 2003. He added the blood of thousands of americans and hundreds of thousands of iraqis stains her soul. She insisted on releasing report on the cias detention and interrogation torture program following 9 11, calling the cias practices a stain on our values and on our history. More recently, feinstein drew ire after she condescended to children in her district who came to her Office Asking her to sign on to the green new deal. She chided the young activists, telling one 16yearold, you didnt vote for me. New York Governor Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency friday as torrential rains brought flash flooding to the hudson valley, long island, and new york city streets. The deluge turned highways into raging rivers and brought half of new yorks subway system to a halt. More than eight inches of rain fell on jfk airport in just 24 hours, an alltime precipitation record that Governor Hochul blamed on the climate crisis. And of course we know this is a result of climate change. This is unfortunately what we have to expect as the new normal. It makes us be more prepared than ever before. It requires us to focus on resiliency, to head off the horrific impacts that could be there if we are not ready for the next storm. Amy meanwhile, new york is under another air quality alert today triggered by smoke from recordshattering wildfires in canada. In labor news, United Auto Workers ramped up their strike friday as Union President shawn fain called on 7000 more workers at a ford and a General Motors plant to walk off the job. We are still talking with all three companies, and i am still very hopeful we can reach a deal that reflects the incredible sacrifices and contributions our members have made over the last decade. But i also know what we win at the bargaining table depends on the power we build on the job. It is time to use that job. Amy its the second escalation since the strike against the two the Companies Began two weeks ago. Amid skyrocketing ceo compensation, workers are asking for a 40 raise, better benefits, and an end to tiered wages. Separately, some 4000 uaw members who work for volvos mack trucks plants in pennsylvania, maryland, and florida agreed to a tentative deal, staving off a possible strike. Meanwhile, 75,000 healthcare workers for Kaiser Permanente could go on strike from wednesday through the end of the week after their contract expired over the weekend. Talks have failed to yield a new agreement as workers seek higher pay, better staffing, and improvements in their Pension Plans and other benefits. The strike would affect kaiser workers in california, oregon, washington, colorado, virginia, and washington, d. C. In mexico, two mexican migrants were killed friday in a shooting near the border city of tecate in Baja California state. Three others were wounded. The group of 14 migrants were crossing the cuchuma hill in the middle of the desert, a site thats sacred to local indigenous communities and a common route used by drug traffickers and human smugglers. Mexican officials said the cause of the shooting is not known. Harsh border policies have forced migrants heading to the u. S. Border to rely on smugglers and crossing through remote and dangerous areas, where theyre vulnerable to extortion and violence from mexican Law Enforcement and drug groups. In related news, at least 10 Cuban Migrants were killed and over a dozen others injured sunday after a truck they were in crashed new border with guatemala. Another migrant from ecuador died in a crash across the border from california after being taken into custody by mexican immigration officials whose van hit a bus and then utility pole. At least 10 other migrants are also wounded in saturdays accident. In slovakia, former Prime Minister robert fico emerged as the leading candidate to head a Coalition Government after his russiafriendly party won the largest share of votes in sundays parliamentary election. He has called for negotiations to end russias war in ukraine and campaigned on a pledge to halt arms shipments from slovakia to kyiv. He previously said allowing ukraine to join nato would mean the beginning of world war iii. On sunday, fico said a top priority of the new government should be to crack down on Asylum Seekers and migrants crossing slovakias border with hungary. One of the governments first decisions must be a government regulation to restore border controls with hungary and that is all there is to it. I stand by it. It wont be pretty pictures. Force may be needed to solve the migrant problems. Amy in spain, rightwing Opposition LeaderAlberto Nunez feijoo has failed in his bid to form a new government, clearing the way for acting Prime MinisterPedro Sanchez to win four more years in power. In order to clinch another term, sanchez will need to win the support of two catalan parties who are demanding amnesty for hundreds of catalan separatist activists arrested during mass protests in 2017. This is a proindependence Student Activist in barcelona. He wants to respect the catalan nation, he has to do some steps for amnesty. If he wants to extreme right parties and of power or he wants to progress for the future, respect the catalan people. Amy voters in the maldives have elected Opposition LeaderMohamed Muizzu as president of the indian ocean archipelago. He won 54 of the vote in sundays runoff election, defeating the incumbent president Ibrahim Mohamed solih, who cultivated strategic ties with india. Mohamed muizzu oversaw several chinesefunded Infrastructure Projects in the maldives and is more closely aligned with beijing. In california, protesters gathered in the city of san pablo saturday to condemn the proposed construction of a 43million Police Training center and shooting range. The city northeast of San Francisco has already fenced off a massive piece of land where the complex will stand directly across the street from the San Pablo City hall. Protesters invoked the fight to stop cop city in atlanta, where dozens have been charged with domestic terrorism over their opposition to the site. This is a san pablo demonstrator speaking anonymously for safety. It is no wonder after 2020 in the most massive of antipolice antagonism in the United States that the proposed plans for Police Training facilities are popping up all over the country. They want to better prepare, basically, for counterinsurgency. To better prepare to police, murder like and brown communities, and people who seek to establish their freedom. Amy donald trump arrived in new york city sunday night ahead of his appearance in court today for the start of his civil fraud trial. A judge last week agreed with new York Attorney general Letitia James that trump, his two sons, and the Trump Organization unlawfully inflated the value of their assets to obtain favorable loans and lower insurance rates. James is seeking 250 million in damages and a ban on trump doing business in new york. Meanwhile, in georgia, scott hall, one of trumps codefendants in his election interference case, pleaded guilty to five criminal counts related to efforts to remove and tamper with election equipment. Hall, a georgia bond bailsman, is the first coconspirator to plead guilty. As part of a deal with Fulton County prosecutors, he has agreed to testify in future proceedings and receive five years probation, along with a fine of 5000. And the nobel prize in physiology or medicine has been jointly awarded to doctors katalin kariko and drew weissman, whose work led to the development of the mrna covid19 vaccines. That technology is now being used in research for other illnesses, including cancer. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Coming up, the house and senate vote to keep funding the federal government at the house is in a state of turmoil as far right lawmakers threatened to oust House Speaker. We will get the latest look at the legacy of Dianne Feinstein, who has died at the age of 90. Stay with us. [music break] amy as long as you follow by fleetwood mac. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. The house and senate voted saturday night to keep funding the federal government for 45 days, but the house is in a state of turmoil as far right lawmakers threaten to oust House SpeakerKevin Mccarthy for working with democrats to pass the spending the bill. The final vote in the house on the stopgap spending measure was 335 to 91. All but one democrat supported the measure, which was opposed by 90 republicans. The bill did not include aid for ukraine. The senate had previously approved about 6 billion in new aid for ukraine but that was stripped from the final bill. House speaker Kevin Mccarthy spoke to reporters on saturday night. Would i have wanted the bill we put on the floor yesterday that would secure our border, cut wasteful spending . Yes, i did. But i had members who would not vote for that. If you have members in your conference that wont let you vote for appropriation come doesnt want an omnibus and will vote for stopgap measure so the end only answers to shut down and not pay our troops, i dont want to be a part of that team. I want to be part of a conservative group that wants to get things done. Amy less than 24 hours after the house passed the spending bill, republican Congressmember Matt Gaetz of the House Freedom caucus told cnn he would introduce a motion to remove mccarthy as speaker for working with democrats. I intend to file against mccarthy. I think we need to rip off the bandaid. I think we need to move on with new leadership that can be trustworthy. The one thing everybody has in common is nobody trust Kevin Mccarthy. He lied to biden, lighthouse conservatives. Lied to house conservatives. The reason we were backed up against the shutdown politics is not a bug of the system, it is a feature. Amy the drama over a possible Government Shutdown was just one of the major stories on capitol hill over the weekend. On thursday night, California Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein died at the age of 90. The longest serving woman to ever serve in the senate. On sunday, California Governor Gavin Newsom tapped Laphonza Butler to temporarily fill the seat. Butler is the president of emilys list. She served as an advisor Vice PresidentKamala Harris 2020 president ial campaign. She is a former leader of the union seiu in california for the Home Health Care workers. More recently, she advised huber as it fought the California Law requiring App Companies to grant workers employee benefits. Butler will become the only black woman in the senate and californias first openly lgbtq plus senator. The black caucus had urged newsom to pick Congressmember Barbara Lee who is already running for feinstein seat. Katie porter and adam schiff are also running for the senate seat. To talk about all of this and more, we go to california where were joined by Sasha Abramsky, the west coast correspondent for the nation. His new piece for the nation is Dianne Feinsteins empty seat. His recent piece for truthout is a small cadre of gop hardliners is pushing u. S. Toward Government Shutdown. Which did not happen. Can you talk about first the drama on saturday night and what is going to happen to House Speaker mccarthy . Good morning. It is good to be on. What happened saturday night was entirely producible consequence of what mccarthy did in order to become speaker last year. Basically, it took 15 votes to become speaker and to get there he had to make all kinds of promises to empower the far right. People like matt gaetz, loan border lauren boebert. It was predictable if you gave them power, they would throw bombs. Sure enough, they did. They try to shut down the basic functioning of government. You played a clip of mccarthy saying you have people who wont vote from the must spending bills omnibus spending bills. If you refuse your basic obligation to pass bills to keep the government open, are responsible at the end of the day if the tsa is not paid, military is paid, if wic cant pay, snap cant pay, if people going on holidays to National Parks find the parks are shuttered. Mccarthy realized if you let the government shut down, the republicans would be blamed fully and squarely for the consequences. Mccarthy is nothing if not an opportunist. He once political power. At the end of the day, mccarthy cut a deal democrats to keep government open. It is entirely predictable given the fact he seated at the right the power to challenge him if a Single Member of congress wanted to challenge him, tyler predictable within minutes of that compromise, matt gaetz had thrown another bomb and said im going to be challenging you, im going to make a move. That is the drama that will be playing out this week in washington, d. C. It is a crisis entirely of Kevin Mccarthys own making. Amy you have matt gaetz challenging him as speaker for the congressional progressive caucus will not back him, either. Theres no reason the democrats of any stripe no reason the democrats should bail mccarthy out. Mccarthy launched an entirely slurrys impeachment inquiry investigation into President Biden. It was a fishing expedition. There was no evidence or smoking gun, just as hunch mccarthy had that things were not quite right and therefore he launched an impeachment inquiry. If that is his strategy, why unearth what the democrats not sit back and watch them squirm . I suspect that is what theyre going to do this week. If they what mccarthy did bail them out, they will asked to put a hold on the impeachment inquiry. Amy that took place on thursday. The republicans own witnesses said there was not enough information. It was amateur. This was not a politics of a high caliber. This was the most illprepared, ill thought out, poorly advised republican inquiry you could possibly imagine. You cant cross it with the january6 committee hearings. Liz cheney went out and said come here is why this is so dangerous to democracy. That was meticulously prepared. What the republicans did was a partisan show. It had no merit. It was entirely amateur. Amy then you have the finding of ukraine, which is not included in this bill though the senate had voted for 6 billion. Michael bennet from colorado almost scuttled the deal and you have the one lone democrat who voted against the deal in the house, quigley from chicago, also based on the stripping the funding for ukraine. Thats right. Quigley was furious the funding had been stripped. What i find fascinating is the absolute the republicans have done since the beginning of the truck years. If you had gone back 10, 15 years, the Republican Party were the party of everything military come Everything National security. Fastforward and they are in isolationist party. They are a proprudent party. One thing to say we dont want to be involved in wars or were going to have a debate about the size of the american military, thats fine but it is extraordinary this significant wing of the Republican Party throwing in their lot with vladimir putin. It is also predictable because during his presidency, time and again trump through his lots in with vladimir putin. If youre going to throw your lot it was someone who was dictatorial, someone who has done everything he can to undermine democratic systems not just in the u. S. But across the western world if that is your bedfellow, youre going to come to strange policy conclusions. That is what we saw in this debate. The only way congress could pass any omnibus spending bill and keep American Government open was seating to the far right on the issue of ukraine. Completely extraordinary to watch. I can only think it is going to suffer all kinds of internal debates within the Republican Party. There are people out there like nikki haley, mike pence in public are willing to say that strategy is crazy, it doesnt make sense to have hes vladimir putin. I think over the next few months , as we get closer to the primary season, that debate will become evermore public and background only is. Amy if you can talk about this latest news last night California Governor Gavin Newsom tapping Laphonza Butler to fill the senate seat of Dianne Feinstein. The significance of this interim appointment . I think it is extraordinarily smart move of gavin newsom. He put himself into a bit of abide in 2021, making the pledge if he had the opportunity to appoint an africanamerican female to the senate. The problem he encountered was in the interim, barbara lee, katie porter, adam schiff had thrown their hat into the ring. After Dianne Feinstein had announced she wasnt running for reelection in 2024. Newsom did not want to tip the scales. I think he was wise not to do so. You have three extremely credible candidates. All three of which have very strong congressional records and have put in a tremendous amount of effort to build up their political infrastructure in the runup to those primaries. Newsom did not want to tip the goes. Barbara lee was lobbying very hard to be announced as the interim senator. Quite rightly newsom said, im going to step back out of the fight and turn to someone who wasnt an elected official, turned to Laphonza Butler. She is a strong track record as a labor leader, mr. President of emilys list, defending lgbtq rights, abortion rights. She is a very credible senator. She office he struck a good deal with newsom because what he did not extract from her was a promise not to run in 2024. Shes a caretaker senator but if she wants to throw her hat in the ring and file paperwork, she can do so and become the fourth candidate for the open seat. I think it will be a fascinating political time. I am really glad he appointed someone so quickly. It could have been a drawn out process. The democrats dont have a big enough majority for that to be a safe move. It was a smarter mood to do this quickly, to put someone in power in the senate and move on because now it means the democrats again have a workable majority in the senate and can start passing more legislation. Amy isnt this a slap in the face to barbara lee . His reasoning was he did not want to tip the race, she pointed out, with these three strong candidates. But unlike when mccain died in senator kyle came back truly interim was not running, he is now introduced fourth person who could be a candidate. Laphonza butler. He had gone back on his word to appoint an africanamerican woman to the senate after Kamala Harris became the Vice President , so he was going to do it will stop the question i mean, seida senate, the Congressional Black Caucus sent him a letter saying he should appoint barbara lee, who would fill out the term and then run with the others. Barbara lee is unhappy by this. The timing of Dianne Feinsteins death and so on. You look at the polling, katie porter and adam schiff are pretty far ahead, barbara lee is a distant third. Look at fundraising. Same thing. Barbara lee is far behind in the fundraising. That is not because her politics are not good, not because she doesnt have a noble history in congress. I think in part it is because californians are looking for generational change. Dianne feinstein was 90 years old. She had a very strong, very important history. You talked about earlier, but she was 90 years old and should have years ago. If you are looking for generational change, it is hard to justify that when you shift from a 90yearold to a 77yearold, which is how old barbara lee is i believe. It is easier if you ship to someone in their 50s or maybe 60s and who has a realistic chance of serving the senate for 2, 3, maybe even four terms. Laphonza butler fits that. She is young, dynamic, could if she makes a good effort be there for a long time. I dont think theres anything wrong with saying we need to have an open competition to see who the next senator is going to be. Maybe barbara lee will win. Maybe when the open primary is held of the major candidates voters will say, look, we like barbara lees policy is best. But she has to earn that. I dont think anyone has the right to say, im going to be the next u. S. Senator. You have to work at it and it goes for Laphonza Butler, barbara lee, and others. I think overall, newsom did something politically smart and did something that really is going to help keep the senate functioning over the coming months. Amy interesting choice on the white hand she was a union leader representing Home Health Care workers of the seiu in california, more recently an advisor to Kamala Harris, the Vice President , and advised uber as a father California Law requiring App Companies to grant Workers Company benefits. When we come to the primary come if she decides to throw her hat in the ring, when it comes to the primaries that is certainly something that will be discussed. She has a progressive track record with the seiu, and of the better and most progressive unions in california. And at the same time, as you said, she has been on the wrong side of this issue with uber. California has had a whole bunch of labor disputes legislation about labor and had this initiative that was trying to essentially treat uber and lyft drivers as employees, which they are. They should get benefits and health care and retirement, and they dont. She has lobbied hard on the side of uber against that policy change. I do think come the primary, that will be something she has to talk about if she decides to run for senate, proved the progressive credentials. But i think she also has a very strong record over most of her career around union issues, around progressive issues. I think she is a credible senator. Amy Sasha Abramsky, can you talk about the legacy of Dianne Feinstein . It is huge. You dont have to agree with everything she did her policy statement she made, but over the course of 50 plus years, she was essential presence in california politics. She was the mayor of San Francisco, one of the most effective senators in california history. She took on the guncontrol and lobby and introduced significant guncontrol high velocity, highpowered weaponry. That was effective. It has lapsed and now were seeing the consequences. In its day, her guncontrol measures were effective. She took on the cia when there was this worldwide torture network at the cia run black sites. She took that on and forced Senate Intelligence could hearings that resulted in this mammoth report exposing just how deep the torture brought had gone. Amy this is extremely significant because she was going against president obama who did not want the report released, and she was pushing forward. I want to go back to december 2014, releasing that summary of its investigation into the cias post9 11 secret policy of torture campaign. Senator feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence committee, outlined the reports key findings. First, the cias enhanced interrogation techniques were not an effective way to gather intelligence information. Second, the cia provided extensive amount of inaccurate information about the operation of the program and its effectiveness to the white house, the department of justice, congress, the cia inspector general, the media, and the American Public. Third, the cias management of the program was inadequate and deeply flawed. Fourth, the cia program was far more brutal than people were led to believe. Amy that was at the time the Senate IntelligenceCommittee ChairDianne Feinstein. Ultimately, she was support the wars in iraq and afghanistan. Your final thoughts . When i heard her speak in 2014 at those hearings, i thought it was one of the most effective policy interventions i had ever heard because she laid it out to the American Public the moral stacks of going on the torture road. That said, she was on the wrong side on a bunch of other issues. She is a complicated figure. My overall thoughts on Dianne Feinstein, thought she was an extremely powerful presence and dignified presence, and i thought the last few years of her life were tragic. I wrote about it extensively for the nation. Theres nothing anyone could take pleasure in watching the last two years. She shouldve retired on a high note in 2018. She would have gone out with an absolutely extraordinary record. She ran for reelection and won in the last few years were a public decline. She clearly needed help performing basic functions and it was humiliating and embarrassing. Amy the question was in the case of Dianne Feinstein, wasnt she capable of making these decisions or perhaps was it those who wanted to ensure that if gavin newsom made that promise for an africanamerican senator that he did not choose barbara lee, the time the three people running for the office, nancy pelosi in particular, his oldest daughter became the protector of Dianne Feinstein, and not wanting barbara lee, these three candidates, to have adam schiff replacer . There were clearly behindthescenes machinations going on. What would happen if she retired or died. But i think none of that negates the fact watching a public figure decline in the way we watched Dianne Feinstein declined over the last few years, it was really sad. Coming back to what i was saying, i dont think anyone did and i dont think anyone should take pleasure in watching that. It was a terrible ending to a storied career. She clearly was not performing at 100 are representing california at 100 . By the end of her life, there were these daily stories of confusion, inability to navigate the process and system without extensive help from her aides. I think it was humiliating. It was a very public display of the risks you have so many senators, so many congressmen, so Many Political officials who are very, very elderly. The way the senate works, it privileges seniority so there is no incentive to retire. We should have a National Conversation about this. I think Dianne Feinsteins last couple of years in office should trigger that conversation. Amy Sasha Abramsky is the west coast correspondent for the nation. Hes the author of several books, his forthcoming one is on the trumpera. When we come back, october is National Domestic violence awareness and prevention month. We will look at the remarkable story of a Domestic Violence survivor Tracy Mccarter, a nurse and grandmother jailed after her husband died of a stab wound when she defended herself during an altercation. Her imprisonment sparked outrage across the country. Back in 30 seconds. [music break] amy dear mama by tupac. A suspect was arrested and charged las vegas friday with his 1996 murder. Twinkie davis wrote he provided the gun used in a driveby shooting. Police said davis was that shot color for this group of individuals that committed this crime. That was the murder of tupac. This is democracy now im amy goodman. October is National Domestic violence awareness and prevention month, and we spend the rest of the hour looking at how the criminal Justice System disproportionately criminalizes black and brown survivors of Domestic Abuse and how activists have been organizing to win their freedom. The Vera Institute of justice reports 77 of women in jail have experienced intimate partner violence. Here in new york, 90 of incarcerated women have faced Domestic Violence, and the new york states own data shows a third of women imprisoned in new york for homicide were abused by the person they killed. Today, in her first broadcast interview, we are joined by Tracy Mccarter, a survivor of Domestic Violence who was the focus of a campaign called i stand with tracy that led to a remarkable courtroom scene in new york city last november when manhattan d. A. Alvin bragg asked a judge to dismiss the Second Degree murder charges against tracy, who says she stabbed her estranged husband in selfdefense when he attacked her in her new york city apartment in january 2020. It was tracy who called 911 but she was immediately arrested. Tracy spent nearly months at the seven Rikers Island jail complex until she was released thanks to pressure from a successful solidarity campaign. This is braggs exchange with judge diane kiesel. Listen closely. What you want to do now is to dismiss this case outright, is that correct . Yes, your honor. The fact that theres one fatal wound here, not a series of wounds, the almost immediate medical attention after the infliction of that wound. Amy this remarkable scene played out after a campaign to support tracy led by groups like survived punished that included a call to pack the court. Her case drew attention after the New York Post reported on it and then journalist victoria law contacted tracy and wrote a piece for gothamist about her that was then shared by several candidates in the manhattan das race, including alvin bragg, who you just heard in that clip, who wrote, i standwithtracy. Prosecuting a Domestic Violence survivor who acted in selfdefense is unjust. But bragg did not move immediately to drop the charges once we was elected. It took nearly another year of pressure. For more on this story, we are joined by Tracy Mccarter herself. She is a registered nurse who just graduated from Columbia University with a masters and just received the Truthout Center for grassroots journalisms Keeley Schenwar memorial essay prize for her essay as a black woman accused of killing a white man, i was never innocent until proven guilty. Tracy mccarter, thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to democracy now i summarized your case, but most importantly, we want you to tell it in your own words. Take as back to 2020 until today. Thank you, amy. Thank you for having me. One of the first things a person loses when they become a defendant is there voice. Everyone tells you to keep quiet. I really welcome this opportunity. In march 2020, i was living apart from my spouse because he had relapsed on alcohol and he would be violent when he was drinking. His violence would lead to attacks that included choking. As a nurse, i knew exactly how dangerous strangulation is to anyone. It is considered the most dangerous form of Domestic Violence. When he wasnt drinking, i would try to set him, listen, you cant do this. This is so dangerous to me. But he would drink and not be in control of himself. So i had to move myself away. I had done that. I was living on the Upper West Side in an apartment by myself when he contacted me that day while i was at work. I immediately shot of an email to his father to say, my gosh, jim is drinking again and i dont want to help him and i dont know what to do. The reason i was so distressed is because jim would come to my apartment regularly and ring the doorbells of all the neighbors and tell someone to let him in. He would harass people. He would fall asleep or pass out in front of the door. The Building Management was threatening to kick yet even though i was not responsible for his behavior. I felt desperate if i was going to find a way to escape him for good, i needed to help him. I led him into the apartment that night because he asked me for help getting back to sober living. Instead of doing that, immediately upon entering my apartment, he started saying, give me money. I was not going to give him money to help him keep drinking. What followed was he rebuked and offer a medication that would have helped him. He went further into my apartment, grabbed my purse, came back down the hallway, and we end up in a struggle over the purse. He then proceeds to attack me, which included a choking episode. It ended up he came away with my purse. He was by the door and i was further inside of the apartment and i wanted him to get out. I was so desperate for him to leave. He would not leave. The neighbors heard me yelling for him to get out, not to take my purse. I grabbed a knife that was a long serrated knife, a bread knife because i thought i would scare him out of my apartment. It had worked before that i was able to scare him into leaving me alone. He approached me when he could not find my wallet in my purse. I had the knife and it started to scratch him. It did not scare him. That terrified me. He was getting more angry. I agreed to give him my wallet. When i put the knife away and looked for my wallet, it wasnt where i normally kept it in my scrub pants and pleaded with him that i did not know where it was. He did not believe me and was coming at me again. I was terrified he was going to choke me to death. I grabbed another knife out of my kitchen drawer. As he was coming toward me, he stumbled. I dont know if it was because he was drunk or stumbled on things on the floor. When he stumbled, he impaled himself on the knife i was holding for my protection because i had a right to defend myself. That wound proved to be grievous. It went into his long, punctured his lung. He did not survive that. Amy Tracy Mccarter, you called 911 . Yes. I immediately began screaming for someone to call 911. I got my phone and called 911 and a neighbor came into the apartment and helped me to talk to 911 while i was try to put pressure on the wound. As a nurse, i knew that was the only hope he had was to keep pressure on the wound. I was desperate to do that. I talked to the 911 operator. My first words were that i stabbed my husband on accident. In my mind, an accident had just happened. I also go on to say that i was being attacked. The neighbor was yelling at me ask me what did i do. The 911 was asking me what did i do. I told him i had been attacked. Shortly thereafter, the police came into my apartment. Then ems. I was forced away from helping to save his life, put in handcuffs. I watched the police trying to perform cpr on my husband, not putting pressure on the wound. Was forced to watch them pump the blood out of his body even faster than it was already going and they would not listen to me when i was trying to tell them how to save his life. Amy tracy, you end up being taken to rikers. I think this piece you just won a major award for as a black four woman accused of killing a white man, i was never innocent until proven guilty. Tgc race playing a major role in terms of you being imprisoned rikers for half a year . Close at first i didnt. I did not think of myself as black and jim as white, i was just a person who loved jim. A few months into being at rikers, i remember being on the phone with a friend and said to her, oh, my god, im still here because jim is white. They dont see me as a nurse. They dont see me as a person who had loving relationships with people, who was a good mother, who had never been in trouble. I was simply being viewed as a black woman who killed a white man. That was played out and confirmed for me on april 30, 2020. I was in a bail hearing requesting veil and i thought, you know, they just dont know what happened. They just dont know how dangerous jim was. There was this video i had on my phone of him. I told my lawyer, let them go on my phone and look at this video and when the ada sees this, she will understand and i will be going home. In court that day instead, what the ada sullivan says about the video was that it appeared jim was attacking me im sorry, he was yelling at me, he was in my face yelling at me, not attacking me stop at some point, he comes up and starts to pull my hair and the phone goes down and it is not entirely clear but it appears he may have choked me but it would have been for a short time. I thought, excuse me . You cant choke someone we know that from the fact police cannot put people in choke holds anymore, there is no safe amount of time to choke anyone. So this was an ada in the Domestic Violence vision who should be extremely aware that strangulation is the most dangerous form of Domestic Violence. Instead she was saying that he was allowed to choke me for this brief time without it being a big deal. I want to be clear, that video was not from the night i was attacked, it was from the night before the time before i left him and that is what convinced me i had to leave. He only got worse over time. It became clear to me that i wasnt going to be considered a person whose life was important enough to defend. I can only make the assumption it is because i am a black woman and as a very famous abolitionist and activist in this work tells us, we dont have selves to defend, brown and black women. The court makes a very clear. Amy so you are put in rikers at the height of the covid pandemic. You are a nurse. You have this remarkable history. You had four kids by the time you were 20. You were accepted to Yale University but could not go because you could not afford it. You were at that time getting your masters degree at columbia but youre in rikers and a Movement Starts to grow. This Grassroots Movement led by survived and punished. If you could talk about the significance of the people who fought for your case to be known and ultimately one of the men who would stand with you was running for District Attorney you talked about the ada against you but alvin bragg, and he tweeted standwithtracy. Though it would take a year before he would drop the murder charges against you, tracy. The significance . I want to be very clear that my case was started under cy vance and continued under alvin bragg. So prosecutors art different just because there is a new one. Not from what i saw. There was a group of people who started by just sending me a letter at rikers. I had no idea at the time anyone other than my family and lawyers knew i was at rikers. It said, we have this information about other women. We have expertise that we can leverage to help you. Will you allow us to do that . So i consented. They contacted my family. They helped us to understand the Court Process because my first lawyer wasnt very good at doing that i felt. They also started talking about how to get this case in the media. How do we get people to understand what is happening to me. My lawyers arent very pleased with these things. They want decorum. Were just supposed to follow the rules. The rules so you dont talk about your case prior to appearing in court. But after six months at rikers, i knew this was my only hope to get out of there. They started to meet weekly with family on the outside. I was done initially involved with meeting with them weekly. But when i got out, we started to meet. They were the ones that got victoria law interested in my case and because of her, she wrote the story and it was picked up by the wall street journal. I think it embarrassed the office of cy vance and that his only reason i was allowed to leave rikers on electronic monitor. As you say, there was this Campaign Going for a new District Attorney. Cy vance was not going to run again. Several of the candidates made some sort of comment about my case, but alvin bragg made a very strong statement that domestic survivors should not be Domestic Violence survivors. He was elected in the fall of 2021. We thought, ok, he has heard the story, know some of the facts. My lawyers asked to have a meeting with him to give him all the facts. I actually had a meeting where i sat down for two hours in his office and explained to him exactly what happened, the history of my relationship and walked him through that night. They had access to all of our evidence, to our experts. They were allowed to talk they had our entire case. What happened instead was he offered me a plea. I was not willing to take a plea. They did get it down to a plea that allowed me to keep my license and by that time, i was on the record as being suicidal. I needed desperately to get to treatment so i said, fine. If i can take an alford plea, which is one you dont have to say your guilty because im not guilty of a crime, it would end in a replete or where he would be a misdemeanor at the end of a year and i would get to keep my nursing license, fine, i will take it. And we go to court and judge kiesel said absolutely not. She would not take it because her words were, speaking to the prosecutor, you charged her with murder and you want this to end . In misdemeanor she said it was too lenient and she was not to take it. Amy which was amazing because she was known as an advocate for Domestic Violence. I want to bring into this conversation Brooklyn College law professor jocelyn simonson, who has written a book radical acts of courage how ordinary people are dismantling incarceration. Professor, if you can talk about how it was this Grassroots Movement that ultimately pushed alvin bragg, the Manhattan Das Office to drop the murder charges entirely. Thank you for having me. You played audio earlier of alvin bragg asking judge kiesel to dismiss the case but that only happened after he was in office for nearly a year, not keeping his problem promise to dismiss the charges against tracy. What you cant see when we hear the audio is that courtroom was absolutely full of people wearing red tshirts and red hoodies that said two things on it, stand with tracy because this group had collectively worked both to support tracy and to let the public know about her case, and it also said free them all because we are a group that works with individuals on their collective defense campaigns but also connects what is happening to the larger criminalization of survivors, especially of black women. This group was able to support tracy to latch the public know what was happening and to connect what was happening to larger beliefs in the injustice of what was happening. That is what my book talks about, different ways people are collectively helping people who are being criminalized and by doing so actually showing their other understandings of justice and safety. In tracy, that justice would have been not arresting her in the first place but rather supporting her during a trauma that is unimaginable to so many of us. Amy we are going to continue this discussion after the broadcast and post it at democracynow. Org. You are listening to jocelyn simonson, law professor Brooklyn College. Her new book is called radical acts of justice how ordinary people are dismantling incarceration. Were also going to continue talking with Tracy Mccarter, Domestic Violence survivor, nurse, and grandmother. She just graduated from Columbia University. Democracy now is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. Email you hello, and welcome to nhk newsline. Im Catherine Kobayashi in new york. Two scientists transformed the threat of the pandemic and helped people resume their lives. They laid the ground work for covid vaccines. Now theyve been awarded the nobel prize in medicine. Members of the panel say the laureates