Transcripts For LINKTV Democracy Now 20160616

Amy Senate Democrats led by chris murphy of connecticut have wrapped up a nearly 15hour filibusterer calling for stricir gun controrol in the wake of the orlando massacre, but will it does but what exactly was agreed to . We will get t the latest. Then to the president ial race. I am donald trump. I wrote the art of the deal. I have made billions and billions of dollars dealing with people all over the world and i want to put whatever that talent is to work to this country. Amy today, we look at trump the businessman and a series of new investigative articles that expose trumps shady business dealings in Atlantic City, his failure to pay hundreds of former employees and contractors, and new evidence from a Pulitzer Prize money journals that trump did not even pay his taxes. All that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. President obama is slated to visit orlando, florida, today, following sundays attack on an lgbt n nightclub in orlandndo, flororida, which k killed d 49 e and was the deadliliest massss shshooting i in modern u. S. H. The massacre has reignited calls for gun control by Senate Democrats, who mounted a nearly 15hour filibuster that ended early this morning after republicans reportedly agreed to hold a vote on gun contrtrol measures, including prohibiting peoplen the govevernmentss terrrrorist watctch list fromm obtaining gun licenses and exexpanding background checks to include gushows and internet sales. Connecticucut democratic senator chris murphy launcnched the filibuster a little after 11 00 inin the morning on wednesdaday. Imf my withth end. End. Am at my witss ive had enougugh. Ive had enough of the ongoing slaughter off innocents and body. Of inaction in this so i im goining remain on this floor until we get some signal, some sign that we can come together on these two measures, that we e can get a papath forw. Pidemic inin ag this memeaningful, bipartisan way. Amy it was the 9th longest filibuster in u. S. History. About 90 of americans support stricter gun control measures, while new cbs news poll finds 57 of americans support a full nationwide ban on assaultt weapons up from 44 last december although, this was not one of the issues republicans have agreed to vote on. Well have more on the filibuster aftfter headlines. Presumptive republican president ial nominee donald trump has said hell meet with the National Rifle association today to discuss gun control measures to prohibit people on terror w watch lists from purchasing firearms. The nra has endorsed trump. Meanwhile, donald trump reiterated his call for bans on muslim immigration and called for increased surveillance of muslim communities, including at mosques. He spoke at a a news conferencen atlanta, georgia wednesday. , we have to stop on a temporary basis, at least, but we have to stop people from pouring into our country. We have to stop it. Until we find out what the hell is going on. And we have to go and we have to maybe check, respectfully, the mosques, and were to check other places. Amy a new cbs news poll finds the majority of americans disapprove of trumps response to the mass shooting in orlando. During trumps speech in atlanta, members of the press corps symbolically saved seats for the Washington Post reporters who had been banned by trump from covering his events. Trump has also banned buzzfeed, the huffington post, the daily beast, the des moines register, the union leader, univision, and fusion. Meanwhile, Government Agencies are refusing to release Public Records about sundays massacre in orlando, florida. Multiple media sources have reported shooter omar mateen called 911 during the time of the assault and declared his allegiance to isis, but the city of orlando is refusing to release any 911 calls. Other agencies are refusing to release documents about mateens Security Guard license, and records from mateens brief stint as a corrections officer. Barbara petersen of the First Amendment foundation said, they are trying to control the stream of information. They are trying to control what people know. This comes as a a federal grand jury is reportly considering whether to indict omar mateens wife, noor salman, on criminal charges related to the attack. Multiple news outlets, citing unnamed sources, have reported she know about the planned attack ahead of time and even drove mateen to the pulse club one night. But other reporters have cast doubt on these claims. Sam husseini of the institute for public accuracy reports one of noor salmans Close Friends says salman is saying that she knew nothing of her husbands plans and never drove her husband to the club. Husseini writes, she is apparently telling people around her that virtually everything youre hearing about her is a lie. E. Meanwhile, the intercept is reporting an orlandobased imam named Marcus Dwayne Robertson has received a slew of Death Threats after fox news inaccurately reported robertson had been arrested for alleged connections to omar mateen. Fox cited d anonymous government officials claiming mateen had been radicalized through robertsons online seminary. But rorobertson had not beenen arreststed and mateen was neneva stududent of robertsons semina. In facact, the two never hadad y contact. Robertson told the intercept some members of the media decided to start pushing their own narrative in order to build this mentality that is trying to foment hatred and blame us for these terrible acts. Theyve put our lives in danger. Video of utahs republican Lieutenant Governor spencer cox has gone viral after he apologized to the Lgbtq Community for hihis own homophoa during a vigil in Salt Lake City on monday. Highwent to a small rural school. There were some kids in my class that were different ththen me, d somemetimes i wasasnt kind to. I did not know it at the time, but i know n now they were gay. I regret not treating them with thee kindness, dignity, anand respect, the love that they deserved. For that, i sincerely and humbly apologize. Speaking out to the straight commmmitted the, how did you fel when you heard 49 people hadad been gunned down by a so proclaimed terrorist . That is the easy question. Heres ththe hard one. Did that feeling change when you found out the shooting was in a gay bar at 2 2 00 a. M. In the morning . If that feeling changed, then were doing something wrong. Amy from the campaign trail, a single hacker using the name guccifer 2. 0, has claimed responsibility for hacking into the Democratic National commmmittees Computer Network d obtaining a trove of donor information and a 200page antitrump playbook. The dnc had previously blamed the attack on the russian government. On wednesday, the hacker leaked the donald trump report, which was created in december 2015 by democratic strategist warren flood. The playbook highlights the dncs strategies to take down trump, which include focusing on how trump is a misogynist in chief and a bad businessman. Well, for more on Donald Trumps business practices, well be joined later in the broadcast by a roundtable of awardwinning reporters from the New York Times, usa today, and the daily beast. In more news from the 2016 election, the aclu has sued the city of cleveland over restrictions on free speech. Free speech cleveland officials are planning to impose during the Republican National convention in july. Cleveland hahas demarcated a 3. 3 square mile event area in downtown cleveland that will be subject to broad restrictions during the convention, including banning everyday items such as umbrellas with metal tips, glass bottles, canned goods, large backpacks and sleeping bags. , the lawsuit argues the bans of such items are arbitrary and will criminalize the homeless community. The city has also delayed issuing permits for marches and parades for months, making g it difficult to plan. In news from the u. S. War in afghanistan, u. S. Defense secretary ash carter has reportedly told nato the u. S. Is again reconsidering the proposed withdrawal of u. S. Forces. The u. S. Currently has 9800 u. S. Troops in afghanistan. The current plan is reduce this number 5500 by the end of this year. Carters comments wednesday come as nato countries agreed to extend the mission in afghanistan through 2017 and to keep the network of baseses acrs afghanistan in place. Tens of thousands of palestinians living in the Israelioccupied West Bank are withthout access to safe drinkig water during the holy month of ramadan after israels National Water Company Began siphoning off Water Supplies to multiple west bank cities and villages. Meanwhile, European Union officials are warning 95 of the water in the israelioccupied gaza strip is currently not fit for human use. This comes as u. S. Officials announce breakthroughs in talks over increased u. S. Military funding to isrsrael. While visiting israel for the talks, u. S. Deputy secretary of state Antony Blinken spoke out. Under this administration, the United States has invested nearly 24 billion in Foreign Military financing for israel since 2009. 9. Far more than for any other country, more than at any other previous time in the history of the u. S. Israel relationship. We are also prepared to sign a new tenure memorandum of understanding that would constitute the largest single pledge of military assistance from the United States to any country in our history. Amy he also said u. S. Military funding to israel currently amounts to 8. 5 million every single day. A new report by the netherlandsbased Peace Organization pax accuses 150 financial institutions, including u. S. Banking giants Jpmorgan Chase and bank of america, of investing billions of dollars in companies manufacturing internationallybanned cluster bombs. The weapons contain bomblets which fan out over a wide area and often fail to explode e unti civilians pick them up later. In florida divers have found the , body of f a twoyearold boyoy following an alligator attack at disneys theme park just outside orndo, floririda. Totoler lane g graves of nebrasa was attackcked and dragged away from his familily on the shohorf a manmade lake on t tuesday night. Disnsney has closesed the beacht its florida resorts in the wake of the attack. In oakland, california, a Second Police chief has been ousted in less than a week amid a massive scandal in which multiple Oakland Police officers are facing allegations of statutory rape and Human Trafficking after allegedly having sex with an underage girl who was working as a sex worker. On wednesday, oaklkland mayor libby schaaf removed ben fairow as interim police chief. He had been appointed only six days earlier after former police chief sean whent resigned amid the scandal. And today marks the 50th anniversary of Stokely Carmichaels historic black power speech in greenwood, mississippi, on june 16, 1966. Carmichael was speaking after james meredith, the first black student to attend the university of mississippi, had been shot and wounded by a white man during the walk against fear from memphis, tennessee, to jackson, mississippi. Following the shooting, carmichael declared to a crowd of 3000 people we been saying freedom for six years. What we are going to start saying now is black power. Speaking years later, carmichael explained the decision to adopt black power as the movements slogan. Luckily for us, the net in greenwood, k keene had to go doa television thing i think for meet the e press, so he had do go to memphis a am a he was not therere the night in greenwood. They saiaid, dont hit too muchn freedom now, but hit the need for power. There, rix wasot saying, hit them now. I kept saying, give me tim wewe drdropped like power. They h have been primed and respond immediately. I myself, to o be honest, i did not expect that enthusiastic response. Amy Stokely Carmichael adopted the name he died in and those 1998. Are some of the headlines. This democracy now, demomocracynow. Org, the wawar ad peace report. Im amy goodman. Return to thee guncontrol debae on capitol hill. For nearly 15 hours, democratic senator chris murphy of connecticut led a filibuster calling for stricter gun control in the wake of the orlando massacre that left 49 people dead. Murphy began the filibuster at 11 21 eastern time in the morning on wednesday. With help from allies, he kept the filibuster going until 2 11 this morning saying that , republicans have agreed to hold votes on measures to expand background checks and prevent people on u. S. Terrorism watch lists from buying guns. Murphy accused the Republicanled Senate of failing to address the nations gun epidemic. I think the people notice when we remain silent i know it is unintentional, but it seems to some people as if we dont care about what happens when we dont try to do anything about it. And i understand we have deep disagreements here about how to proceed, but with the exception of one week in 2013, we have not brought a debate to this floor in which we try to hash out our differences. Republican leadership did not announce in the wawake of orlano that we are going to spend this week working o on trying to enat measures to make sure that another mass shooting doesnt happen. And a fundamental disconnect with the American People when these tragedies continue to occur and we just move forward with this is as usual. So im going to remain on this floor until we get some signal, some sign that we can come together on these two measures, that we can get a path forward on addressing this epidemicic ia meaningful, bipartisan way. Amy on the president ial campaign trail, Hillary Clinton tweeted her support of murphys effort, saying some fights are too important to stay silent. Preventing gun violence is one of them. Stand strong chrismurphyct. Meanwhile, donald trump suggested in a tweet that he will push the nra to accept some new forms of gun control. He wrote i will be meeting with the nra, who has endorsed me, about not allowing people on the terrorist watch list, or the no fly list, to buy guns. Meanwhile, the cover of todays boston globe, features a large photo of a military style ar15 next to just three words make it stop. For more were joined by caroline fredrickson, president of the American Constitution Society for law and policy. Welcome to democracy now you are in washington, d. C. , with a knife longest filibuster in u. S. History took place on the floor of the senate will stop where the night long as filibuster in u. S. History took place on the floor of the senate. Quite i think it is pretty important to recognize the Republican Leadership has been unwilling to even discuss the most limited, basic, commonsensical restrictions on access to guns. And after this historic filibuster, they have agreed to allow votes to go forward on a couple again, we could be asking for a lot more, but these are some basic measures that the senate will move forward to a vote on. At least the American People can get these senators on the record. Amy talk about this. One of them is a nofly ,no buy. Explain what that is. Essentially, we have these terrorist watch list in the United States or the government has determined that people are perhaps terrorists were associated with terrorists and they are dangerous. The nofly list prevents them from getting on an airplane. The no buy list would extend that to the purchase of guns and saying, you know, as we might think another commonsense measure, that if you are thought to be a terrorist and we wont let you fly, we should probably not let you buy a gun. Amy theres Something Interesting that happened with republicans yesterday on this issue. Because the republicans have been so opposed, along with the nra, to any kind of regulation, they find themselves on the side of the terror watch list saying that there should be a way people can get off it which is interesting, and i think a lot of people would agree with that. What happens when you are put on this list and you have no recourse . They are calling for this now because theyre saying, if people cant get off it, they can buy guns. So explain what theyre pushing for. Well, and i think all of us who care about Civil Liberties should want to make sure that those lists are fairly come to an theres a process for getting off if there is a mistake. I know the aclu where i used to work has long pushed for that. I think that is important. But the idea is, what we need is a process that can recognize and deal with mistakes, but not put up a false effort to simply derail with the democrats are trying to do just what i am very for the nra and the Republican Leadership is aiming for here. Amy explain. The best way to get something off the public stage is to set up meetings and to say theres going to be a dialogue and a discussion. Take a long time to finally reach the end, which is that you cant get to an agreement. I am somewhat skeptical, but i do think the democrats should be pushing as hard as they can. The filibuster is an important tool to bring people to the table. I think senator murphy was right not to back down simply because some republicans said they were discussing a possible compromise with senator feinstein. At the end of the day, that compromise discussion fell apart. Similar murphy was right to keep to the floor. I think the democrats have to continue to use these tools in order to make sure any agreement is one that actually has teeth. Amy California Democratic senator dianne finds that has released new statistics showing more than 90 of known or suspected terrorists have attempted to buy a gun since 2004 have passed a background check and been cleared to do so. The data from ththe government accountatability office shows between 2004 and 2015, nearly 2500 people on the watch list applied to purchase weapons. 2300 of them were approved. Last year, individuals on the terrorist watch list were involved in background checks to purchase firearms, 244 times can only 21 of those were denieded. Caroline fredrickson . I think it shows, we have a problem here. I know the fbi itself is talking about better ways to raise those Warning Signals up. But really, im sorry, but if you can get on an airplane or you cant get on an airplane, you really should not field a buy a gun. You should not be able to buy an automatic weapon of the kind that was used in orlando. We could ever that tragedy. Amy talk about an assault weapons ban. What is amazing is cbs just did a poll does have more than half the country is for an assault weapons ban. This week we did an interview with one of the leading activists from australia after the tense mania massacre 20 years ago tasmanian massacre 20 ors ago this spring, australia with allll of the crocodile dundees, turned around in 10 days and fact, they all said you are a web to need an automatic weapon to kill animals. They turn that around completely and enforced strict gun reform and since that time, 20 years ago, there has never been a mass shooting in australia. Gun violence down 50 . But it seemed off the table yesterday, even for the democrats. Well, you know, it is a real shame. I think one of the things we need to bring to the table and the discussions about gun violence in the u. S. Is data. The data you just cited about the ability to prevent a mass shooting by getting rid of or making it impossible for average citizens to buy such a dangerous ,eapon, a military style weapon you know, it speaks for itself. We should be governed data like that. We should be having an actual reasonable discussion about what measures can be taken. That does not deny hunters the ability to go out. As you said, i think real hunters dodont want to shoot dn animals would automatic machine guns. Were not talking about restricting hunting rifles. But really, lets look at what is out there. Where these Mass Shootings you know, what are the weapons that are being used . I think if people could just be reasonable and sit around a table, we could come up with some appropriate regulations that would continue to allow people to exercise their Second Amendment rights, but not enable dangerous people who want to engage in mass murder to go outt anand buy these guns without any restrictctions. Amy we have spent time talking about the terror watch list, but what about overall in society . I mean, when you have, for example, the young man in connecticut who gunned down the 26 School Children and six staff and teachers in sandy hook. When you have the young man who killed people at the Aurora Movie Theater in colorado. These are not people who would traditionally put on a terror watch list. These are people who are extremely unstable, had various ways whehere people could see tt they were, and also the issue of Domestic Violence which was raised on the floor of the senate yesterday. But as so often in these cases, you can trace back to a man who beat his wife or partner, as is the case with omar mateen. His first wife leaving him after four months. Amy, you raise a good point. This isnt a onesizefitsall answer, but there are a variety of proposals that have been suggested even as we go back to the assault weapons ban. Something that has been law in the past. We lived under that law. We lived under that law. It is constitutional, even under this supreme courts most restrictive version of the heller decision. There are a lot of limits that are constitutional that we can consider. And certainly expanding background checks, enforcing them. President obama has proposed tightening up some of the existing loopholes that would ensure that people who are engaged in Domestic Violence, that would extend to people who are not in a married relationship but to others people with serious Mental Illnesses and other dangerous individuals would be barred from getting a gun. I i think we can all agree that makes a lot of sense. Amy and in the case of the ar15, which is the mass shooters weapon of choice, whether it is adam lanza in connecticut of course, that is where chris murphy comes out of. He had just been elected to the senate when ththe sandy hook massacre took place. Whether it is james holmes at the aurora massacre or whether. T is mateen here in orlando 10 y years, momore than a decade ago, the assault weapons ban was allowed to lapse. What you think its chances are of being reinstated with more than half the population, according to cbs, saying they want to see it again . What we need is political will. We need people to stand up to the nra. It is about time. They are out of step with where the American Public is on so many gun issues. As you mentioned, 90 of the American Public wants stricter gun safety laws. I think we need somebody to say, you know, enough. It is time for us to actually move forward. Were going to protect second minute rights and ensure hunters can have their guns, but were also going to ensure that dangerous people and military style weapons are cant meet. That those people cannot buy those guns, that the guns are not available. It is about time. Weve seen way too much of this. You know, the tragedies keep mounting. Amy we will continue to cover this and see what happens. Caroline fredrickson president , of the American Constitution Society for law and policy. When we come back, we look at Donald Trumps Business Record. A number of journalists have been delving into his business practices. Stay with us. [music break] amy this is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. An antidonald trump playbook compiled by the Democratic National committee has leaked online following this weeks report that the Democratic National computers can Democratic National committees computers were breached by russian hackers. Human, in the docunt trump is pilloried as a , bad businessman and misogynist in chief. Well, instead of devising a dossier on trump, the dnc couldve just encouraged voters to pick up a newspaper and read the facts for themselves. A series of new investigative articles reveal trumps shady business dealings in Atlantic City his failure to pay , contracted workers over the years, and his decision to partake in what may amount to calculated tax fraud a felony. We begin by looking at a lengthy article this past weekend in the New York Times detailing how donald trump bankrupted his Atlantic City casinos, but still earned millions. Reporters Ross Buettner and Charles Bagli write even as his companies did poorly, mr. Trump did well. He put up little of his own money, shifted personal debts to the casinos and collected millions of dollars in salary, bonuses and other payments. The burden of his failures fell on investors and others who had bet on his business acumen. Their new article is headlined, how donald trump bankrupted his Atlantic City casinos but still earned millions. And Charles Bagli, welcome. Russ, lets start with you, how trump profited on failed casinos. I think the most surprising thing to me was the pattern of repeated over and over again,hich is him buying high mortgaging even higher, and then promising that everything was going to be wonderful. The inevitable happens that they run out of cash. The casinos cannot support the debt he has put t on. He is able to get his investors to take a haircut, a big cut in the money they have upcoming, and the pattern starts all over again. That repeated itself four times and probably would have been a fit except investors had it with them. Four times bankruptcy . Yes. Amy which is interesting because many people who support donald trump, those who go up out to his rallies, talk about just this country needing jobs and we need a businessman to run this country correctly. That is right. That is the central core of his candidacy. Amy charles, tell us the story of the empire that donald trump assembled in Atlantic City. Layout the hole boardwalk geography. Voters in new jersey approved gambling in Atlantic City in the late 1970s. Easily development of a bunch of casinos down there. Donald trump came in in the second wave. In 1982, he got licensed and sought opportunity and he you back on other peoples efforts there. He had a great location. Yet a piece of land right next to the on the boardwalk next to thehe convention center. He didid not have the money to actually correct the casino, so arrahs. Era h they let him have half the profits. S. So that was his first casino. The second casino, hilton, i just about completed a casino in the Marina District that could not get licensed. Donald bought it. Hisas directly across from patrons casino or harrahs casino. They were outraged about this. That partnership ended will stop donald now has two casinos. All of this was bought with debt. There wasnt a lot of money that donald was putting into the properties. So then he is no sooner done acquiring two when resorts international, which was the First Company to build a casino, is now building what they say will be the biggest casino in the world. The chairman died. Donald made a play for the company. Got into a fight with merv griffin, the talkshow host. They ended up splitting the baby. So he got the taj mahal. He told regulators, dont worry, im going to do fine here, i hate junk bond debt. It m makes for junk companies. Within five minutes later, he turned aroround and put 675 million more debt, high interest debt, on the properties. So here he is now with three casinos by 1990 amy trump taj mahal. Trump taj mahal, and there all caps it with each other. Trump taj mahal opens. 58 millioning off ultimately that youre from his other two casinos. It was a fatal amount of debt that was there. The control commission was appalled at the high level of debt, 3. 4 billion on his entnte emempire that point. Amy so hohow, rest, did he make money . Y . , each time he took it out, created a big pot of cash that could have supported the business for some number of years, that could have been reinvested in the business to make the casinos look better and work better. Instead, what seems to happen is it supported the bottom line that was winding and he pulled out large lagging and you pulled out 1 million he are basically for them using his name, rose to 2 million later on. You charged the casinos 300,000 in your for occasional use of his jet. He took a 5 million bonus in 1996, which was the year that the stock both hit its people and then sunk and began a long start slight from which it never recovered. Amamy in september, this is former hewlettpackard ceo Carly Fiorina sparring with donald trump. There are a lot of us americans who believe wewe are going to have trouble someday paying back the interest on our debt. Because politicians have run up mountains of debt using other peoples money. That is in fact were cicely the way you ran your casinos will step you ran up mountains of debt as well as losses using other peoples money and you were forced to file for bankruptcy not once, not twice, four times. A record four times. Why should we trust you with the finances of this nation . Ive made over 10 billion. At a Casino Company caesars file for bankruptcy. Most everybody in Atlantic City is a must in trouble maybe i will blame chris. Atlantic city is a disaster. Wait a minute. I let use the. Atlantic city is a disaster and i did great in Atlantic City. I knew when to get out. My timing was great and i got a lot of credit for it. Amy i knew when to get out. My timing was great. Charles bagli . Absolutely not. The problems in Atlantic City started in 2006 when a pennsylvania started opening up casinos and siphoning off potential revenue for Atlantic City. But dodonald was fullbore from 1990 to 2004, in fact, he was finally ousted from the company because the management did not want him around anymore. Write, close examination of regulatory reviewews, court recordsds, secy filings by the new york time leaves little doubt that mr. Trumps casino business was a protracted failure without now says his casinos were overtaken by the same tidal wave that eventually slammed this seaside citys gambling industry. In reality, he was failing in Atlantic City long before Atlantic City itself was failing. It even as his companies did poorly, mr. Trump did well. He put up little of his own money, shifted personal debts to the casinos, and collected millions of dollars in salary, bonuses, and other payments. The burden of his failures fell on investors and others who had bet on his business acumen. Suffered . Ner, who do you tell stories of the people who got hurt in this massive failure in Atlantic City . There were several large categories of people, one where people who worked on the initial tataj mahal. That bankruptcy, they really shorted contractors who were owed money. They have performed work and had not been paid. They negotiated very small amountnts for those people to be paid. We quoted one person in in the article his father almost lost her business, took . 30 on the dollar for the work he a done on the taj. Andothers were bondholders stockholders. Some of those, as mr. Trump has said, w were sophistiticated investors who shouldve been able to look at the Balance Sheet and see what they were getting into. Others were people who had their interment retirement invested or had their and retirement invested through mutual funds. ,e s spoke with one stockholder one point was 500,000, and was left with essentially nothing. And it got how unusual is it for businessman. Four the group sees . I think it is somewhat unprecedented. The idea that wall street continued to give him money, not once, not twice, three, four times, i mean, we were kind of holding onto our heads when you look at the full record down in Atlantic City. I dont think ive seen anything like it. More recently, a number of Casino Companies have had trouble in Atlantic City because the market is shrinking. As other states put casinos online. Experience, i have never seen anything like it. Amy was a state takeover similar to flint . The state takeover of Atlantic City . Amy what theyre proposing. Atlantic city has been a mess for a long time. You can see the Casino Industry has been there for more than 35 years, and it still looks like a gap to city. Lots are sitting vacant. The state is edging toward a takeover of the city where theres a long history of corruption. I think theres equal blame for the city, the state, and the Casino Industry. Amy were going to go to break and come back to this discussion and broaden it out to usa today reporters a reporter for the daily beast, looking at Donald Trumps record from Atlantic City well, and beyond. We are talking with Russ Buettner and Charles Bagli, who wrote a piece, a major front page sunday piece in the New York Times called, how donald trump bankrupted his Atlantic City casinos, but still earned millions. Back in a minute. [music break] amy this is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. They were looking at Business Record of the Presumptive Republican president ial nominee donald trump. We turn to look at a new usa today expose that found hundreds of former employees and contractors have accused donald trump and his businesses of failing to pay them for their work. Victims have included a dishwasher in florida, a Glass Company in new jersey, a carpet company, a plumber, 48 waiters, dozens of bartenders at his resorts and clubs, and even several law firms that once represented him in these labor lawsuits. Joining us from m new orleans is. Teve reilly his new exclusive is headlined hundreds allege donald trump , doesnt pay his bills. Steve reilly, welcome to democracy now what evidence do you have for that . Tell us these individual stories. The broader context, usa today started by gathering the history of litigation involving donald trump and his companies more than 3500 lawsuits which involve trump copies of the last several decades. Our most recent article we looked within that body of litigation at lawsuits involving allegations of nonpayment against Donald Trumps companies specifically, more than 60 lawsuits along with hundreds of other mechanics, liens, judgments, other filings which indicate there are allegations donald trump has not paid contractors, workers, employees for their services. So i can talk about specific examples. Iel article discusses the fr Cabinetry Company based out of philadelphia which did work on the casinos in Atlantic City in the 1980s. They built registration desks, slot machines. There is a dispute at the end of their work about 83,000. The allegation is that donald trump did not pay the company for the work, which eventually contributed to the bankruptcy of that company which employed in the 1980s. S amy lets go to paul friel speaeaking to usa today [c[captioning made p possible by dedemocracy now w ] he did some work for r a contractor, general for a hotel called harrahs tht trump bobought. Dodonald said, well, honestly, e owee you the money and we e are willing to l let you be happy wh whwhatou paid on the contract anand or, you can sisimply te amy steve reilly, expand on that. The company decided, you know, what they do is that what approved a punch carard by the general contractor. The work was essentially approved, according to the gentleman who just spoke, paul friel. They went for the final payment and were called into a meeting with donald and robert trump and were told, youre not going to be paid the final invoice of about 83,000, but you are welcome to come back and do future work for the trump organization. Cabinetry, and he tried to recoup the money and hired a lawyer, but dropped any attempt to regain that money because of legal fees eventually. After that, paul friel related of the company was unable to find work in Atlantic City from that point on. Amy you talk about juan carlos who own the paint spot in south florida . Thats another example of a company. This is a case that is still ongoing that is disputed of her paintwork done at the doral resort in florida. Theres a foreclosure proceeding and a dispute over payment for the work k there. It is still going on right now. Amy you also talk about trumps companies having been cited for 24 violationss of the fair labor standards act since 2005 for failing to pay overtime or minimum wage according to the u. S. Department of labor data. Can you talk about what you found their there . Those are dispute since 2005 over back wages and overtime and minimum wage. Trump, as a result of those cases, without paying back wages in both cases to some of his hourly employees at Trump Mortgage and one of his casinos. Amy steve reilly, i would to turn to audio of your interview with donald trump will stop you raised allegations b bdishwasher and other hourly employees who said they were not paid fairly by trump. The article mentions a couple of allegations i believe a dishwasher a couple of other hourly employees and some department of labor citations for violations of the fair labor standards act. Unpaid overtime . When is this . U. S. Labor Department Violations were in 2005 and 2008. 10 years ago. Steve. S ago, i have thousands of employees. Youre talking about a dishwasher from 10 years ago. You dont sound like youre going to be very good to me out of thats ok. I treated him fairly, steve. How do you respond when a reporter from a newspaper that you respect also talks about a dishwasher 10 years ago saying he did not get paid . Write not fair reporting. I pay my bills on time. I am proud to do it. I one of the best records in the country for paying on time, steve, ok . So your company doesnt have any systematic effort we pay everybody what theyre supposed to get paid and we pay on time. We e employ thousands and thousands of people. Amy steve reilly, i want to play one more x with your interview with donald trump. Yet people who say you allege they did shoddy work and in response to that, youre comforted did not pay them at all. Have ale do bad work, we contract i actually pay on time and even ahead of schedule is people do good jobs. Steve, if somebody does a bad job, as far as im concerned im a they violated their trust and their contract. You understand that. I pay my bills on time. Im proud of that. I am a believer of that. Amy steve reilly, your response, that again, donald trump being interviewed by you for usa today . We heard mr. Trumps response to some of these cases. That, you know, indicates that he did not make full payment or his companies did not make full payment for work is a case where the work was late or incomplete or shoddy. That does contradict some of the allegations that we reviewed, you know, especially the friel story that they were invited to come back and do future work, that type of story was related by a couple of other contractors as well. And also, regarding the u. S. Department of labor violations, you heard mr. Trump did not directly speak to those. He feels it was 10 years ago, we did notue, but get a full, you know, response as to his feelings about those late payments to hourly employees. Amy as you write with your reporting coinciding with New York Times reporters we were talking to, the taj mahal, records released by the new Jersey Casino Control Commission in 1990 show at least 253 subcontractors were not paid in full or on time, including workers who installed walls, chandeliers, plumbing. This is also what you found, russ and charles. I think what had Million Dollars worth of claims at the taj mahal in 1990, 1991. Amy how much . I think what hundred Million Dollars. It created a huge turmoil in the community and Atlantic City because a lot of these were small businesses. When you dont get 83,000 andnd then you h have to go hire a lawyer to fight for you, you can bankrupt a small business. Amy what was Donald Trumps response to your a article, rus . He did not question any of the points at we made some of that he pulled a lot of money out and is revenue lagged behind other casinos, nor that he shifted his personal debt onto the shareholders in his casinos. Some of the more specific things, he said he did not recall. The thing he stressed over and over a again that he wanted to make sure that everyone who ththought about is understood ws that he personally made a lot of money from the casinos. And he wasnt too concerned that other people might have not done well. Amy were going to turn to one of your former colleagues, a new xpose in the daily beast called new evidence donald , trump didnt pay taxes. Joining us from rochester, new york, David Cay Johnston these to work at New York Times now reporting for the e daily beas ananother publications. David, what did you find . Donald has s done a good jobf trying to give a number of things out o of the pupublic red and shshut down investigations, bubut i found two tax appeals he filed from the year 1984. One with the city of new york and one with the state. In one of these two cases, donald filed something called the scheduled c, what a freelancer files. He reported zero income and 626,000 of expenses with no receipts and no documentation. That is something that could be construed as tax fraud. During the hearing, which lasted whodays, the cpa and lawyer had done Donald Trumps taxes for years was shown the tax return and he said, well, that is my signature, but i did not prepare that tax return. Was a photocopy. Of course, you can put a name on a document with a photocopy machine. My first big reporting award was for just such a device used by a corrupt michigan politician. Nottrump organization did respond to any of my questions. The trump campaign. Donald was hit in one case with a 35 realty and in the other case, the 25 penalty was not applied only because nobody could find the original tax return, which i think suggest that a photocopy is what was mailed in in the first place. It also shows in this two cases and the year 1984, donald paid no federal income taxes and theres good reason to think he doesnt pay them now because of a provision in federal law that allows large instant professional to live without paying income taxes. Amy in may on Good Morning America donald trump fielded questions from George Stephanopoulos it out his tax history. What is your tax rate . None of your business. But i find very hard to pay as little tax as possible. Amy David Cay Johnston . Well, i t tnk that tetells yu the way he snapped at t the question that donald has no intentionn of producing his tax returns. S. If elected president , he wont do so. Addingmn showed how by one line to the tax code, congress could make public the returns of president ial candidates who appear on the ballot from any state. 1920s, tax returns were Public Record. Theres no reason not to do this. Those republicans who are very distressed about mr. Trump, i would think, might be very interested in this as a way to bring forth the things that trouble them. Amy you said it quickly before that clip, go back to why hee dodoesnt have to pay taxes . Because if donald is anywhere near as wealthy as he claims to be, and d donald has acknowledgd under oath that he basically makes up numbers that make him look good if yes enough depreciation from his buildings, he is allowed to use that to offset income from the other things like selling ties made in china and running golf courses. Effectively, he didnt get a zero interest loan from the government on his taxes. My column in march, i showed how if trumps numbers he is publicly said were true, then he stands to make about 130 million net profit off his income taxes from a single year. The taxes would have onlnly been 23 Million Dollars. Amy you write, the tradition of president ial candidates disclosing their tax returns has an august purpose, making sure another criminal is not a heartbeat from the presidency or in the oval office. You note the Disclosure Commission space to winnsboro active resigned as Vice President 1973 been pled guilty to attacks from. Elaborate on this tradition. When Richard Nixon was in the white house and famously said im not a crook and his tax returns were audited, he released tax information. It turned out his tax returns were in fact corrupt. His tax lawyer went to prison over it. Agnew resigned as Vice President of pledged to a felony involving tax crime. That is the reason candidates have been releasing returns since then. For example, we have Hillary Clinton of bill clintons tax returns going back to the 1980s. By the way, they changed the way they did a tax returns because ofof an article i wrote in New York Times showing they had paid more than twice as much federal income tax as a law requires, even know they paid almost 10,000 that year for tax advice. Amy again, congress, youre saying, could with a very easy one Line Movement to the tax code force donald trump to reveal his hand . What they would do a sibley direct the Internal Revenue service to post the tax returns that it has online for any president ial candidate who appears in lets say 10 or more states. That is an objective standard so it would apply to him or clinton, donald trump, and gary johnson, and perhaps some others. Trump nono doubt would try to challenge it as a bill of attainder, which the constitution prohibits but if it is objective standard, that should not stand. I dont see any reason not to do this. I think would be a great public in effect because donald trump signed those tax returns under penalty of perjury. His assertion that he cannot release them because he is being audited or not only absurd, but what about all of his returns up to the year 2011, which are no longer under audit . I fought my fellow journalists for not asking him, where are your 2011 and earlier tax returns, since they are no wonder no longer under audit . You write, tax returns were Public Record and newspapers routinely reported the precise income and tax paid by prominent americans. What changed . Well, some of those prominent americans did what wealthy people always do. They spent some money getting people in congress to change the law. That would not happen anymore. I think it is a good disinfectant, but in this case, im proposing would only make them public for president ial candidates who are going to appear on the balance of pick a number, 10, 15, or 20 states, and the government being the one doing the disclosing. To know our need president or the people we are going to vote for as president are not crooks. Amy deeply donald trump engaged in outright tax fraud . I think there is incredibly strong evidence of that. I think that it explains thoroughly donald reasons for not disclosing. Thee work that was done by other three reporters who have been on the show, all about things ive been intimately familiar about, is excellent and accurate work. Donald has a long history of not paying people, saying things that are not true not just to the news media, but under oatath of not paying his bills, of stuffing his own pocket while shorting other people. And to donald, theres nothing wrong with that. His own reality. Donald is a narcissist. And you and i exist for only one of two purposes, either to adore donald or to be a foil to build more support from those people who are door donald. Amy we have to leave it there. Thank you for being with us, David Cay Johnston, Russ Buettner, Charles Bagli, and steve reilly. I am amy goodman. Things f aa8 . 8 . P . P . P . P . P . P . Popop mike farrell as dr. Keeling co2 and the greenhouse effect. Co2 is very powerful. Its a very big job to do. If it t werent for carbonon die and the greenhouse effect, life on this planet would be almost impossible. Earth would look like this. Just a great big snowball. Soso, who discscovered this thingng, this grereenhouse effect . Heres this gentleman, johnhn joseph babaptiste fouour. Fourier was napoleons favorite scientist. Napoleon took fourier on his illfated junket to egypt in 1798. Egypt, as you know, is a very warm country, and the heat in egypt made a very strong impression on fourier. He loved it. Became obsessed with heat. Poor guy suffered from a lifelong case of rheumatism. Anyway, he began investigating the origin and the nature of heat. What exactly kept the suns radiation from bouncing off the surface of the earth and escaping out into space . Fourier realized something was holding all that heat in place. He decided it was the gases in the earths atmosphere that somehow combined to form a blanket that acted like a greenhouse to hold in heat from the sun. If those gases didnt exist, all thehe suns heat would bounce off the earth and escape out into space and the earth would be almost ts cold as mars. Only problem for fourier after that was when he back, france was always too cold. Middle of july hed walk around his house in paris, his body wrapped up in blankets, all the fireplaces blazing away. He believed that just as the gases in the atmosphere were beneficial to the earth by acting like blankets to hold in heat from m the sun,n, that keeg his body wrapped in blankets was beneficial to his own health. And arguably it was, until one time a b blanket k kid him when he tripped on it and fell down the stairs. [laughter] fourier was a great scientist. We owe him a huge debt. But what exactly were the gases that enabled the grereenhouse effect . Roughly 30 years later that question troubled an irish scientist named john tyndall. Scientists at the time thought that all gases were transparent. But if that were true, how could any one of them block infrared or heat escaping from the earth . Was there a gas that wasnt transparent . Tyndall tried, couldnt find one. Then he noticed that the gas that was pumped into the laboratoryin those days they called it coal gas because it was extracted from coal tyndall found that for heat rays, coal gas was opaque as a pint of wood. But he was looking for a gas that was naturally found in the atmosphere. Coal gas wasnt. So he analyzed it and he found that coal gas contained carbon dioxixide, which was naturally found in the atmosphere, and like coal gas, co2, carbon dioxoxide, was opaq. So, it was co2, Carbon Dioxide, that blocked infrared radiation, kept in heat, kept it from leaving the atmosphere. Now, here is co2 and the greenhouse effect at work in a large city, probably london, around 1890. A forest of smokestacks had sprung up, some as tall as a 40story office building. Now, at that time, do you suppose anybody actually ststopped and took a l look arod at all that smoke and soot in the air and wondered, wheres all that stuff going . Is it all maybe just staying up there . And what if eventually it did, could enouough of it be enough o warm up the planet . Svante arrhenius wondered. Arrhenius was a swedish physicist, chemist actually. First person who really wondered about Global Warming in a serious scientific sort of way. Around that time, someone said theyre evaporating entire coal mines into the atmosphere. We still are. Arrhenius wondered how long co2 stayed in the atmosphere. Hehe also wondered if in time the amount of co2 accumulated to thehe point where, sasay, it were doubled, could it be, seriously be enough to warm up the planet . Intereresting question. Was then. Is now. He, uh, began on christmas eve, day and night sitting at his dedesk in the kitchen doing thousands and thousasands of calculations to determine what difference, if any, a doubling is co2 from preeindustrial levels would make. Coming up with an answer took him almost a year. Imagine, on a modern computer how long would that take . About 30 s seconds . Poor arrhenius. [laughghter] arrhenius estimated that a doubling of the co2 would raise temperaturures worldwidede by 56 degreeees centigrade, or 9 to 11 degrees fahrenheit. As you know, one degree celsius equals 1. 8 degrees fahrenheit. Arrhenius number was actually a bit high. Modern computers sayestimate a rise of 4. 5 to 7. 2 degrees fahrenheit. But even 9 degrees fahrenheit didnt seem like a whole lot to arrhenius. Especially in sweden, where on [laughter] on a winter night without sofia, it got pretty cold. [laughter] so arrhenius thought this temperature rise could be a good thing. When he finally reentered society and presented his s findings, there was s some interest, but it didnt last. So he moved on to other things. Eventually won a nobel prize. Not for Carbon Dioxide, but for Something Else entirely. Sofia never did retuturn. Nor, sadly, did she ever get to be a scientist again. She lived as a single mom in poverty. Raised her baby boy to be a scientist lilike she was, like s dad. And in time that scientist fathered another, gustaf arrhenius. Years later gustaf studied Global Warming. Made some very key discoveries, and wound up working in california on the sameme faculty i was. S. See how i it all comes around . [laughter] interesting, isnt it . After arrhenius, no one else thought about a link between carbon d dioxide and Global Warming for a long time. 40 years later, in 1938, a british coal engineer, guy callendar, said the same thing, that sooner or later, this burning of fossil fuels could warm up the earth. But did anybody Pay Attention to callendar . No. Everybody was paying much more attention t to this guy. [hititler speakiking german]n] [german n crowds cheering] they thought he was much more of a threat t than carbonon dioxid. Which at t the time hehe was. And where am i in all this . 1938 . Here i am. Innocent little david keeling, 10 years old, from the outskirts of chicago, taking a piano lesson. [classical piano playing] i loved bach, mozart. You know, for a while i actually made money, which my family badly needed, playing classical pieces on the piano for womens luncheons all over chicago. I sort of hated it. The thing was, i was too shy to just ask for m my money and lea. So id stay for the whole damn luncheon. [laughter] and itd just be me and 200 ladies and watercress sandwiches and these long lectures on how to prepare eggnog for the holidays. [laughter] it might have killed any professional musicical career i might have had. [laughter] but i never stopped loving the music. And then i loved science, too. But you know what i loved more than anything e else . I loved mountains. Everybody has a first memory. Maybe it explains the whole rest of their childhood, whole rest of their lives. When i was 4, my parents took me on a trip to the rocky momountains, colorado. Oh, man. There i am, sitting appropriately on a rock. I think it was the first time in my life that i really felt totally good. Whole. At one with the universe, you know . The air was so pure, so sharp. It was so beautiful, remote. I loved the silence, too. Can a child so young sense that something is holy . [classical piano playing] after we came home, i started keeping an album in which i pasted nothing but pictures of mountains. [chuckles] i did that for years. Many years. One night my father took me out on the front lawn and showed me this. The night sky was so much more alive then. He taught me to recognize the constellations. You could still see them then. Stars were so bright, so numerous, they seemed almost as close to a part of the scene as the grass and the trees. Later, inside a darkened room in our house, he showed me how the phases of the moon come about. He carried the earth, represented by a globe circling around the sun, a big electric light in the middle of the room. There was also a smaller globe which represented the moon. Began a lifelong curiosity and passion about the universe that i have never lost. [chuckles] well, one e day around the fourh grade, we got a new teacher. This teacher began telling us that the phases of the moon of the moon were caused by eclipses. [laughter] by the moon passing between the earth and the sun. Huh . I was horrified. And i raised my handshe ignored me. Finalllly she kept going; i cocouldnt std it. I stood up, i said, miss spencer, thats wrong. Thats not true. Youre talking about an eclipsese. Thats wrong. She gave me a look, told me to sit down and shut up. [laughter] i always had a problem after that with ignorant people in positions of authority. [laughter] you know, like congress, for examample. [laughter and applause] later on, at the university of illinois, i began a mamajor inin chchemistry. Only y problem wasi didnt know what i really wanted. Probably would have preferred physics, but the war was on, they offered only one course in physics. So o i sort f drifted into chemistry. I wondered if maybe i didnt even like chemistry. Didnt like laboratories. Hated being cooped up in them. I i was always tryig to get away, be in the mountains. Had visions of going to graduate school out west. Figured, you know, maybe i could. Then out of nowhere, a neighbor of ours who was a chemistry professor at northwestern offered me a graduate fellowship. I accepted without even applying to any other schools. Bubut was it w what i really wa . Every chance i got id dug out and head west. My professosor began to wonder if maybe hed made a great big mistake. Then one day i picked up a book. Glacial geology and the pleistocene epoch. Now, i didnt even understand the title. But i found it fascinating, really. It was about mountain glaciersrs during the last ice age. And i imagined myself climbing mountains while i measured the physical properties ofof the glaciers. Its a very carar vision, y you know . I saw myself doing science in nature. 88888888ob i spotted my professor. [classical piano playing] dr. Brown, casually talking to some other faculty members. So i wandered over. He was saying, you know, id say the amount of carbon dioxididis a freshshwater stream would be about the same asas the amount of co2 in the air around the stream. I took a deep breath and i said, uh, well, you know, dr. Brown, thats a very interesting notion, but why do you suppose that would be the case . He gave me a look. I said, i mean, isnt it possible there thered be something, say, maybe in the water that would make a difference . I was afraid he was gonna say, keeling, what are you doing up here . Why arent you downstairs crushing rocks . . [laughter] but he didnt. He sort of smiled and said, hmm. Well, you know, if you feel so strongly about this, why dont you just go out there in the field and prove i , you know . I said, well, thank you, sir. [laughter] i will. You see, i knew that was an experiment you couldnt possibly perform downstairs in the dungeon. But actually, i didnt know anything about memeasuring Carbon Dioxide. And it seemed like nobody else did either. I sat down and read all the literature i could find, and most of the work on c02 was being done in scandinavia. Now, you know, you think of the scandinavians as being very tidy, very efficient, nicely organized people. But his whole operation just didnt add up. They used chemicals to make their measurements. And the measurements they got were t taken by different technicians in a lot of different locations all over scanandinavia, and they fluctuated wildly. They ran the gamut from 150 ppm to 400 ppm. Ppmthats parts per million. In other words, their highest measurements were 3 times as high as their lowest. Now, i thought about it. It seemed to me that measuring had to be done carefully, strictly. It would be a twopart process. First you had to cacapture a specimen of air, always in the same place. That was the easy part. I designed a large glass flask, and a local firm in pasadena made a bunch of them for me. There was a pressurized seal on top to create a vacuum. Youd have to remember to hold your breath so none of your own co2 would get mixed inside the flask. Youd take off the seal, let the air flow into the flask, then pop the seal back on. Then you had a specimen of air inside the flask. But how do you measure it . Well, that was the hard part. I needed a device that could measure Carbon Dioxide in smalll quantities, and d there was nothing. No such instrument was available anywhere. I finally found an old article from 1916 that described a a manometer. A device called a manometer. It was originally designed to calculate air speed, but it seemed with some adjustments it could do the job and offered the best possibility of being accurate. So, i modernized the design and engaged the same firm that the flasks to construct the instrument from my drawings. And of course all this took time. About a year, actually, but nobody was bothering me. [laughter] dr. Brown had gone off to jamaica to write his next book. When i finally finished the manometer, had it tested out, so i decided id take air regularly,y, every 4 hoursrs for a number of days, and always from the same place. The roof of mudd hall. The geology building at caltech was not an ideal place, and i knew it. We were in the middle of a city. Air would not be as pure as in nature, and the co2 content wowould vary, as there s at times heavy traffic nearby, some industry. But i had to stay around. Louise was very pregnant at this point, and, uh, she could go into labor at any time. So, i set up a camp downstairs at mudd hall, took naps on a cot. Didnt get a lot of sleep. When i wasnt home, i made sure to have a phone nearby. One night, im actually home, andbang, louise goes into labor. N now, its a littttle bt bebefore 9 00. 0. Id taken the t reading atat 8 00, thehe next os due at 12 00, so shehe has 3 hours. [laughter] yeyeah. We get into the cacar, we drivio the hospspital, louiuise goes io the delivery room, and i proceed to pace in the waiting room. Thats the way we didid it then. It got to be 10 00. I i keep lookiking at the e dooo the delivevery room. C come on, lolouise. [laughteter] 11 15. Next readiding is at 1 12 00. What do i do . 11 30. 11 35. Thats it. I gotta go. [laughter] i run downstairs, jump into my carfortunately theres not a lot of traffic. I make it back to the geology building. Midnight im back on the roof. Take the air sample, back downstairs, back to the hospital. Louise is still. 2 a. M. 3 00. 3 30. I run back downstairs, back to the campus. 4 a. M. , back to the hospital. 8 a. M. , back on the roof. Make it to the hospital 8 25. Tell me the baby was born at 8 17 a. M. March 26, 1955. Its a boy. We decided to name him andrew. A little later, i went back to caltech, back to the cot in the basasement. At noon i have to take another reading and then go backck to te hospital. And i do. And louise is fine. So is the baby. So is the manometer. [lauaughter] near as i can tell, its totally accurate. So, its finally time to answer my question to dr. Brown. But there was this huge drought going on in Southern California. No freshwater streams. So, 7 weeks later, louise and i and little drew get into a borrowed pickup truck and off we go to big sur, california. First night we pitched a tent in the middle of the redwood forest next to the big sur river. [sound of rushing river] a little chilly. Just before 10 00 i go out of the tent and louise is inside nursing. And im holding the flask and i looked around. Oh, man. The sky y overflowed with stars. They shone down through the tops of the redwoods. Oh, my lord, it was fabulous. 10 00 i go and stand on a little wooden footbridge over the big sur river, hold my breath, pull off the stopper, let the cool night air rush in, put the stopper back on. Then i go down and do the same thing with another flask in the river water. We had a great time. In two days i filled up 9 flasks. [laughter] drove back to pasadena and i analyzed the results. One thing really hitit me. Afternoon numbers were perfectly uniform. 310 ppm. All the readings of the water in the river were just slightly higher. There was slightly more co2 in the water. Because there were leaves, decaying vegetation held there by the rocks. So, congratulations. Dr. Brown, i was right. Write up my findings. Iheh didnt think of calling the newspapersstop the presses. I think about it now, the whole thing took me almost two years. Why did it take so long . Well, i was having fun. But the real reason, the whole process just fascinated me. And the really real reason, i had to get it right. And so far i had. What i had done was work out the basic foundations of the science. Now, the i. G. Y. , thousands of scientists from all over the globe, europeans, americans, working together with russians for the First Time Since the cold war began, were going to give planet earth its very First Physical exam. In the 1950s, human beings knew very little about the planet on which we live. One area we really knew nothing about was climate. Tell you something about the i. G. Y. It spoiled everybody. It seemed there wawas an endless barrel of money for almost almomost any experiment you wand do. Why . The cold war. Scientific advancements like radar and the atomic bomb helped us to win the last war, and climate was a big deal if you wanted to do Bombing Missions or send out ships, launch invasions like dday. It helped to know the tides, the weather. So the mililitary was willing to spend whatever it took. For example, to learn if Navy Submarines could Fire Nuclear Missiles from beneath the ice at the north pole. Fortunately, i didnt have to work on any of the strictly military research. And thank god we never had to use any of the Nuclear Related developments. We didnt know it then, but wed never have that same level of support and freedom again. We got to measure co2 at the south pole, on mauna loa, all over the earth. And indeed, the level everywhere in the atmosphere wasas the same. Wed watch the numbmber in 5 yes climb from 310 to 315, and we made some extraordinary developments, discoveries. Been known since the 19th century that plants breathe almost like humans do, but it was thrilling to see that measured on a Global Atmospheric scale. See, the Carbon Dioxide level in the atmosphere is a little higher at night when plants shut down. It reaches a high point every morning just before dawn and begins to drop at sunrise, and reaches its low point in the midafternoon. Same story with the seasons. Spring, summer, when trees are full, they store up co2, so theres less of it in the air. And then in the fall and the wiwinter, when they y lose their leaves, the co2 goes back intoto the atmosphere, then theres more of it. These little jagged spikes, the very slight variation you see, in winter, and this is summer. Isnt that interesting . Isnt it nice . Co2 went up every year. 1959 co2 was 316. By 1963, it had risen to almost 319. That year, i felt very lucky. I was 35 years old, louise and i i had 3 children n, drew, ralph, and emily. I was living out my dream. Running my o own program, doing science in nature. Life was good. In those days, Southern California seemed a beautiful, inexhaustible place. Theres a lovely little bluff near our house in del mar, where wed stand at night and look out at the ocean. [sound of waves crashing] no one would disturb us. Our neighbors were mostly farmers, coyotes, deer, maybe a few skunks. More about them later. Wed stand up there with the kids and wed look at the same great night sky i used to look at with my father. And id point out the same constellations. In 1957, if you look carefully, you can spot sputnik on the horizon. Russians launched sputnik, the first artificial satellite, as part of the i. G. Y. It was a big achievement for them and a big e embarrassment r us. Suddenly the russians were leading in space technology. May 1961, president kennedy went to congress to ask them for special funding to put a man on the moon. And so the space race was on. And it was expensive. Money for focusing on other planets had to come from somewhere, so of course it came from programs focused on this planet. Programs like ours. Which was one of many that were scheduled for cancellation. What do you do . I went to washington, i had meetings. Theyd say, well, youve already done Carbon Dioxide, keeling. Why dont you do Something Else . Id say, no, im not finished. You know, i smiled a lot. Ive never been a shmoozer, but i said, hey, hi, hey how ya doin . Hey. In the end they permitted the program to survive, sort of. We lost the south pole. Had an analyzer on a ship and another one on a plane. We had to shut them down, too. Couldnt afford to keep our technical director at mauna loa, so if we had any technical problems, wed have to shut that down, too. And of c course we. Had em. Sure enough, there w were problems. So, there was nothig to do but pull the p plug, turn out the lights, just shut the whole damnmn thing down. In february, march, april of 1964, there were no precise measurements of f atmospheriric2 being made anywhere on e earth. Then that spring, the nsf, the National Science foundation, gave us enenough new funding to pay for one additional technician, so at least we limped on, but we were going. 1968, louise and i had 5 5 kids. 4 boys and a girl. Wed go on camping trips, the whole family, to the northern cascades, out to glacier, sit around the campfire and look up at the mountains in the moonlight. The kids, usually ralph, would say, hey, dad, this co2 going up, is that bad . I told him it was too early to tell, but i really wondered. Co2 by the late sixties was at 325. Did slow down a bit briefly in the early seventies. In 1973, 74, the Arab Oil Boycott remember that . President nixon was telling everybody they had to drive 55 miles an hour and keep their thermomostats at 6 68. Imagine that . Most of us did. We had a pretty good team at the office by then. I have to admit i had a reputation for being a hard man to work for. I hahad to bebe. They werere always t tryio shut us down. I just couldnt tolerate mistakes. I checked everybodys work. I couldnt help it. Ii really didnt trust computers. Especially the small ones. [laughter] i never have. I mean, you never know. Just to be sure, id have my staff do all the Data Processing by hand, with paper, pencil, and slide rule. We did it that way for years. I know. But theres alwaysys tht one chance. As it is, no one ever challenged our data. Its completely unassailable. But, you see, monitoring is sciences cinderella. Unloved and poorly paid. Out there in the world of funding, there was no respect for what they call time studies. Its a catch 22. How do you establish that a time study is worthwhile . It takes time. [laughter] time is very central to the problem with co2 stays in the atmosphere a very long time. Now scientists generally believe at least half the co2 remains for hundreds of years, perhaps asas long as 50000, or morore. 100 yeyears ago, 1 1914, co2 u p therere right nonow from steel anandrew carnenegie milleded, fm momodel ts henenry ford bubuilt, the year worldld war i broke ou. Theres co2 from all those explosions that killed all those men. 500 years. Anybody have any idea what was happening in 1414 . I think joan of arc was born around then. Any case, very little co2 was getting produced. I know they didnt burn joan till much later. [laughter] you see, if co2 has a lifespan of between 100 and 500 years, and co2 being produced right now when you turn on your air conditioioner could still be up there in 2514. And the fact is, the main thing about co2 is that it accccumulates. It buildlds u. And once it builds up p enoughit sets off a tipping point. Remember . Like froggy in the water. And then the feedbacks start kicking in. Its comparable to a person who eats a lot of fatty processed foods. For a long time, its not a problem. But the cholesterol, the plaque, the fatty deposits are slowly building up and junking up the system. And once it hits a tipping point, things start going wrong. Thats what we mean by feedbacks. One organ begins to malfunction, and then another. The heart is weaker. As a result, it puts more pressure on the lungs. More tipping points are passed. And all the while, the person goes on eating all that stuff, junk keeps building up until, well, you name it. You know, the expression, the devils in the details . When it comes to co2, the devil is really in the feedbacks. Heres a simple breakdown of how Climate Change feedbacks work. As Carbon Dioxide accumulalates in the atmosphere, it raises temperatures. Some of the extra heat evaporates water from the ocean and soil into the atmosphere. All right, so youve got more heat and because youve got more heat, youve got warmer oceans, expanding oceans. The heat pulls water vapor out of the ocean, and so youve got more water vapor in the atmosphere. Warming oceans give us melting ice, leaving sea water, which is darker than ice. While ice and snow reflect sunlight, sea water absorbs it. And so youve got warmer seas absorbing momore sunlight anand getting warmer and warmer. Then you have warmer landmasses, methane release, more co2, drying forests, beetle infestations, dying forests, dead forests, forest fires, more co2. And youre passing tipping points one after another. You pass too many, one feeds another, whole systems start breaking down. And it goes faster and faster. And suddenly negative events, multiple emergencieies are happppening at once all over ththe planet. Yoe trying to dedeal with ththem ald you cant. Now, of course, we didnt know thatall this back in 1979. I dont think anyone did. We just knew that something was wrong. When you analyze the co2, you know what we found . An almost perfect correlation between co2 and temperature. Heres a record of co2 a and temperarature overr the e past 400,0,000 years. t the top, t temperatures at the bottom. As co2 levels went up, tetemperatures went up and o did sea levels. As co2 levels declined, temperatures went down, as did the sea levels. We discovered that co2 acts like a thermoststat. It conontrols clclimate on t the planet. Bottm line is, our climate is like a yoyo bouncing back and forth between ice ages and warming periods. We human beings have occupied this planet for over 100,000 years, or 6,000 if youre a creationist. [laughteter] and its only in the last 150 years, especially in the last 40, weve been able to understandnd anything ababout or climate and how it basically workrks. There h have been many ice ages, but it was 1860 before we knew there had even ever been one ice age. One. And we had n o idea what caused it. For a very long time, weve labored under a huge misconception that this is the perfect t planet. Perfect plananet. The goldilocks p plan. Not too hot, not too c cold, jut right. That somehow, theres a normal, well regulated state of being, alalmost like e a we engineneered clockck. And isnt nice . I mean, this is it, here we are. And if its ever gonna change, itll change only very gradually over thousands of years. Its ununderstandable tht we would think so. Weve never known anything else. But the truth about climate on this planet is that its very delicate, precarious. How delicate . As i said before, about as delicate as the health of the human body. Bad thingss happen when your own l little ecosystem goes awry. Whats the average Healthy Human temperature, 98. 6 . Yououve got a temperature two degrees higher, say 101, youre sick. 3 degrees higher, youre very sick. Another 3 degrees, youre dead. Little 8 degrees, 8 1 2 degrees. Many, many times the climate has swung from this to ts and back again. Now, this is going way back, 65, 70 million years, the age of the dinosaurs. You see, this was the north pole, also the south pole. Dinosaurs, giant crocodiles romped and partied and swam around what is now the north pole. Itit was downrit tropical. The arctic sea was their playground, so was the antarctic. How do we know . We found the bones. The last ice age peaked about 18,000 years ago. A third of the earth was covered with ice a mile thick. Here in north america, it covered nearly all of canada, whats now new york, chicago, minneapolis. Same story with northern europe, siberia. Where was all the water . It was all locked up in ice. And then 11, 12,000 years ago, the climate warmed up again, the ice melted, sea levels wenenup 400 feeeet. 1980. Co2 was 341. We get back to the u. S. Just in time for the election of ronald reagan. Now, im a registered republican, always have been. But one of the first things reagan did was take jimmy carters solar panels off the white house roof. Id been lucky to get some funding, but then just like the democrats, the republicans took it away. Not all of it, just enough to slow us down. So we kept limping along. In a lot of ways, 1980s were a difficult time. Few remember it now, but heat waves killed more than 20,000 americans, most of them elderly, most of them urban poor. Hyperthermia. It was the warmest decade ever recorded up till then. The eighties were probably a tipping point, the first one, anyway. In june 1988, in the middle of a huge heat wave, co2 was at 351. Jim hansen, the foremost climate scientist on the planet, got invited down to washington. He showed a Senate Committee the evidence, rising co2 levels, rising temperatures, and said it was finally time to start cutting back on co2 emissions. Hansen said, and i quote, Global Warming has begun. Senators seemed to be genuinely attentive, respectful. They thanked him for coming, said they were very impressed. We thought they were. It was the lead story the next day in the New York Times. It was also one of the lead items on the cbs evening news. We all thought, great wow. This is it. Everybody is finally gonna get the message, the governments gonna take action, were gonna get this thing under control. So we thought maybebe we could begn to relax a little. Louise and i decided to spend that summer in montana. One day i was out collecting air samples and a neighbor came up to me and she said, hey, what you doing . I told him i was carrying out a study having to do with Global Warming. He said, oh, yeah, i read something about that recently. I said, really . What was that . He said, oh, i heard it was a myth, something. Like a hoax. Huh . Next day i got ahold of a copy of the local weekly, it was the earth day issue. Sure enough, the lead story was entitled the myth of globobal warming. It quoteded,t were they called, a Scientific Study that was provided by a National Center in washington. Included a lot of quotes from scientists and noted authorities id never heard of. Youve all seen d dens of thehese storiesyy now, the hoax of Global Warming, the scam of Climate Change. They feature quotes from various climate experts, some of whom are meteorologists. Climatologists deal with millions of years. Something else you hear is, isnt it just Natural Cycles . In short, no, its not. The earths orbit around the sun is not perfectly circular, it can be irregular. And when it is, parts of the earth receive more or less sunlight. When an irregular orbit causes it to receive more sunlight, the earth very gradually grows warmer. But the warming were expereriencig now isis happening much more rapidly. When the orbit changes again, the earth starts cooling and eventually we have another icice age. Its worked that way for millions of years. A an ice age followed by a warming period followed by another ice age. But naNatural Cycles is s a perfecty valid theory. But its just not whats happening now. In fact, todays orbit is such that were receiving less sunlight, not more. So if you eliminate the human factor, fossil fuels, you cant find anything thats causing whats happening today. Natural cycles have nothing to do with it. Special interests promote Natural Cycles as the cause because they dont want us to know we have a problem and that theyre the reason we have it. Remember the cigarette companies, Philip Morris and friends, what they did in the 1950s . The Tobacco Industry created a phony Research Institute that issued officialappearing reports about how there was no real evidence linking cigarette smoking with cancer, heart disease, emphysema. 9 out of 10 doctors smoke camels. Remember that . T . [laughter] 8 of them are dead. [laughter] these are from Tobacco Industry documents. And this is a real quote. Doubt is our product. Doubt. The industrys strategy does not require winning the debates it manufacturers. Its enough to foster and perpetuate the illusion of controversy. Like greed, doubts very powerful stuff. If youre looking for a reason not to believe something, try doubt. And who vigorously carries on that same Mission Today of showing doubt, lying to the American Public . I mentioned skunks earlier. [laughter] one wellfunded source of misinformation is the heartland institute. One of the main reasons im here is because of heartland. For years, theyve made money by promoting smoking among young people. In the 1980s rj reynolds created the joe camel campaign to present smoking in a much more fun, cool light. Heartland was quick to sign on and join in, promoting the youthful joe camel message. Back in the nineties, heartland worked with Philip Morris on a campaign to question the science e linking secondhad smoke to health risks. And now these same people have wormed their way y into our schools, offering books and educational materials to deprived districtss that in many cases have none. With a budget of about 20 million, heartland is now promoting its Educational Programs about Climate Change to children around the country. Heres their promotion. Theyve got two main points. One, its not manmade, its natural variation. Small human impact, flawed computer models, no consensus. Two, warmings not harmful, future warming will be modest, and finally, warmer is better. The fossil fuels industry is the most profitable commercial enterprise on the face o of the earth, andnd y want to kekeep it that way. Ths why the koch brothers, who have billions tied up in oil, have gotten many members of congress to sign a pledge to vote against any bill promoting any meaningful action on Climate Change. 1988, in the interest of certainty, the United Nations created the ipcc, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The ipcc shared the 2007 nobel prize for its work on calling attention to the growing dangers of Climate Change. Its a peerreviewed panel of hundreds of highly qualified climatologists from Different Countries who issue thoroughly researched, relatively conservative reports on the state of the climate. First one was in 1995. Very latest one was not quite a month ago. You may have read about it. 97 of the climate scientists who have published climate papers said Global Warming caused by fossil fuel emissions is unequivivocal. The currrrent score is 97 to 3. Imagine your child wasnt feeling well, constant pain, losing weight, couldnt sleep, took her or him to see 100 doctors, 97 of them said he was deeply ill, required immediate medical care to o save her life, 3 doctors said its no big deal, kid will be fine. Who would you believe . What would you do . We have a damaged client thats badly out of balance, causing lots of extreme weather with hots getting hotter, colds colder, storms intensifying, wets getting wetter. Too much water in some areas, not nearly enough in others. When the history of this time is written, it will show two consecutive winters in 2010 to 2011, 2011 to 2012, when there was no winter at all. December, january of those years, new yorkers relaxed in short sleeves in central park. There was no winter frost to kill the eggs and mosquitoes or the pine beetles that devastated pine forests from British Columbia to new jersey. That was followed by two winters, 2012 and 2013 and 2013, 2014 of massive snowstorms. Now, some ask, not unreasonably, if the world is supposed to be getting warmer, why all the snow . Well, as the planet warms up, the heat sucks moisture out of one part of the earth, up into the atmosphere as water vapor, and it comes down over another part as rain or snow. Hotter air holds more moisture. And when temperatures go down, and they still do in certain places, youve heard of the arctic vortex, the result can be massive amounts of snow. Or in a warmer season, as temperatures advance, massive amounts s of rain. Here in the west, one thing is for certain, the future holds drought. 2013 was the driest year since records have been kept in california, and all across the planet. Snow in the mountains is one of those nice gifts of nature. Its beautiful. Its also quite useful. Snowcovered mountaintops are like giant benevolent water towers. Snow pack provides water for more than a billion human beings. In the spring it flows down the mountains, feeding great rivers like the yangtze in china, ganges in india, or the colorado in the western u. S. But in the andes and the alps and the rockies, the mountain snow pack is disappearing. Here in Southern California, by the 2020s, the loss of snow pack could threaten almost half of our water supply. Another aspect of the drying problem is wild fires. Fire seasons are now almost 3 months longer than they were in the 1970s. And more important than anything else, the drying climate is going to affect our ability to grow food. The midwestern American Farm belt has been under stress these past 4 summers. Heres a preview of the world of our children and grandchildren. These are projections from ncar, a federally funded Atmospheric Research group. In 2030, Southern California will be a severe, but not quite extreme drought. By 2060 to 2069, it and much of the west will be in extreme drought. Same story with mexico, central america. There will be a solid band of drought running through much of the u. S. , southern europe, also north african and the middle east. If millions of people, maybe hundreds of millions, cant grow food and feed their families, they will migrate. They have no choice. What do they do if they cant . Desperate people take desperate measures. Military is staying up late these nights preparing for dealing with millions of climate refugees. Also for dealing with failing states and the insurgencies and civil wars that follow. The civil war thats raging now in syria was caused initially by a drought that last from 2006 to 2010. Small farmers could no longer grow crops to feed their families, so they moved to the cities and could find no jobs. Syrian government failed to help. The result was an uprising thats become a long drawn out civil war. The other problem is too much water. Larger, more intense downpours are becoming more common. In 2012, flash floods left a quarter million homeless in bangladesh. Major storms ravished china and the philippines where 80 of manila was under water. In 2013, floods overwhelmed parts of england, germany, central europe, northern india, alberta, canada, vietnam. What contributed to the storm surge in Hurricane Sandy was the fact that the sea level off new york has increased by nearly a foot over the last 100 years. In 2007, the ipcc projected a possible global Sea Level Rise of two feet. Today, some ipcc scientists are predicting between 5 and 6 feet. What would a 5 1 2 foot Sea Level Rise look like on new york . Theres a projection. This was the real thing. Major American Cities like miami and new orleans cannot survive a Sea Level Rise of 5 1 2 feet. Whats happening right now is thatt the arctic is warming up twice as fast as the planet as a whole. In 30 years since 1980, weve melted 80 of arctic ice, ice that was in place for about 125,000 years. The Greenland Ice sheet covers 80 of greenland, and its melting. Unlike the arctic ice, greenlands ice is landbased. When it melts, sea levels will rise. Richard alley, who was regarded as the worlds leading authority on ice, told a house panel that if Global Temperatures rise by even 3. 6 degrees fahrenheit, the entitire Greenland Ice sheet is doomed. If the Greenland Ice sheet melts, the world seas will rise by 23 feet. Now, this isnt gonna happen next week, maybe not for centuries, but alley says that with the rise of 3. 5 degrees, its guaranteed to happen. And here is the real wildcard is permafrost. Permafrost is relatively permanently frozen land, all of it left over from the last ice age. One quarter of the Northern Hemisphere is home to a tremendous amount of permafrost, and its melting. Theres alaska, what they call drunken trees and drunken houses. Same thing in siberia, northern scandinavia. Underneath the arctics permafrost is methane. Over a period of 100 years, methane is 20 times more powerful than Carbon Dioxide. Some of the permafrost is a mile thick and it holds twice much carbon as the atmosphere does right now. It isnt all gonna melt at once. But one projection is well see a melting of about 10 feet of worldwide permrmafrost in this century. And theres also a tremendous amount of methane buried under the ocean floor. Theres methane deposits there that have been held in place by permafrost lids. As the ocean warms up, these lids are beginning to leak. Were seeing methane chimneys now bubbling up off the coast of arctic siberia. What can we do . The chair of that last ipcc assessment is rajendra pachauri. He recommends immediate and very deep cuts in pollution levels if, and these are his words, if humanity is to survive. Pachauri said, Climate Change is for real. We have just a small window of opportunity and its closing rather rapidly. Theres not a moment to lose. Thats what he said in 2007. Now, please, dont make the mistake of p presuming thiss all 50 or 100 years away. Spencer weart, the leading climate historian on the planet, said recently, by the late 2020s, it will become painfully obvious to even the most diehard climate deniers that something is terribly wrong. We just have to hope it isnt too late. I went on measuring co2 until the day i died. Fought off every government effort to take over my program. I spent thethat last day, june 20, 2005, hiking in the Bitterroot Mountains with my son eric. The co2 count that morning was 382. 4. What do you think it is right now . Anybody know . You may recall it reached 400 for the first time this past may. Last month in march it reached 401. 6. Greenhouse gas concentrations are now at levels not seen in Human History and not perhapsin perhaps 3 to 5 million years. 3 million years ago, sea levels were 80 feet higher than today. The question is, is there any way to avoid the worst . In the 25 years since jim hansen went to congress, the u. S. Government has never enacted a coherent program to effectively deal with Global Warming. Its possible to safely, gradually remove co2 from the atmosphere. It would take many years, probably cost trillions of dollars per year, but progress on this and other solutions is slow because the basic funding isnt there to support the research. So ill leave you with this. For 130,000 years, human beings anatomically identical to us with brains and native intelligence on a level with ours lived on this planet. One generation followed another and nothing ever changed. And then the Climate Changed. It warmed up. Sea levels rose. People came out of their caves, enjoyed the stable, relatively benign climate weve taken for granted for the past 10,000 years. Within 5,000 years, we had writing, first cities sprang up, all the advances that characterize modern civilization came aboutlearning, science, the arts, medicine. The new climate was stable. Its been remarkably, uniquely stable for the past 8,000 years. Its the only climate weve known on the only planet we have. And weve had a civilized world because weve had a civilized, stable climate. And now were in danger of losing it. Its said that humankind is on a journey from the caves to the stars. If so, its been a journey fraught with challenges. And at each of them, we have overcome those who would lead us back to the caves, who would stop us the fear mongers, the haters, the doubters, the liars. Today its the propheteers who would fill you with doubt and lull you to sleep, ask you to deny your very senses. We have the ability to face what confronts us, what is needed is the will. If you love your children, if you want to salvage a world for the children of your children, i urge you to find the courage to join with others of like mind, sound the alarm, and demand that those in power act in the best interest of future generations of this planet. Time is short. [applause] p8p8p8p8p8p8p8s8s8w8w