now the president says he will skip the white house correspondents dinner. we will speak with the head of the committee to protect journalists. then, the naacp called for a boycocott of north carolina over the anti-trans bathroom bill in the state and other policies. we will speak with reverend william barber. >> it is the f first stepp of economic engagement and the first step is that we, as an will not bring our national c convention to north while these abuses continue. amy: then we go to philadelphia, where as many as 500 tombstones have been damaged or overturned in a jewish cemetery. and we will look at the results of the race to head to the democrcratic national committee. did congressman keith ellison lose due to his views on palestine? all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. former labor secretary tom perez has been elected to lead the democratic national committee -- beating out minnesota congressman keith ellison in a contentious second-round vote that is seen as determining the future of the democratic party. congressman ellison is the co-chair of the congressional progressive caucus and the first muslim elected to congress. he was widely backed by supporters of senator bernie sanders, the democratic party's more progressive wing, and labor unions, including afscme, afl-cio and aft, the american federation of teachers. also national nurses united. perez was backed by the party's establishment, including president obama. he becomes the first latino head of the democratic party. after saturday's contentious vote whihich marked the first te , in more than 30 years that the outcome was not known ahead of balloting, ellison's supporters erupted in protest, chanting "party for the people, not big , money." [chanting] inbound perez quickly appointed ellison deputy party chair and new position. they both urged party unity.. thisis is tom perez. >> right now, we are suffering from a crisis of confidence, a crisis of relevance. we need a chair that can take the fight to donald trump and make sure we are talked about, our positive message of inclusion and opportunity. we also need a chair that can lead turnaround and change the culture of the democratic party and the dnc. amy: some critics say saturday's vote represents the democratic party's failure to learn from its left-leaning base and the party's defeat during the november election. current affairs editor nathan robinson wrote "at this point, , one has to conclude that the national democratic party has a death wish." we'll have more on the dnc vote later in the broadcast. president trump again escalated his self-declared war on the media while speaking at the cpac politicalervative action conference, on friday. president trump: a few days ago i called the fake news the enemy of the people, and they are. they are the enemy of the people. the cause they have no sources. whenjust make them up there are none. amy: that is donald trump speaking on friday, the same day that the white house took the unprecedented act of barring the new york times, cnn, politico, the los angeles times, the bbc and several other news , organizations from an off-camera briefing known as a gaggle. several right-wing news outlets were allowed to attend, including breitbart, the washington times, and one america news network. the following day trump , announced he won't attend the white house correspondents' association dinner in late april, despite the tradition that presidents attend the annual black-tie affair. the last time a president skipped the dinner was when president ronald reagan didn't attend in 1981 because he had been shot in an assassination attempt. on sunday, white house spokesperson sarah huckabeee explained trump's decision by saying, "one of the things we say in the south is 'if a girl scout egged your house, would you buy cookies from her? i think that this is a pretty similar scenario." in 2011, trump attended the dinner and was ridiculed by president obama. president obama: i know he has taken some flack lately, but no one is happy. -- wants to put it to rest more than the donald. that is the cozy wants to focus on the issues that matter, like, did we fake the moon landing? [laughter] obama: what really happened in roswell? and where are biggie and tupac? amy: that was president obama ridiculing now-president trump back in 2011 at the white house correspondents' association dinner. on sunday, news also surfaced that white house press secretary seanan spicer has attetempted to crack down on leaks coming out of the white house by calling an emergency meetining and thenen forcing his staff to submit to a random phone check to prove they hadn't been leaking information to the press. spicer also reportedly warned his staff not to leak news of the meeting to the press. but the news did leak -- to politico, which broke the story sunday. we'll have more about the trump administration and the media after headlines. president trump is slated to give his first address to congress tuesday. democratic lawmakers have begun giving their tickets away to immigrants as a protest against trump's crackdown against immigration and immigrants. among those invited to trump's address tuesesday is dr. mona hanna-atattisha -- an iraqi-american doctor who first discovered flint's children had elevated levels of lead in their blood. president trump is expected to signgn a new executiveve order banning travel from seven majority muslim nations later this week. his muslim travel ban was blocked by the courts. despite trump's travel ban's first suspension, the son of legendary boxer muhammad ali was detained for hours by immigration officials at fort lauderdale-hollywood international airport on february 7, only a few days after the travel ban was blocked nationwide by seattle district judge james robart. the laywer for 44-year-old muhammad ali, jr., says as he was going through customs on the way back from jamaica, he was stopped, asked if he was muslim, and then when he said yes, he was held and questioned for nearly two hours about his religion. olympic gold medalist, reality tv show star, and r republican trump supporter caitlyn jenner has issued a direct message to president trump,p, calling the adadministration's decicision to reverse e presidentnt obama's landmamark decision to order public schools to let tranansgender studenents use the bathrooms matcngng the chohosen gender identntity "a disaster." >> i have a memessage for prpresident trump from m one republican to anotherer. this is a disaster, and you can ststill x ito didou mada prome e to ptect the ltq communit call me. amy: predent tru's ck to ad the ny, phip bildenis withawing his me from considerion, sayg he, "wl not be ablto satis the fice ogovernme ethics requiremts witho undue disrupion anmaterial adverse vestmentf my faly'privatfinancial interest" bildens a prive equity investor w has assed a rtune in hg kong he's the thirof trumps cabinenominees twithdrawn recent wks, incling labo secrety nominee drew puzr, and ar secretaryominee vincent ola, wholso withew over ccerns abt financia rutiny the ther of vy seal ry owen who wasilled duri a tched s. milary raid men in janry, sayse refud to mt with predent ump and isalling f an instigatiointo h son' deh. bill ons tolthe miami herald"my conscice woul't t me tk to him the ra on the meni vilge left 2civiliandead, incling nine cldren unr the agof 13. th he anrump had gone to dover r force se. prident trumis expecd to tellederalgencies toy to eate a budt for thupcoming fiscal yr thatill shary increaseilitarspending while dratical cutting ending aoss dostic agcies. the new rk tim reportshe budget wl incle cutting ns of billis of dlars frothe enviroental prottion agey d the ste depament. huma rhts watch speakin out aftethes really vernmentejected a wk visa r the ornizationisrael a paleste the reor, claiming human rights watch i is engagedn palestinian propaganda. shakir.omar >> our request was d denied on e basis that humuman rights watats nonot a real human rights organization, that we were engaging and propaganda. amy: that in the united states, more than 100, some say 500, headstones at a jewish cemetery in philadelphia were toppled or damaged. in the second apparent incident of vandalism of a jewish cemetery in about a week. meanwhile, and florida, a mosque was intentionally set on fire friday, , the second time in mosque in florida hasas been burned since september. and "moonlight," a coming-of-age film about a young gay black man, won the oscar for best picture at last night's acacadey awards. the win came after faye dunaway incorrrrectly announced "la la land" as the winner afafter shse appears to have received the wrong envelope, forcing the award's ceremony officials to come on stage and correct the error. >> guys, guys, i'm sorry. there is a mistake. "moonlight," you guys won best picture. likes it is not a joke. amy: "moonlight" also garnered a best supporting actor oscar for mahershala ali, who is the first muslim actor to win an academy award. ali was among a series of black writers and actors who won awards, including viola davis, who won best supporting actress for her role in "fences." overall, last night had more black winners than any previous academy awards night. "moonlight" also won best adapted screenplay. these are the writers tarell , alvin mccraney and barry jenkins accepting the award. ,>> all you people out there who think there is no mirror from you, you are not reflected, we have your back, the academy has your back. for the next four years, we will not leave you alone. >> two voice from liberty city up on this stage representing. this goes out to all those black and brown boys and girls and non-gender conforming to do not see themselves. we are trying to show you you and us. this is for you. amy: throughout the awards ceremony, many of the attendees also wore blue ribbons to show their support for the aclu. the awards ceremony also included other political moments. best actress for "la la land" and worore a plannd parenthood pin. a mexican actor denounced the border wall while announcing the oscar for dust animated feature film. "white helmets" won the oscar for best documentary short subject. in their acceptance speech, the directors read a statement from raed saleh, the head of the organization, calling on people to, "to work on the side of life, to stop the bloodshed in syria and around the world." iranian-american astronaut anousheh ansari accepted the oscar for best foreign film on behalf of iranian director asghar farhadi, who boycotted the award ceremony over r trum's muslim travel ban. this is ansari reading farhadi's statement. >> i am sosorry i'm n not with u tonight. my absences out of respect for the people of my country and those of other six nations whom have been disrespected by the inhumane band of entry of immigrants to the u.s. amy: ahead of the awards ceremony, the directors of the oscar nomiminated foreign-langue films issued a statement reading, "on behalf of all nominees, we would like to express our unanimous and emphatic disapproval of the climate of fanaticism and nationalism we see today in the u.s. and in so many other countries, in parts of the population and, most unfortunately of all, among leading politicians." "oj: made in america" won for best documentary, beating out ava duvevernay's "13th" about ms incarceration and raoul peck's "i am not your negro" about jim's baldwin, and other documentaries. and awards ceremony host jimmy kimmel critiqued president trump throughout the night, including during his opening set. >> we are at the oscars, the academy awards hewitt you are nominated. you got to come here to your families are nominated. some of you will get to come up and give a speech that the president of the united states capstweet about in all during his 5:00 a.m. bowel movement tomorrow. amy: as of now, president trump has not yet tweeted about the oscars. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i am amy goodman. am juan gonzalez. welcome to our viewers around the country and around the world. we turn now to look at the trump administration and press freedom. on the white house took the friday, unprecedented act of barring the new w york times, c, politico, the los angeles times, the bbc and several other news , organizations from an off-camera briefing known as a gaggle. meanwhile several right-wing , news outlets were allowed to attend, including breitbart, the washington times and one america , news network. new york times editor dean baquet said, "nothing like this has ever happened at the white house in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties." amy: washington post editor marty baron described the white house's decision as "appalling" saying the trump admin is on, "an undemocratic path." interestingly, even white house press secretary sean spicer has spoken out against banning news outlets from press briefings. well, that was two months ago. in spicer said, "we have a december, respect for the press when it comes to the government, that that is something you can't ban an entity from. i think that is what makes a democracy a democracy versus a dictatorship." spicer said in december. just hours before the new york times and other outlets were barred from attending the briefing, president trump spoke at the c cpac conference. that is the conservative political action conference. president trump: i want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news. it is fake, phony, fake. a few days ago, i called the fake news the enemy of the people, and they are. they are the enemy of the people. sources.hey have no they just make them up when there are none. there are some great reporters around. they are talented, honest as the day is long, great, but there are some terrible, dishonest people, and they do a tremendous disservice to our country and to our people, a tremendous disservice. they are very dishonest people, nation not use sources. they should put the name of the person -- you will see stories dry up like never before. juan: donald trump speaking at cpac on friday. hours later cnn's jake tapper , began his show by responding to trump's actions. >> don't misunderstand what is going on with t that rhetoric ad with the action banning various media outlets. this white house does not seem to respect the idea of accountability. this white house does not seem to value an independent press. there is a a word for that linef thinking. the word is un-american. amy: cnn's jake tapper on friday. on saturday, president trump annonounced he would not attend ththis years white house correspondents' dinner. the last president to skip the dinner was ronald reagan in 1981. that was when he was recovering from an assassination attempt. to talk more about president trump and press freedom we are , joined by robert mahoney, deputy executive director of the committee to protect journalists.s. let's start with, well, president trump calling the press the enemy of the people. >> it is very dangerous to vilify the press and undermine its credibility. the press has a very well-defined role in democracy, holding officeholders and those in power accountable. i think we're seeing a deliberate attempt to undermine the press so that, in the future when the press does its job and uncovers something that the administration would like to keep quiet, it will be dismissed as a fake news. itit is very troubling that this should be happening so soon enter his presidency. trumpthis issue that keeps raising of fake news, even the term fake news only came toward the end of last year, toward the end at the outdoor campaign, and yet he has no appropriated that term as a description of those who criticize him. >> yeah, and we saw in the campaign that he used this. the campaign is one thing, but now he has the platform of the presidency, which is very powerful. one of the tactics that candidate trump used was to stick a description onto someone to it we had "cricket" hillary or "lying" ted. fake news. juan: and the failing new york times. >> yet, so f f many people, this will stick. it is undermining the credibility of the independent press. inbobound on sunday, the new yok times executive editor appeared on cnn's reliable sources. >> i think there is an effort by this administration to minimize the press. goal, it is their to make it so therere are a handful of independent institutions whose job it is, and we are among them, to critique the president, told the president accountable, the judiciary is in the same badge, and i think if you look at the pattern of the president's tweets, they are actually designed to minimize the institutions who are charged with holding him accountable. that is dangerous. amy: your response? .> he is right, it is dangerous and what we have here is a situation where not only is this bad for the u.s. press, it is bad for the press generally .round the world because we look to the united states to act as a champion of press freedom and to stand up to journalists when they get in trouble. if the administration is now dismissing journalists and undermining the value of our work, that is bad news for all the journalists that are physically assaulted elsewhere in the world, not just american journalists now who are being verbally assaulted. juan: there have been contentious relationships and that has, bill clinton during monaco and ski scandal. what is the difference, if any, about this particular time of conflict? >> in just four weeks and we are already having this conversation. it took a while e for nixon and the preress to really get into a situation where they hated one another. extreme, ie is more would say, at this point. nixon, other presidents, they hold power, and it is natural and actually healthy that there is a certain tension between reporters and politicians. if there is not that tension, that means the press is not doing its job. but this is worse than that it was of the vilification of the platform on public friday. a few hours later came the barring of these news organizations from the briefing. it is the press being punished .f its independence amy: let's go to trump's chief strategist steve bannon, who also attttacked the media during his appearance the day before thep spoke at cpac,c, conservative political action conference. >> the opposition party and hohw they portray t the campaign and transition and now the administration, itit is always wrwrong. the mainstream media or opposition party never -- if you want to see the trump agenda, it is simple. it is all in the speech. there are corporatist, globalist media who are adamantly opposed to an economic natioionalist agenda like nanald tru hasas. that is steve bannon, chief strategist, former head of breitbart, who was allowed into the gaggle on friday. >> it is all laid out a the media is the opposition but the media is not the opposition. it is a clear role to play in any democracyby. calling it the opposition, you are inoculating yourself against future criticism, i believe. you will be able to dismiss the press as biased and politically affiliated. this sends a very dangerous message, in journalists have a right to stand up to this and say that we will not accept this and we are not the opposition. we're doing our jobs. these threats, and then in said it is going to get worse in the future, but this issue of excluding some members of the press from what is essentially a small briefing, clearly, you are making choices all the time, and groups like the new york times and cnn and politico are used to be the first was to begin in these briefings. is there the same kind of criticism about the exclusion from the gaggle that you would have about these threats to the press directly? that is repeated, i don't know, but you take that as sending a message. these are critical outlets, not selected at random, and it happened straight after the cpac criticism. not every journalist can get into a briefing. it is a pool, a practical way of sharing information. but everyone involved in covering the white house said this was unprecedented. i believe it is not just that sean spicer did not have room in his office. amy: what is interestiting about the gaggle is it is off the record. president trump attacked reporters for using off the record sources, saying they should stop doing it. yet, the gaggle requires things to be off the record, and that is a criticism of the gaggle, that the white house would use it to put up perhaps a lie and you cannot attribute it to anyone. then you have the white house correspondents dinner. the press has made an enormous deal out of that. a number of journalists have not gone to it for years because they say it demonstrates the extremely cozy relationship. democracy now! has not gone. invitell often politicians as guests or a list celebrities but now it is president trump who will not go, and this is the first time since the attempted assassination of reagan, when i believe he called in but cannot actually get there. theook you can criticize relationship between journalists and those in power as being cozy, and democracy now! does not go to this dinner, nor does the new york times, for that reason. it is natural that there is some kind of tension between the press and those at the top. but now trump p what could have gone to this if he wanted to reach out to the press, but he does not. -- a linelearly drawn has been clearly drawn. amamy: we will seeee if alec ban shows up p playing mr. trumpmp. thank you for being with us. when we come back, the naacp is calling for a ban of north carolina. we will go to raleigh -- is calling for a boycott of north carolina. we will go to raleigh to speak with reverend barbara. stay with us. ♪ [music break] include bydhand news fleetwood mac. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. goodwin with juan gonzalez. juan: the naacp announced that it would not hold its convention inin north cararolina and urged an international boycott of the state in protest of laws adopted by the republican-led legislature. north carolina's house bill 2, --wn as the bathroom bill the naacp has accused republican legislators of committing voter suppression and racial gerrymandering. this is the naacp president cornell william brooks speaking in north carolina on friday. >> the naacp does not take this matter cavalierly. we understanand as a consequence of constitutional history that we attended to boycott in a place in mississippi, and we were threatened with bankruptcy, threatened w with briing our beloved d association to its knees. we have to consider, contemplate a boycott in the midst of this era of v voter suppression. it is a serious matter, indeed. they are calling for a boycott that will hurt, a boycott that will be painful. a boyoycott that will literally bring the state to its knees unless it stands up to civil rights. amy: we go now to raleigh, north carolina, where we're joined by the reverend dr. william parker, president of the north carolina naacp. dr. barber, welcome back to democracy now! you were standing next to the naacp national president as he was speaking. explain why you are calling for a boycott of your state. >> thank you so much for having us on democracy now! a few weeks ago, we had nearly 100,000 people in the streets. we announced that the state conference of the naacp, the president, voted unanimously to boycott our request for . i am also a member of the national board. what we have said, and we had a unanimous resolution that was passed at the state level and unanimously passed at the national board, first saying we would remove consideration of our national convention coming to north carolina, as has the nba, and we, the would call on our other human rights friends, civil rights friends, and conventions to do the same thing. and we expanded the narrative to it we said that, beyond that, we would form a special task force to explore a full boycott over the next few months on these lines -- number one, we call on the legislature to repeal undo racially gerrymandered districts and create fair elections that not only have we accused them of but the courts have ruled that our legislature has passed racialized districts. number two, we want a repeal of the entire hb2 law. it is not the bathroom law. it is an anti-lgbtq law, against transgender people, but it is also anti-worker. it is not a lemon's appellate is to raise the minimum wage or to have a larger set aside. it is anti-access to state in employment discrimination cases. we want a repeal of sb4, the law passed last december after extremist laws that struck down the governor's power, no longer allowing him to have his own appointments. they tried to change the board of election. lastly, we want a repeal of the law that forces us to go to the appellate court, rather than the supreme court, once our supreme court became more progressive in the state. we want to expand the narrative, of we want to say too many our friends who joined the community, as we did, we need an expanded narrative. if we did have voters oppression and did not have voter generate -- voter gerrymandering, many of the people w who are elelected e past hb2 when not be in office in the first place. , you --verend barbara reverend barber, your governor patrick larry has called the boycott basically an action of a left french element in your state. can you respond to that? >> i don't use the left- right language. they live. mccrory used to call moral mondays money monday. he says we are left, but the people they got arrested over the three years with moral mondays were republicans. north carolina has been found guilty twice on voter suppression. cases ofst, we won a the so-called voter integrity law was a voter suppression law. they cut early voting and registration-day , denied 17-year-olds the right to preregister. passhey actually wanted to the worst form of photo id that said in this state, even if you had a college id or a federal id am a is still would not be considered valid. ande know what mccrory others do, using that language because they cannot debate us. they have been found guilty time and time again. 14 times this state legislature have asked laws that have been overturned, unconstitutional or they know the hb2 law was a scapegoat. they tried to use the transgender community to hide inside of that deal, deals that do not allow a municipality to raise minimum wage. right now, city and north carolina cannot choose on its own to raise their living wages. they cannot have set aside its for -- set-asides without going through the legislature. so we know the truth. while they dismiss us, i think mr. mccrory has a long-term vacation. i ththink north carolina was the only state where the coattails of trump do not trickle down, because we had a movement here. we won the governorship, the auditor, the secretary of state, and an african-american in north carolina won the supreme court, 350,000 votes, mamaking the nortrth carolina suprereme t a progressive supreme court for the first time in many years. amy: i wanted to ask about the deal that the state legislature reneged on. i wanted to go to a clip of the new governor, the democratic of honor, roy cooper, who said republicans reneged on a promise to repeal hb2 last december. lawmakers failed to overturn the anti-lgbt law, which denies transgender people the use of the bathroom, changing and a locker room, that matches gender identity. tried to shame as lawmakers adjourned from a special one-day session. they made a deal with the charlotte city council, who repealed their lgbt protection legislation in exchange for the legislature repealing hb2. -- yet, they adjourned without repealing at the state level. here is a state representative. 275 days after this body fast the worst anti-lgbgbt bill and e entire nation. everything will they, transgender north carolinians have severed and then at risk for discrimination and violence, and our economy has lost millions upon millions of dollars. paypal is not coming here. bruce springsteen is not coming here. to begoing to continue set out as a state because of the image that we are portray into the rest of the nation and the rest of the world. is: reverend barber, there enormous economic pressure, and in the place of he is bringing that with the sports teams, the corporations, over $600 million to leave the lost. that this reneging the deal that was made that if charlotte took back, repealed their own pro-lgbt legislation, that the state legislature would repeal hb2, and they reneged? >> well, this has been the characteristic of this legislature and the former governor. you know, the people in office in our state, legislature, many of them would not be in office except for this racialized gerrymandering. a second.k up just we did not agree with the deal anyway. we did not think that charlotte should have to vote the bill down for them to repeal something that was bad in the first place. it is not just the worst lgbtq bill. it is the worst anti-worker bill and the worse bill that denies access to the courts. i want people to understand the depth of what they did. in north carolina now, if you have employment discrimination as a heterosexual or disabled person, you cannot go to state court because of this law. so they did renege, but we do not agree on that any weight or diu said it should not have ever been a deal and should have been repealed in the first place. we are also saying to our sports and other people to boycott and not come to the state because of the attack on transgender, and we're going to start having economic pressure when they do voter suppression and gerrymandering in states, because that is how the people get enough is that are passing these laws. that session that they called, amy, was supposed to be a session to get money to hurricane victims. that is why that session was called. instead, they refused to repeal hb2. they did not pass senate bill 4, taking powers from the governor, denying access to the courts, trying to change of state board of elections so it would be a whole power. and then they did pass a little bit of money for the hurricane victims, which should have been done much earlier. so that whole session was a farce. i want people to understand. that entire session was a farce. t the currentst members -- they are not republicans. they are extremists. 14 times since they have been in office, they have passed laws that have been proven to be unconstitutional. amy: reverend dr. williliam barber, president and north carolina naacp, moral mondays leader, thank you for being with us. we are going to ask if you will stay for the next segment when we talk about the jewish cemetery in philadelphia that was just desecrated this weekend , perhaps up to 500 tombstones overturned it we will be speaeaking with a local philadelphia rabbi.. and then we're going to look at the election of tom perez to head the dnc. stay with us. ♪ [music break] "night on our side" by little big town here on democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i am amy goodman with juan gonzalez. juan: in philadelphia, as many as 500 headstones at a jewish cemetery were toppled and damaged in the second apparent incident of vandalism at a jewish cemetery in about a week. on sunday, and a show of solidarity, members from the local muslim and quaker community joint jewish philadelphians at the mount caramel cemetery to restore the burial grounds here the apparent vandalism at the philadelphia and st. louis cemetery's comes after a surge of bomb threats against jewish community centers, or jcc's, a across the country could the southern poverty law center and other groups of said hate groups have been energized by the candidacy and then election of donald trump. amy: on sunday, the and franks it of her mutual respect said, mr. president, it is time to deliver a prime time, nationally televised speech, from the oval office on how you intend to combat anti-semitism and islam a phobia and other rising forms of hate, whether or not your intention, your presidency, has incited some of the most viciously hateful almonds of our society. for more, we're going to philadelphia, pennsylvania, where we're joined by rabbi ari lev fornari, from one of the countries -- one of the country's first openly transgender rabbis. welcome to democracy now! can you describe the scene at the cemetery? >> thanks for having me. it is an honor to be here. we arrived yesterday around 2:00, and the media was pulling up a small group of rabbis. as we walked the grounds, , thee were rows upon rows of , tombstonesraves actually toppled on each other, often causing cracking tombs and falling one upon another. his own sacred witness walked the cemetery and counted 539 desecrated graves. significantost moments was as we work after the ring dust gathering the graves, how many people it would take to manage the quaker burial site adjacent to the plot, and they came and showed us how to tell if it was intent and malice and not just the product of an aggressive storm. in a muslim man showed up who runs celebrate mercy, and he had a suitcase and his hands. we said, what brings you here, and he said i was on my way to the airport and heard what happened in my own citity, and i canceled my flight and came straight to the cemetery to offer support and solidarity. that was really the energy of the gathering at the cemetery, one of tremendous community support, a feeling that we will not stand for this kind of hatred. we will not be intimidated. we will gather. and the real sacred existence in this moment is hands together in really rebuilding and reclaiming our dignity and integrity in communities of faith. juan: is there any indication of who may be responsible? and what has been the response of authorities in philadelphia? indication, nerve graffiti, no markings, just tremendous violence against the stones itself. from the time i was there yesterday, there was no real police presence, but i know the police have been notified. the manager of the cemetery is also handling the path forward and the question of liability and who will be restoring and repairing the graves. this morning, i got a call from local masons and unions, people who want to help and do the physical labor and be part of the restoration. has been cooperation amazing. i wanted to bring reverend barber back into this conversation, head of the naacp of north carolina, on the desecration of religious sites. right outside of houston in texas, you had a mosque burned to the ground. the local jewish synagogue handed the keys over of their synagogue to their muslim worshipers to say use our building. you have an power the muslim group that is raising over $100,000 when they heard about the missouri vandalism at the jewish cemetery, linda sarsour, for restoring the cemetery. reverend barber, what about these attacks, and what about what the anne frank center said? whether president trump is actitively encouragingng this, e has to make a national s statemt against this. i do n not think he has tweeted about this recent cemetery attack. it took a long time at the missouri one. he finally spoke at the african american museum in washington, reading a statement after tremendous outcry from folks of all different religious persuasions. isyou know, linda sarsour one of my good friends, and we had thousands of people in the street marching together, jewish, muslim, christians, seik. we have to hold one another together. one of the actors last nigight saidid that we have to e exhumee stories of people who havave di, and whatat that means is we e he toto calthe memorory of people who dr. king and others remind us of how ugly hate and violence is. hate and violence poisons the whole system. and our president has been a polluter, a poisoner of the system. whether it was the hate that was embedded in his birtherism claims, , e hate he has shown towawards mexicans in namining m rapists and criminals, the hate he has shown towards muslims and refugees. but not just president trump. all of those who said nothing when he was pushing his birth , hissm -- birtherism hate mexican hate, those like ryan who called his policies classic racism but then turned around to support a person that you just said is a racist. so we have seen this. i addition to thatn, we're seeing this violent political, violent policies. king once said denying people health care is a form of violence. we are seeing attacks on the poor, tax on immigrants, attacks of people that need health care. it has been attack, attack, attack him a attack. what president has done is he has spent more time tweeting and hurting and denying and lying and spreading hate than he has spent standing up and being a ststatesman. and not only making statements, because even at the african american museum, he was there and said that the museum could heal our division. not change in policies. he was at the museum talking about healing while his administration is lying about voter suppression and lying about voter fraud and not restoring photos -- voter rights. it is a season of hate and political violence. and we who believe in love and justice must challenge it, challenge him and all others who are standing on the sidelines and allowing these things to happen without a word and certainly without the works of love and justice. juan: i want to ask rabbi ari lev fornari, president trump did make a statement last week against anti-semitism here at what was your reaction to that statement, and what do you feel, if anything, is his thesesibility as we see increase in attacks, anti-semitic attacks around the country? >> certainly, we see the this rice as, this case, the tactic of the state and the agenda of the administration to intimidate , and the appointment of sessions and ben and make it clear that whether or not he makes a statement, his words and actions are an congruent with one another. show our responsibility to safety and show up for each other. reverend barber said real prayer is the overturning of callousness, hatred, oppression, and injustice anywhere. against theng administration and those who have been emboldened to act out white supremacy. we will rise against it, and our prayer will be to overturn that and to come together and build greater relationships and greater coalitions for reaeal justice in this country. amy: as the trump immigration crackdown led any synagogues to become sanctctuary synagogues, rabbi? fact, in west philadelphia, there was a new sanctuary movement that was joined. it is my understanding that four other synagogues have joined the new sanctuary movement, and we have an organizing body and over 500 people in philadelphia have been trained in their new campaign sanctuary in the streets, including dozens of my own people here in philadelphia. we have had an opportunity to offer rapid response and witness solidarity and figure out ways we can mobilize and support immigrant communities, of which we are a part. we have a large multi faith community, many members in interfaith relationships. the muslim community is part of our community and the immigrant community. we stand in solidarity. finally, whenkly, asked about anti-semitism, when he cuts off questions s at news confererences, he often refers o his family, jared kushner, his son-in-law, and his daughter, ivananka, who converted to judam which she married jared kushner. your response when he says you cannot get someone less anti-semitic than me? >> the term anti-semitism has been orbited for all sorts of imperialist projects. know, iear that, you feel a lot of shame and disgrace with the way they are standing in the judaism. i believe judaism is about all people and is a spiritual practice that is meant to open our hearts and increase compassion in this world. spiritualim our own practice, and i claim it very differently than jared kushner does. i stand in opposition to this administration and the ways that for itsxploit judaism own purposes. inbound we wanant to thank yoyor joining us, rarabbi ari lev west philadelphia, and also to reverend barber of the naacp and north carolina. this is democracy now! juan: former labor secretary jon perez has been elected to lead the democratic national committee, beatingng out details sent in a contentious second round vote seen to determine the fufuture of the democratic part. congressman ellison is cochair of the progressive caucus and the first muslim elected to cart -- congress. he was a supporter of bernie sanders. perez was backed by the party's establishment, including president obama, to become the first latino head of the democratic party. after saturday's vote, which marked the first time in more than 30 years of the outcome was not known ahead of balloting, allison supporters erupted approaches, chanting "party for the peop, not big-money." tom perez quickly appointed ellison deputy party chair, which was a a new position, standing together they both urged party unityty. this is tom perez. >> where do we go from here? right now, we have to facece the facts that we are suffering from a crisis of relevance here at we need a chair that can not only take the fight to donald trump, make sure we talk about our positive message of inclclusion and opportunity, and we also need a chair who can lead turnaround in change the culture of t the democratic party and te dnc. amy: we go to washington, were lalani ofined by zaid ji the intercept. his latest article is "keith ellison loses dnc race after heated campaign targeting him for his views on palestine." explain. >> he received endorsements from elizabeth warren, chuck schumer, and a wide variety of unions. he really was a unity candidate that brought together sanders' backers and clinton hackers. as the campaign developed, we started to see more and more negative hits in the media. we someone of the largest owners of the democratic party, an israeli american businessman, say he was an anti-semite and that he is anti-israel. the anti-defamation league called on keith ellison to be disqualified. the night before the vote, delegates were getting emails saying that keys would be bad for the u.s.-israel relationship and should not be confirmed. there was a widespread smear campaign targeting keith ellison for his views about the israeli-palestinian conflict, which is actually quite moderate. he has voted for aid to israel most of the time, but he opposes the blockade on gaza and settlement construction. he has been vocal about that. he has talked to both sides as been close to the american jewish community and american muslim community. but there are big donors in the democratic party who feels like moderation is not what we need. we need a relationship with israel with absolutely no daylight. in the dnc chairman actually has no role whatsoever in setting middle east policy, but we still saw this campaign of innuendo and smears against ellison. juan: the particular role of president obama and his main staff on this vote? .> it is interesting the night before and also the day of, we saw president obama, his close aides, valerie jarrett, making phone calls on behalf of tom perez, which is interesting. we saw that there were sources close to obama and clinton moving in at the last moment when it appeared keith might be successful to reinsert their control over the party. one of keith's big reasons for running for this position is because he wants to sever the link between big money and the operation of the democratic party. a lot of members or consultants and lobbyists here at one of the men who nominated tom perez is actually a corporate lobbyist who works for clean coal, so-called clean coal, and worked for general dynamics. i think what we saw here was that the party asserted itself against a rising candidate to try to maintain control and keep power away from the grassroots. amy: after tom perez was elected chair of the dnc, donald trump tweeted -- the race for the dnc chairman was, of course, totally rigged. bernie's guy, like bernie himself, never had a chance. clinton demanded perez!" that is what trump tweeted. bernie sanders appeared on cnn's "state of the union" sunday. host jake tapper asked sanders if he thought trump had a point. >> no, he does not have a point. one e of the things tomom will e to chahanges to o figure out hoe elect n national democratic -- i am not quite impressed with the process that now exists. amy: tapper also asked senators if he would be handing over his 2 million or so member list to the dnc. he did not say he would. zed jilani, your response? to read interesting before keith ellison was defeated, the dnc voted on a resolution that would have barred corporate lobbyists and corporate donations to the dnc, and that resolution was voted down to it actually, a lot of the very same arguments used at the dnc were used at the rnc over the summer when a few reformist republicans tried to put out a simmer -- similar resolution. these things are complete nonsense, of course, what was said or do you see that both parties have an addiction to an establishment. the people who have a rooted sense of power and privilege, and d they are refusing g to tun overer power to the grassroots. so when the democrats as for isnie sanders imo list, it not like cory booker can use that list and someone who gave $10 to bernie sanders will be enthusiastic about giving money to someone who votes for wall street or pharmaceuticals. i do not think the list is going to open up the democratic party. toy should sever the link the big donors of they want small donors like that. no one who is poor working class will give you money if they feel like their money -- amy: five seconds. the significance of ellison being made deputy cochair of the dnc, a new position? >> it is not a position in the bylaws. seems like an advisory role. inbound thank you for being with us. we will have a link to your piece. i name amy goodman