for an international intercourse of excellence award book. now for your hero. ah hello, i'm mary. m. as in london, our main story is now a claim to office on mon rusty whose writings made him

a target of death. threats has been stabbed literally event in new york state. the booker prize winning author was stabbed in the neck when a man stormed the stage at the chautauqua institution where she was due to deliver a lecture. the author spent a decade in hiding off the iran's revolution. rita, ayatollah ha ha maney called for his death over is 988 novel, the satanic versus people later described that shock at witnessing the attack. may all human came and attacked. salman rushdie, i thought that he was stabbed about 6 to 8 times before they were able to grab a hold of the perpetrator. and then i was pretty much frozen in my steps and took quite a few minutes to even just get myself to a seat to sit down because it was just, nobody knew it. still, nobody knew how to react. i mean, there were tons of people rushed the stage. here is an individual who is so spent decades ah, speaking truth to power. someone who's been out there on afraid,

despite the threats that have followed him, his entire adult life, it seems. and it happened at his site that is a place it's very familiar to me, a very tranquil, rural community known as chautauqua to talk with institution, where the most preeminent speakers and thought leaders and politicians justices. and everyone come together to have the free expression of thought. so this is a place ideal ideally suited for him to be able to speak. and that's what he was attempting to do. just in the last hour before he was attacked out there is kristin, flu. me is any or can explains a bit about the controversy surrounding worsting while he was forced into hiding in 1989 after the ayatollah khomeini are called for his death, issued a decree to that extent. there had already been protests around the world in many countries where the book was banned because it was considered blasphemous. and in

recent years he'd become more visible once again. i'm appearing in western television shows, doing interviews, going to conferences i. he was knighted in the u. k, and boris johnson, in fact, is one of the leaders who come out and decried the incident that's happened saying it's appalling. and that i, you know, he was exercising free speech. something that forrest johnson said should not have to be defended at this stage. so clearly in the west that part of his past seemed in the distance he seems to be moving freely about. but clearly, he remained a controversial figure in much of the world because of his writings over the years, some 14 novels, many critically acclaimed prize winning books, but a controversial person and writer none the less the f b. i recovered 11 sets of classified documents, including some mock top secret,

all searching for president donald trump mar logo. i'm in florida. the f b. i removed 20 boxes of items from his home, including an executive pardon for a major trump ally roger stone and information on the french present to manuel mack wrong thing reported that the f b i is investigating a potential violation of the espionage act in all the headlines more than a 1000 fire fighters of battling a giant blaze in a pine forest. in france's shiranda reaching its force more than 10000 people to leave their homes and burn through 74 square kilometers of forest since tuesday. me, while thousands of people in northern sudan are waiting for help after heavy rains and flash flood swept through riven, i'll stay across the country. the floods have killed, at least 50 people, destroyed. thousands of homes government is declared to disaster, but aid has yet to be delivered to the affected areas. supporters of iraq's leader mac tyrell sandra, held a mass demonstration in central baghdad. for the 2nd week in wrote thousands of

people gathered for friday prayers in the capital's highly fortified green zone. sather is urged his supporters to continue to demand change and also counter protests taking place nearby. the bottom line with steve clemens is coming up next . ah hi, i'm steve clements, i have a question. the democrats scored big with legislation that provides the biggest investment in climate friendly energy ever. but will it get them any love at the ballot box? let's get to the bottom line. ah, after a year of nasty internal pickering progressive and conservative democrats came together

this week to pass a huge initiative and score a wind for president joe mansion. oops, i meant president joe biden. the bill is called the inflation reduction act and it invest in clean energy programs, allows the government to negotiate lower drug prices, and it raises some corporate taxes. it dedicates $300000000000.00 to reduce the deficit, which the democrats argue will also reduce inflation. at least that's the theory. it took every single democrat in the senate to vote for it, and they needed vice president, commonly harris's vote to push it over the edge. $51.00 to $50.00. every single republican senator voted against it. republican se climate change is the last thing on the mind of the american people, and they're confident that they can win back control of congress this november. are they right? and can the democrats achievements, move the political needle for joe biden, who's popularity levels are still historically low? today we're talking with congressman ro, qana, a democrat who represent silicon valley in california, and is one of the leading progressive voices in his party. cox with con,

it's great to be with you. look, i was sort of joking when i, when i mentioned present, jo, mansion it, you know, it is present, jo biden's victory i as happened under his watch. but there were a lot of parents to this mega bill that makes the biggest investment in clean technology for energy than i that we've ever done before. and senator schumer was a parent of this bill. ah, leader speaker pelosi was as well and signed off on a lot of people came together to help it. but you played a very important role. i know from my own reporting. and that was, you gave jo mansion the benefit of the doubt when no one else would. can you tell us from your perspective what it took to get this, this bill done, and what were the key priorities you had save. i appreciate that, and i appreciate your role and encourage people to keep dialogue open with mansion . you know, i think it's funny how you started out because when joe mansion called me, he was, you said, i'm one of his 1st calls after the deal. he said, hey,

this is joe and i said president iden, and he said no, no, mansion, you know, is just that moment of how both prize divided answer of answer or the key is that are over to this. that is a deal. but i have thought is that a mansion has been consistent actually from the beginning? and is that he's for the innovation thing, but he wants some of the permitting reform and he wants to make sure that they're not the 6 that will be too hard on the economy in his state. and so when the top scroll down to january, i reach out to him, he actually called me new year's day and we've been talking at almost every other week every month. and i would just say, look, if you come up with a big climate number, i will assure you that the progress is and a lot of the environmental groups will support. but i wouldn't want to stop you there for a minute row, want to stop you there. so things looked very dead. and yet you had a positive call with him. and i just want to know straight this important because

you've been criticized for keeping the door open for joe mentioned. what gave you hope? oh, you know, i've had a relationship with them since 2017 because we did a project in west virginia to create some tech jobs at west virginia tech. and my experience from then was that he really likes the innovation. he gets the technology part and i was confident that he would support massive innovation here. and i also was confident of the support us doing that and not having go to china. and if i didn't believe i would have said, okay, this is not worth negotiating. but the deal we actually ended up getting to was frankly the deal. the com towards the outline in january said look up. i can be for the investment, a big number on climate. and i said her, me to, that's the one thing we need or progresses will not come on board. if it's just when don't drafting, it has to be substantial. they said, i need some deficit reduction. i got no problem with the higher taxes. i give it,

i probably had the higher taxes or wealthy individuals as well. and we could have gotten cinema on for that. and i want to make sure many garen negotiate. so, you know, and what i did is every couple of weeks would check in. i even participated when he did the bipartisan talk that was all lead house member, and i didn't lose a bunch of people on my side on especially the progressive side they were attacking the 11 video, the downfall a broken up. how is it that, you know, you're having these conversations going on tv and, you know, insulting center mansion. but my view was that we needed his support and that he would get there. and in my interactions with negotiating, good, se doesn't mean i agreed with everything he was saying, but you could see that he was consistent where he was coming from. well, you are clearly the realist progressive in the story. i want to show you a tweet from one of your supporters. it's var sheeny precautions, co founder of the sunrise movement, and she writes, finally

a climate bill has passed the senate. this isn't the bill my generation deserve, but it is the one we can get in must pass to give us a fighting chance at a livable world. ah, i find it fascinating because this is also a realist take on the situation where we can have it also lays out that we need to do much more. but with the end of the day, i guess with your wing of the democratic caucus, part of this bill is about energy security about, you know, russia's invasion of ukraine and creating a global energy squeeze a, you know, basically reforming permitting soap that both mines and other fossil fuel platforms will move more expeditiously and quickly can your caucus that is so focused on climate and trying to reduce the footprint of fossil fuels live with that deal. yes, enlarged and sunrise have been usually helpful in edinburgh, or it was one of the 1st people i texted after i got off the phone with general manager and he told me about the deal in i always had a sense with sunrise,

which is there's a lot of credit, by the way, for getting to the deal. and the reason i say that is if they weren't out there marketing and they weren't there organizing, if they hadn't done what they did with senator marky and the green, new climate wouldn't have been as front in center. it wouldn't have been, it could have been the one thing that was negotiated away like childcare or, you know, other portions of the build back better. the reason it was never non negotiable is because of their activism and their insistence that we have to go big. so i give them credit and then i give them double credit for being pragmatic, and they put out a tweet. if you remember that night itself, when mansion came out for the deal saying, let's get behind this. it's not perfect, it has flaws, but we're behind this. probably no single organization. having that tweet out there made a bigger difference than what they did. remember, they're the ones who sat in and below sees office when representative of cardio cortez visited them in the city. and when she 1st got elected,

they were the ones behind markie they're, they're hugely behind bernie sanders. so they have shown real leadership here. you know, there are other parts of the bill and again to go back in history and no, nobody wants to talk about where we've been. the only want to talk about where we coming next. but this started out as a 3 and a half $1000000000.00 or trillion dollar package. and actually if you go with bernie sanders, it with a 6 trillion dollar package. so you got 3 and a half trillion. and in that package that was called build back better. that was originally looked at these, you know, a lot of these climate provisions were in it, but also, you know, subsidized child care, other dimensions in health care support and subsidy paid medical leave free community college. and other sort of social infrastructure elements. i'm just interested. those are now gone. and this bill is now 739000000000 overall. i think, i think that's where it came out and you know, roughly, you know, 300000000000 has gone to deficit reduction. so it's a much smaller bill, but when it comes to these other social infrastructure elements,

can the democratic party still look its constituents, industry, straight face and say we still delivered other than we failed? yes, because you have to look at the cumulative term of what we have delivered to the american rescue. pled had and said so many people from losing their house losing being evicted from their apartment. the child tax credit saved many people in the pet damage from poverty. you have the infrastructure bill, which is going to start to rebuild a lot of the lead remove the lead from water way is going to start rebuilding a lot of our airports or bridges in community, please across the country, including communities of color, rural america, disadvantage communities, you have the chipset, which is going to bring new manufacturing new jobs in blue collar jobs into places like columbus, ohio. and then you have this bill, which is going to bring solar wind help with steel because of the buy american

permissions. and that's going to create blue collar employment. now, do we need to do a $15.00 wage? do we need universal childcare? do we need to make sure that we have dental vision and hearing as part of medicare? do we need to expand medicare? so people aren't being stuck with medical that absolutely. and this is why young people think the american dream is flipping away. and we need to continue to work on that. but you can't dismiss all of the progress that we have made into years. you have to say, ok, we've gotten this bar, let's keep going. you know, i want to show you right now. so you somewhat stark. 538 is, you know, comes up in, you know, amalgamate a lot of different polls. so this is not their poll, but this is an amalgamation of all the leading poles in the country right now. and president biden's popularity and approval is about 39.3 percent. those who disapprove are 55.6 percent. and i want to read you a statement that joe, by just issued on the inflation reduction act in it. he says today, senate democrats cited with american families over special interest voting to lower

the cost of prescription drugs, health insurance, in every day, energy costs and reduce the deficit while making the wealthiest corporations finally pay their fair share. i guess my question to you now is, and i, and i see this looking at you, and i'm not going to ask you if you run for president some day, but a lot of people look at you as someone who could run for president state some day is the package we have is the president statement enough to come back and say we're delivering on the social contract? you expect your biden's numbers to increase? and what would someone who is running for president via joe biden, or someone else have to do to make a credible deal with those americans who are still skeptical before? so i think he's one of the most successful presidents with those approval ratings. i don't think that those approval ratings are deserved. i mean history is going to look very kindly up in saying, i hope and expect him to run. but here's my advice. i'm going to see him tomorrow,

the chip signing. i don't know if i get a minute or 2. here's what i would tell him. i spent the last week on a factory tour. i was in new castle, indiana. i was in janesville, wisconsin, and i was in iowa in burlington, iowa. and here's what i heard, i heard from them. our job glass industry went off shore. no one cared about that. we. we lost our community. we had people committing suicide, we lost or married, get, nothing has changed and i would stop by and get out there. and talk about a new economic patriot is of talked about not just the boilerplate language, talk about why you get what this community that happened. and that's why you're selling this deal. so there were filing and steel built here. we're going to put new battery plants up. we're going to put new wind male manufacturing up solar manufacturing. i'm not in china, but here in the communities that were most left out. i just think that the problem is that we're using, i mean, this bill bank better thing. who talks like that, just call it make it in america. we gotta make more stuff in america. so my view is

the president needs to get out on the road. he should go to some of these communities you should talk about a new economic. ready patriotism and, and i think he will then break through the problem is that the policy that it's, that the policy isn't connecting to a lot of the people in these communities. so you've said something really important that i had not realized congressman, as you are actually visiting, you know, cities and all this, he's just laid out or in key battleground states. as you look at the next presidential election, you talked about economic patriotism. another framing that i find very interesting . how many others in the progressive wing of your party are coming to hang out in the coffee shop and, you know, doing the talks of the schools and community colleges you are in these battleground states? well, they sure did you know, stand the 1st place i went was indiana to new castle to richmond, to anderson and someone i want to say one of my colleagues ro, why are you going there? indiana is was what is the red district you really greg parents represents,

or i said i'm going there precisely for that reason because i don't want people to think this is just going to flip some district or flip some state. this is about understanding what happened to people, how in the world did we allow it so that our manufacturing and production just left this country. i mean, how is it in this country that we don't have masks that we don't have a baby formula? how is it that even with all the amazing things we're doing in the climate bill, i read this morning that china has 70 percent of solar manufacturing that they're building while we're building these 12 semiconductor factors, trying to building 30 and you go to those communities and there's anger and you hear their stories and one person and a binder of all of the factories that have shut down in interesting indiana over the last 40 years. and he went picture by picture and he talked about, you know, what it did to these workers. i just think that they were great party, we got to build our message from the ground up, go to these communities,

hear people's grievance, hear their anger, and then afford the vision. and that's the only way we're going to stitch this can get back together. and so i think we do a lot of good policy, but it's not translating fully into what people are feeling in their communities. what is the democrats response to what the republicans are talking about on immigration and crime being 2 of the biggest points of concern that voters have? i'm talking about input immigration in crime, but let me say this inflation thing instead of just sticking to our talking points which are correct, this is going to lower inflation because it's going to lower prescription drug costs and allow medicare to negotiate and give people more health care what if we tried this, you know, do you realize one of the reasons why prices are so high? it's because we didn't make anything in this country anymore. we had to rely on things being shipped, semiconductors being shipped from overseas, and those that shipping is costing 14000 and bust instead of 2000 about how would we make more stuff in this country?

how about we not be as reliant on shipping things from asia? you know, a president, he's drilling more self sufficiency, we're going to be making these things in america to lower prices. so we don't have this inflation. i think that breaks the road of people. and so it's partly what we need to explain better, why it's going to lower inflation on immigration. i said, you know, i talked about, yes, we have to talk about the rights of immigrants. every person born endowed by certain natural ice, they should have basic due process. but i said my parents as immigrants from india, they thought a lot more about my responsibilities. don't screw it up. you were born, you won the lottery. you were born in america. go make something up yourself, work hard, learn about the country, get educated. i think the democrats need to talk about what immigrant families are actually like. and they are tend to be the most patriotic, and that they're going to help us rebuild america. re industrialized america, like one must though i don't agree with everything, look at what the rates are doing in,

in the new technology and new industrialization. and i think we should run away from it. but we should talk about immigrants, responsibility, and patriotism instead of just emphasizing rights, the rights are also important and on crime. i think it's gotta be common sense that of course we need police. of course, we want to keep communities say that that is something whether you're a white american, a black american, a latino american, you can believe in, you know, there's, there's a common sense view here, which is, if you're 20 years old in your shop with, you should be locked up for 20 years. that's why we had reform a mass incarceration. but if you're 20 years old and you shop less than you break into a building, it's also should be that there's some consequences about that. we're a lawless society and i think most americans are there you, they want police, they want consequences. they don't want to lock someone up for 20 years and destroy their life. and i just think we have to talk about crime in a way. it's common sense. you know, a lot of people have been seen that the republicans are going to win at least the

house in the next election and come back, do you, do you agree with that? and do you think that the passage of the ira, the, the advice reduction act with so many different parents out there is going to reduce that? the numbers of the margin, the republicans might have or look where an underdog. but you know, when i ran for congress 3 times, but one of my 3rd try, it was an underdog each time. and i invoke the rocky because i grew up and pulled up in the parties and then their dog party. because where we have the presidency, the other party usually wins. it's no secret that inflation is still too high. gas prices though, coming down or too high. but you know, what i think gives us a fighting chance is if we say we get that things are great. but we're, we're booking and doing everything we possibly can, given the pandemic to make sure that we're standing up or working families were rebuilding. we're going to give your kids a better future. we get it. just give us

a couple more seats there won't keep fighting and we don't deny that things are aren't great. i mean, i think that happy talk doesn't help. it's sort of acknowledging where people are at and then giving them a sense that we're going to do everything possible. not just for the next 2 years. next 10 years, we 10 years, it's not more to rebuild this country. and i think we do that, especially also in light of rome, where people are upset even in the, in, in reading the n, either people just really upset and what the court has done and taking away these rights. and of course, in indiana, the governor recently basically is almost made abortion completely illegal. those 2 things give us a fighting chance. it's not going to be easy, but we're still in the fight row. i want to bring us back to this extraordinary deal and how unlikely it was to get to success. when you come back to that, it raises the question, question of what happens next time? i don't suspect we're going to have come by politics within the democratic wing

again. but how do you make what happened? you know, more likely next time. then as unlikely as it seemed to most of the players out in the country, i don't know. i don't know, it's a long winded question, but, but i got an important on i'll tell you what i, i try, i think we ought to reach out to each other in different wings and indifferent parties and talk and i try to come at it without quite a person's motives doesn't mean i don't question their policies doesn't mean i don't argue with them about what's right with the country, but i don't go on. i mean, i've been, sometimes i messed up, but i try not to go on and attack people personally. and that comes from to read the way. the reason that people don't agree with me always, they think you're being too nice. you're listening too much, but it comes from the way i was raised because that's how my parents taught me the bag. listen to people you respect, then you try to find where they're coming from in common ground. and it comes from the example my grandfather did in

a much bigger scale with gandhi. that was gotten the philosophy that you tried to find that the best in someone else and you try to find common ground. and i guess we need a lot more of that in my do not just to win, but to try to find some sense of bringing this country together around common goals . i believe those common goals can be the new economic patriotism of building things and building them to tackle big problems like climate. i mean, the last thing i'll say is for all my colleagues done, and i feel much better today with your service in congress than it did sort of a year ago when we were all on tv screaming at each other. now you feel your complex something and i think there should be a model before in going forward. do you think there are other elements of the agenda that, that you and also sen, bernie sanders saying, particularly in education and upscale in this country? mean, there is a kind of credentialing problem and

a lack of nimbleness in terms of human talent in the united states that needs to be fixed. is that going to be part of your economic patriotism package? absolutely. let me just guess i can go a little bit longer and they say answer in 1950 stephen. this is based on the economists, thomas picking research america had 80 percent of high school graduate britain at 20 percent, france at 30 percent, even germany and 40 percent. we were twice as reading. we led the world in education. it's the single biggest thing and we ought to do it in both cases. for those who want a 4 year degree, make it a possible economically, get them to the possibility of getting that education and for the 60 percent or not going to get a 4 year degree. let's make sure we have massive investment in getting them credential that's actually going to lead to a job and make sure you have the cooperation with industry so that they're getting that kind of credential. this can be a revitalization of a land grant system and an investment in that. but at the end of the day,

when you look at and then rico mercedes work in the geography of jobs on the best books with the last 10 years. he says that the reason people pick companies pick areas is because of their education level, not because of subsidies or state incentives. so it's think it's the single biggest thing the country can do in terms of an investment in our future. well, we'll leave it there. then congressman ro, khan, a democrat from california. thank you so much for your candid thoughts today. thanks for joining us. thank you. so what's the bottom line? what happened this week in us politics is not big just because it will bring huge investment in next generation clean energy. it's big because of how it happened. the democratic party finally came together in a way they almost never do. it was a grand compromise between the progressives and the conservatives. if either side had stuck to their red lines and ignored the other side, they would have ended up with worse than nothing. in that case, the world burns up,

but instead both sides modified what they wanted and ran with the best deal they could get. can this be a template for america's polarized politics and society? has anyone learned that compromise actually works? the sat thing i've got to admit is this bill was designed to help the world survive climate change. but still there was not one republican that sign on to it, not one. if both parties don't take note of what the democrats just did and begin looking at their colleagues across the aisle, in the same way, the u. s. is gonna end up, paralyzed over and over and over. and that's the bottom line, ah, pro democracy activists risking their lives fighting autocracy while i know that i might go to prison. good. so i will join the ron democracy may be exposed. the

struggle of those who believe democracy is worth dying for we never know when an opening is going to come when a fruit vendor is going to emulate themselves and say enough is enough. my life for democracy on al jazeera ah now, which is here. with every oh lou. hello, i'm mary m new machine. and then with a quick look at the main stories now it climbed office on lawn wished he whose writings made him a target of.