[captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from the sundance film festival in park city utah, this is democracy now! >> his passion for the rights and libertieies of all peoples makes him a perfect fit and a valuable addition. he will be a true asset to help the venezuelan people restore democracy to their country. amy: the trump administration has tapppped elliot abrams, a right-wing hawk implicated in

in lying to congress to be venezuela, just days after the start of the u.s.-backed attempt to oust venezuelan president nicolas maduro. we will speak to democrat congress member ro khanna, one of a handful of u.s. lawmakers to speak out about u.s.-imposed regime change in venezuela. then we look at a stunning new documentary about the man whwho mentored donald trump and roger stone, the infamous attorney roy cohn. >> they swallowed roy cohn in a certain way and absorbebed all f his incredible abilities at practicing the dark arts of manipulation of politics and media and understanding the nexus between politics and media and how to operate those lovers

for dark and selfish purposes. "where's my roy cohn?" premiered here at sundance just hours after one of the key figures in the film, roger stone, was arrested for lying to congress about his interactions with wikileaks during the 2016 campaign. we will hear roger stone himself talk autut thempacact of roy cohn. it is t rules o w, you not fight on thother guy' ground. i learned that from roy. amy: all that and more, coming up.[701]greeting amy: welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i am amy goodman. u.s. and taliban officials have

agreed to a framework for a pepeace deal in afghanistan, wih the u.s. touting significant progress at peace talks in qatar over the past week. the eventual agreement could lead to a full pullout of u.s. troops and a taliban ceasefire, and open up dialogue between the taliliban and the afafghan government. afghan president ashraf ghani suppororted removing the u.s. military presence from the country, saying on monday that his government's goal was to bring down the number ofof foren troops to zero. federal employees are returning to work after president trump and congressional leaders agreed to a deal that reopened the government after a 35-day partial shutdown , the longest in u.s. history. trump threatened to shut down the government again in three weeks if no deal is reached with democrats on border wall funding. vermont senator bernie sanders addressed the end of the shutdown on the senate floor friday. senator sanders: there is something absolutely pathetic

about what has happened. five weeks ago, the united states senate unanimously, every republican, every democrat, voted for essentially the same legislation. amy: 800,000 federal employees were either furloughed or worked without pay during the shutdown. some workers turned to food banks, filed for unemployment, or went to homeless shelters as they missed two consecutive paychecks. president t trump has promised government workers will receivie back pay. however, this does not apply to millions of contract workers. hours before trump announced the end of the shutdown friday, the federal aviation administration halted some flights at airports in new york, newark, philadelphia, and atlanta after air traffic controllers began calling in sick en masse. in venezuela, tensions between the government of president

nicolas maduro and backers of opposition leader juan guaidó continued to mount over the weekend. speaking at the u.n. saturday, secretary of state mike pompeo told countries to pick a side and called on the u.n. security council to back self-declared interim president guaido. meanwhile, european leaders said on saturday that venezuelan president maduro should call for new elections within eight days, and he was swiftly rebuked by government officials and maduro, who accused european leaders of " kneeling at trump's feet. maduro scaled back a move to expel u.s. diplomat from the country, while in the u.s., venezuela's top military diplomat defected from his government and expressed support for juan guaido. while maduro asserted the venezuelan military remains loyal to his leadership and is prepared for a potential armed conflict, foreign minister jorge arreaza resisted any potential foreign attempts to start a war in venezuela. this is foreign minister arreaza

speaking at the u.n. saturday. >> is he looking for a war in latin america? is venezuela donald trump's were turkey? we will not hand him a war in venezuela. amy: we'll have more on the situation in venezuela after headlines with california congress member ro khanna. in the philippines, the islamic state claimed responsibility for twin blasts that killed at least 20 people at a roman catholic cathedral on the southern philippine island of jolo on sunday. at least 100 others were injured in the bombings, which came nearly a week after a local referendum showed overwhelelming voter support for increased autonomy for the muslim-majority region. in the occupied west bank, thousands of mourners joined the funeral of hamdi naasan sunday, a day after israeli settlers shot and killed the 38-year-old palestinian during clashes between palestinian protesters and israeli settlers. at least 30 others were wounded. witnesses say israeli forces saw

the settlers attack the protesters but did not turn, attackedin the palestinians. u.n. middle east envoy nikolay mladenov called the killing shocking and unacceptable and called for those responsible to be brought to justice. israeli settlements in the west bank are considered illegal under international law. this is laila ghannam, governor of nearby ramallah. >> this crime is against the , which wasur people done by a group of settlers with protection of the israeli army, the terrorism army. amy: naasan's killing came amid a wave of violence across the occupied territories over the weekend. on friday, israeli forces shot and killed 25-year old ehab abed in gaza during weekly protests by the separation barrier with israel, known as the great march of return. in the west bank, israeli soldiers killed 18-year-old

ayman hamed, also on friday, for allegedly throwing stones. on saturday, israeli police shot and killed riyad shamasneh in his car in east jerusalem. in brazil, search and rescue missions are looking for survivors after a mining dam collapsed on friday in the south eastern state of minas gerais. at least 58 people were killed, with the death toll expected to 300.to at least at least 300 are still missing. the dam, which was over 40 years old and was in the process of being decommissioned, dumped millions of tons of iron ore waste after it broke, swamping everyone in its path. anger against mining giant vale has been mounting among workers and local residents. the company was at the center of one of brazil's worst environmental disasters in 2015 when a mine in the same region collapsed, killing 19 people and flooding waterways with millions of tons of waste.

in france, yellow vest protests took place saturday for the 11th straight weekend as the movement shows no signs of slowing down. a number of unions have joined the yellow vest movement, calling for solidarity in their struggles for social justice. meanwhile, violence on the part of police and certain protesters has been called out. an estimated 10,000 pepeople marched in paris wearing red scarves, protesting vandalism and various acts of violence associated with the yellow vest marches. french police have come under increasing fire for the use of excessive force, including rubber bullets, which protesters say have caused serious injuries. a lawyer for prominent yellow vest protester jérôme rodrigues said he will be disabled for life after being hit with a rubber projectile on saturday. last week, the interior minister annonounced riot policice woulde to start wearing body cameras. germany will move to shut down all of its coal-fired power plants by 2038 as part of the country's commitment to

renewable energy. the move was announced by a government-appointed commission, which is proposing $45 billion to assist regions most affected by the closure of the coal plants. germany is also on track to close down all of its nuclear power plants by 2022. renewables made up over 40% of the energy supplied in germany last year, surpassing coal for the very first time. back in the united states, the board of the birmingham civil rights institute has voted to reaffirm leading activist and civil rights icon angela davis as the recipient of its fred l. shuttlesworth human rights award after previously rescinding the award over her activism for palestinian rights. ththe institute withdrewew the d days after thehe birmingham holocaust education center sent a letter urging the board to reconsider honoring davis due to her support of the boycott divestment and sanctions

movement, known as bds. the decision was met with widespread condemnation. the board offered a public apology for the move earlier this month. see our exclusive interview with angela davis responding to the controversy, go to democracynow.org. president trump's elena and former adviser roger stone is set to be arraigned tuesday after he was arrested early friday morning with prosecutors teamrobert mueller's charging the longtime republican operative with obstruction, witness tampering, and lying to congress about communications with wiki leaks. he was released on a $250,000 bond. in an interview on sunday, stone said he would not rule out cooperating with special counsel robert mueller. later, we will look at a stunning new documentary about a man who meant toward both donald trump and roger stone, the infamous anti-communist attorney roy cohn. rallies in support of an

american reporter for iran state placek plus tv took friday around the country and in cities around the world, following her release last week from u.s. custody. hashemi, a u.s. citizen, resides in tehran but was arrested and detained by the fbi during a visit to the united states, where she is working on a film about the black lives matter movement. in an interview with the guardian, hashemi said, "it is not about me. it is about the u.s. justice department and government that they feel that they can just take people's rights away, sweep them off of the streets, hold them in the name of being a material witness and not charging them, indefinitely." and in philadelphia, district attorney larry krasner said he will challenge a recent ruling that would allow imprisoned former black panther and award-winning journalist mumia abu-jamal to reargue his case. abu-jamal was convicted of the 1981 murder of philadelphia police officer daniel faulkner but has always maintained his innocence. abu-jamal's lawyers argued that statements by the former chief justice of the pennsylvania supreme court about people accused of killing police

officers indicate he should have recused himself from the case. last month, krasner and his team discovered six boxes of files related to the case in an old storage room. while the exact contents of the boxes are not known to the public, some have speculated they contain exculpatory evidence. those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now! i am amy goodman. we begin today's show looking at venezuela where president nicholas maduro has accused the united states of attempting to wage a coup. last week the u.s. and several other nations recognized opposition leader juan guaidó the president of the national assembly to be venezuela's president. israel and australia have become the latest countries to recognize guaido. meanwhile britain, germany, france, and spain have announced they, too, will recognize guaido if maduro does not call for new elections within eight days. maduro has rejected the request bubut says he is open to diaiale with the o opposition. meanwhile, more information has

come to light about the direct u.s. role in the attempted coup. the wall strtreet journal repors vice president mike pence called juan guaidó on the night before he declared himself to be president, pledging u.s. support for his actions. on saturday, u.s.s. secretary of state mike pompeo announced elliot abrams would become his special envoy to v venezuela. >> his pasassion for the rights and liberties of all people makes him a perfect fit and a valuable and timely addition. he will be a true asset to our mission to help the venezuelan people restore democracy and prosperity to their country. amy: elliot abrams is a right-wing hawk who was tovicted in 1991 for lying congress in the iran contra scandal but was later pardoned. abrams defended guatemalan dictator general efraín rios montt as he oversaw a campaign of mass murder and torture of indigenous people in guatemala in the 1980's. rios montt was later convicted of genocide.

abrams was also linked to the 2002 coup in venezuela that attempted to topple hugo chavez. the democratic leadership in congress has largely supported the trump administration's actions, but there have been some voices of dissent. we're joined now by ro khanna, democratic congress member from california. welcome back to democracy now! can you respond on what has taken play -- place in venezuela and the u.s. role in that? >> it is as if we never learned our lesson. we should have learned by now that the efforts for regime changed is not work and that we never planned for whether it is going to be successful in what comes next. this is the mistake we made in syria. the consensus was ably supported the rebels, somehow they would topple assad, a brutal war criminal, but that was ineffective and led to assad escalated the bombing and more civilians dying.

the same situation applies here. i will not defend maduro's policies. but there is absolutely no plan that would suggest that any effort of regime change would be successful, and there is no plan for what would happen after the civil war, which would lead to more violence. that is why the responsible solution is with the vatican and mexico are doing, negotiating a settlement. everyone knows that is the only way for possible peace there. instead, we have the neocon people like elliott abrams, who was involved with the iran contra scandal and a cover-up in el salvador, involved in the cover-up with guatemala, dictating our form policy and getting us, yet again, into another misguided intervention. amy: this information that came to light in the wall streett joururnal, reporting feist

president mike pence called president guaido the night before he declared himself president of venezuela, pledging u.s. support for his actions? appalledats should be by that. with all the concern about russian interference in our elections, and we get concerned about a journal is appearing on russian television and a member of commerce talking to him, imagine if someone were calling the opposition in our country. we would be furious, justifiably furious. so it makes no sense that our vice president would be calling and interfering in politics in venezuela. what we ought to be doing is working through international institutions and calling for human rights but not getting involved in a potential civil war. again, this is no defense of maduro. everyone recognizes that there have been extrajudicial killings

there and his economic policy led to hyperinflation. but the reality is when we have intervened in places like syria, like libya, the consequences have been the things of gotten worse. for some reason, the people who have let all these interventions are still able to dictate american foreign-policy, almost as if failure is a qualification to be part of dictating what we should be doing in venezuela. amy: so what are you calling for in congress? among those who have criticized what the u.s. administration is ,oing, you have dick durbin senator, nancy pelosi, actually, supporting guaido, but people like yourself, omar, and others, bernie sanders, also critical of the venezuelan government but critical of what the u.s. is doing it what are you demanding in congress? >> first that the democrats

speak up about the administration's effort to get us into another civil war. silent always been too when these interventions start. too silent with a rock and with the intervention in syria, the intervention in libya. are not silent -- the neocons are not silent. there is not aggressive, strong opposition to us intervening. seco, everyone knows that the only way that we are going to see greater progress in an ago she where the parties have an honest record. mexico, the vatican, uruguay are trying that. the u.s. has given credence to that effort, and they should be involved in tried to come to a negotiated settlement. what we're doing is not working. even people opposed to maduro's

policies have said the sanctions are only making matters worse, and we need to really look at ending those sanctions. amy: before we go, the government shutdown, the longest in u.s. history, president from did not get funding for his border wall, but the possibility that in three weeks he will shut the government down again? a total wasted effort that hurt ordinary americans. he was going to ultimately cave, and there was no reason for hundreds of thousands of workers to go about a paycheck. millions of contractors will not get back pay. i am concerned that on february 15, he is going to try to declare a national emergency. i heard yesterday senator rubio saying that a national emergency would be a bad idea. but is that just going to be rhetoric or are they going to stand up for the constitution? because congress and the senate , andass a joint resolution

that is that the president does declare an emergency, to overrule an emergency. i would like republicans who are legitimately telling the president not to go down that road to say they would vote against him to overtrturn that emergency or we're going to have another crisis in this country. amy: ro khanna, democratic, cement -- congressman from california, thank you. this is democracy now! back in 30 seconds. ♪ [music break]

amy: that is music by mozart, performed inside a mall in ukraine, that i taped in december. sunday was international holocaust remember it's -- holocaust remembrance day. over 22,000 jewish men, women, children were killed between -- in this place in ukraine, the birthplace of the mother of leonard bernstein and the birthplace of my grandmother, born in 1897. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. friday, federal agents raided the home of president trtrump ia ally and former adviser roger stone here at prosecutors from special counsel robert mueller's

team charged the one-time republican operative of obstruction, witness tampering, and lying to congress about his communications with wikileaks. an indictment reveals a scene trump campaign official was directed to contact stone ahead of the 2016 election to see what other leaks about hillary clinton and the democratic committee were coming from wikileaks prayer he was released on a $250,000 bond on friday and spoke to the press. a i believe this is politically motivated investigation. problem with the political motivationons of the prosecutors. amy: roger stone will be arraigned on tuesday. stone and donald trump were both heavily influenced by the infamous attorney roy cohn, who served as a chief counsel senator joseph mccarthy during the red scare in the 1950's and

would later become a leading mob attorney. roy cohn represented donald trump for years and once claimed trump considered him to his best friend. roy cohn is the subject of a new documentary here at the sundance film festival. it is titled "where's my roy cohn?" i spoke to the film's director matt tyrnauer on sunday. i began by asking him to explain who roger stone is and his connection to roy cohn. >> he was a protége of roy cohn and has something in common with donald trump, other than being a friend and often a political advisor donald trump. they were both protéges of roy cohn here at their origins in politics and really in the way they deal with life and business come from the same place, and that is the late william cohn. amy: talk about your feelings on friday, on that day that began with a raid of roger stone's house and who he is. >> roger stone is a political

dirty trickster whose method and andona really dovetail presage the trump administration . they are cut from the same cloth. again, the same mentor, cannot overstate the importance of that. this comes from the dirty pool, kind of village amid world that roy cohn personified. andard nixon toiled in it, donald trump is the kind of delayed reemergence of this type ofol transactional politics that is now really emerging onto a type of fascism that i think has been in sabean for a long time but has emerged. the seeds for this film were planted long ago, and roy cohn

.as a major seller of this amy: let's go to a clip of roger stone from your film, talking the sameayay youre talki, inteststingl but roy cohn, donald tru, , and ger r so hihielf. y lked alltrategy,nd the are thrules ofar. from roy.nald learned i did. amy: roger stone talking about roy cohn. s to, take us there, take u who roy cohn is and how you became so fascinated with him. is a bold footnote in american history, it would have been if it had not been for the surprising result in the election of 2016. he was, at a very young age, the handmaiden of joseph mccarthy, in the early 1950's through the

mid-1950's. he was most famous for those photographs of him whispering into the ear of mccarthy during the infamous senate subcommittee which hunting hearings where mccarthy, demagogue of his era, was trying to root out mostly imaginary communists in the state department. roy cohn was a son of great privilege. became an attorney, but he was so young when he graduated that he cannot take the bar exam for a year. he was a prodigy, a very bright man. turns out to the course of his life, he used his brilliance for mostly the dark arts of manipulation and self-enrichment, and later in his career, even literally, mafia activities. he became the number one mob lawyer in this country. i call them the ceo of the favor bank.

amy: the mob is where donald trump comes in, in is early years of being a developer in manhattan. but go back even further to the rosenbergs. from before the mccarthy hearing. >> sure. got his teeth in public life as a junior prosecutor in the rosenberg spy case, which was an famous trial of two jewh americans who were acsed of d coicted o sring atomic secrets th the sieiet uon.. amy: conspirg to. >> yeah. and c was amo a groupf jesh lawyersndust -- judges w were apinted to give t impressn that iwas not an anti-semitic prosecution. he proved himself to be incredibly aggressive and very,

very savvy and gaining publicity for himself and for the cause that he was pushing. and he is perhaps most famous in a veryr engaging in questionable collusion with the judge, judge kaufman. the judge, legend has it, would call roy cohn prosecutor in the of his park avenue synagogue in new york, to ask the junior prosecutor, for guidance on the sentencing he should hand down. amy: and to be clear, indications between judge and prosecutor are illegal. >> you said it. andohn was eouragingim to get the ath penay, not oy to julius, whot turnedut was l, whouilty, a ethe was not to be proven guilt for. the couple was electrocuted in the electric chair.

it was truly a traumatic moment for the jewish community in the united states but also the united states at large. the film in its contemporary -- the film unearths footage that was shocking to me. i did not t realize how violent and emotional ththe protests wee in the streets of f new york ciy on the d day of the executution. and because this was in n 1953? >> that is right, and cohn was, i believe, 23. amy: and the message sent around the country with the executition of this couple, putting them in the electric chair, interestingly, you have a clip of roger stone that we want to turn to right now, remembering what roy cohn idid to him about eir execution. >> we tried to get him t talk ababoujoe m marthy or the mccarthy tris s withhatt whole -- jay jager hoover,

gagar hoer, and u cacann get ch oututf him. on the rosenbergs, i askedow heelelt aboutt, and h sai " if i could have lled the swit, , i wod hahaveone itit myself that did nosound li remorse i think royas a har lineer to e end. rer stonet i lking abt roy co and the exution ofhe rosenrgs. imine that >> iseemed tme that meone in the early 10's o had two w wasothef most cerin not glty of t crime which s was concted d murder by thetate might have somfeelingsf remors for is laternlife as he was on his own deathbed, for instance. that, and stone give that answer you just saw. amy: let's move to the mccarthy hearings in washington.

roy cohn becomes his right-hand man, and this is showed beautifully in the film, famously constantly in the air of mccarthy. you have two sets of hearings, the original mccarthy hearings going after communists, in the new have the army mccarthy hearings. and you describe this as early reality tv, very trump like. explain. >> army mccarthy is a byword in our culture. the mccarthy era is the dictionary definition of witchhunting and demagoguery and politics. the army mccarthy hearings' details have been lost to history and lost to the very poorest education system we have in this country that does not teach history thoroughly. so i wanted to show a granular portrayal of this peculiar

episode that i heard that really riveted the nation at the dawn of the age of television. what h happened in thehe complef the army mccarthy scenario is that cohn is mccarthy's protége. n n wants to do a particular favor for a certain someone special to him, and that is a young man named david schein, the psion of a wealthy until family, and it was just roy cohn type, sexually speaking it turns out. cohn was gay and very deeply in the closet during this time. he clearly has a romantic chris does crush on david schein and get some on the mccarthy committee is junior aide. at a certain point, david schein is acted into the army is a private.

this instance is not only david schein but roy cohn. so cohn, who was powerful at the time but not as powerful as he thought he was, did whatever he wealthy, spoililed child might , except t this one happppened toe occupyining a senate post,t, he called a set - -- the secretetaf thararmy and thrhreatened him, sayiying either vivid sche i is given a commission as a general, t tvatete, and posteded in penthouse of the walaldorf-astoa hotel in new york, cohn'n's royoy cohn andwe, joseseph mccthy,y, will go after the a ay and accucuse them of s secret gaya communist cabal. the army did not react well to this bizarre threat coming from , theative political nobody

one with a connection of the leading demagogue of the day, joseph mccarthy. so the army pushed back it we have to remember that the president at the time was an army man, dwight eisenhower. he did not say much at the time, but behind the scenes, he did not like these accusations being leveled against his branch of the military. so what unfolds than is, i believe, the first instance of reality television, unwitting reality television. tryining tonfancy was findnd its footingng, and whater was goodod spectacle andnd whatr would get peopleo tune in fully at the time. this was ann open televisised hearing thensationalalistic chcharge and sececret homosexuxl subplot. it made the stuff a perfect telelevision drarama really, alththough no one e really knewt was goining toappepen.

it really is the definition of reality tv. the climax of these e and the council of the army, what happened? >> the army y lawyered up and wt after mccacarthy and cohn. they hired a very good lawyer, a whory folksksy, telegegenic man was a boston n ahman attotorney named d joseph welch. welch plplayed his part beautifully on tv and in the hearing, and he paced himself. he sort of what his fellow questioners pick apart this bizarre scenario. mccarthy and cohn are turn to show that there communists and gays in the army and they're bringing down the democracy.

eventually, near the end, mccarthy sees he's losing this battle and wants to fight back. there had been a back room deal made at a certain point that one of the people that they were going to drag through the mud was an associate of welch's in his bososton law firm who may or may not have had some communist leanings. he was not accused, but it was really nothing is first the level of the charges were. cohn told welch, i will trade you not implicating this guy for something else, and mccarthy missed that meeting. and he started to bring this young man's name into the hearings on television. and welch realized he had broken an agreement and when up to mccarthy, and he says words that turned out to be immoral, very few words, but they will always be remembered among anyone who

is a student of history and even tv viewers of the time. basically, senator, you have done enough. he is s sort of windg g up le ea pitcheher would wind d up. atatong last, , have you no sene of d decency? decencycy,ou no senense of sir, at longng last? have you left no sense of decency? >> the senate room, the russell hearing room in the senate, which is where they held the hearing, bursts s intopplause. you n n see mccart's ce j jus cocollses, h hgoes pale. this caught the cociciencef an tirere nion hahaof television, and leded tthe very quick --cretingng a dowall of d indivial centeof josep mccahy in thsenate, d it stroyed y cohn, wel

that rlly eed the marthy era, joseph welch. it should have ended roy cohn, but it did not. rm,: that is matt tyrnaue director of the new documentary, "where's my roy cohn?" when we come back, we will talk about how roy cohn ended up reprpresenting a young new york real estate development named donald trump in the 1970's and how they became best friends. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

"everybody wants to rule the world" by tears for fears. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i am amy goodman. we're broadcasting for the week from the sundance film festival in park city, utah. we continue to look at the new documentary, "where's my roy cohn?" it looks a at the man who mentod donald trump and roger stone. the film just premiered here at the sundance film festival. after roy cohn left washington in the 1950s, he became a prominent attorney in new york. a prominent mob attorney.

his clients included the mob and a future president. let's go back to my interview with director matt tyrnauer. let's leap forward to his relationship with donald trump, how he came to know donald trump. immediate has an success as a lawyer in new york, and people have said to me, journalists have asked me, how could someone so discredited worm his way to the top echelons of new york society after having crashed and burned so badly, humiliated himself and everyone around him during the mccarthy period? my answer is, have you ever met new york society? it is the most transactional place in the world, and roy cohn was the king of transactional relationships. i call him the ceo of the favor bank, and that is the way he operated and to great success

alter the 1960's in the early 1970's. there comes a day, a fitful day, when roy cohn, powerbroker, mob lawyer, he is a young man who the just turning out son of a major real estate developer in brooklyn named donald j. trump. trump was pure outer borough material. he had the money but do not have the status. he was considered to be very uncouth and was not welcome in the important bases in new york society, but he had a burning aspiration to raise to those levels. he did find his way to a chic neck club at that time called -- nightclub at that time called la club, which existed until relatively recently, in fact. in that kind of swingy

proto-disco environment, he meets the famous work on. -- he meets the famous roy cohn. at that time, the justice department was going after trump's father in trump himself, a partner in the trump family real estate business. at the time, it was provable that trump housing was taking the rental applications of minority applicants and marking them with a code word, which was c for colored, and denying them ritual apartments. joseph mccarthy was going to come down hard on them, and trump was worried and wanted to help his father and help itself -- himself out of this. he explained the predicament to roy cohn and said, hey, can you help me out of this, and cohn said absolutely, reach out to me tomorrow morning. trump did, and cohn outlined a strategy for conquering this justice department suit, which

really was the game plan that trump followed every day for the rest of his life and into our own lives and our daily lives now. so they were engaging in racist practices but never admitted it? >> that is right. theyey settled, and settling is not technically an admission of guilt. trump says he never settles, but of course he settles all the time. cohn says he never settled or pleaded, but he did all the time. but cohn's premimise was never admit it, and settlement is not an admission of guilt. if you do not admitit guilt, you cannot -- you can go to the press and admit victory. and the so roy cohn -- amy: roy cohn was not only his lawyer, but he considered him one of his best friends. >> con ciliary and best friend. ancohn's eyes, in

interview in the early 1980's, bragged that donald trump said he was his best friend in a letter to him. amy:y: there is the massive concrete building, store, and in its place, they build trump tower. talk about the blueprint, basically, that involves the mob and roy cohn. >> the truck story set the pattern for the weight room and the trump organization did dismiss. it is from the playbook of roy cohn. the corners were cut to generate maximum profit, and i think it was also in that time in new york just part of what you did to kind of get the mafia involved and get special privileges to speed up construction. so this was a really corrupt

project. i want to give credit to the journalist david johnston who was doing this reporting in real time back in the 1980's, chronicling the bad business dealings of the trump organization for years. an interview with david johnston and the for him to explain how something was very peculiar about the construction of trump tower, which roy cohn helped donald trump achieve and engineer. cohn shows off a letter from thank you for allowing the fast realization of the trump tower project. trump tower is built of concrete. newdings in the 1980's in york were rarely built of concrete. they were built with structural steel, much more efficient. the mob at the time controlled business,te contract

and you need payoff the mob. settle mob, in skulduggery, controlled the unions, so the unions could control the construction fences and keep the cement mixers waiting to come into the construction site and ruin your cement and cost you millions of dollars, basically. indeed, this building went up made of concrete because roy cohn, according to johnston's reporting, introduced trump to all of his mafioso connections, which allow this project to go forward without any interruptions. there was another very famous thing, which a believe hillary clinton brought up in the campaign, which was that the teller building, the building that proceeded trump tower on that site, was demolished by a group of illegal immigrants called the polish brigade that were brought down to new york city from rochester, new york. them.never pay

so not only was he employing illegal immigrants and not paying appropriate taxes, and that was way back in the 1970's and 1980's. pure roy cohn. he was an expert tax evader and stifferer of contractors. donald trump really learned his thought from cohn. amy: so we take this story decades later to just this week, with the new york times posted about undocumented immigrants who worked at the westchester golf course and they were honored for being west employee repeatedly. one by one, they were called in and fired. they're speaking out and sing the trumps knew they did not have the proper documents. >> so much of the film is connecting the dots and giving

even more truth to the famous aphorism, those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it. that saysnother quote we live in the united states of amnesia. sometimes these have literal precedenent. the same people perpetrating the same misdeeds are crimes are telling the same lies may be proven and reported on for years, and it is occurring again, now on an international scale of really terrifying long-term consequences. to your's go back interview with roger stone in 2017 where he once again quotes roy cohn. >> roy famously gued that all ofof the expenses of the law fim rere deductible. the irs did not seitit thiway.y. he told me the whole point of dealing with the irs was to

guide them away as much as. amy: that is roger stone. great interview w with mimike wallace andnd roy cohn we wallace says to c cohn, you area tax avoid her, and c cohn says e all ouour tax avoiders. about president ronald reagan. but when you watch it now, it has certain ring to it. w well, you are better at it than others. cohn says don't blame me for your inadequacies. trump did the same thing in the debate with hillary clinton were she brings up tax evasion, and he leaned in and said, that makes me smart. at that moment, my heart sank, because i thought that i could see that would be a very a debate,ne-liner in actually.

cohn got that. there is something about the public that was a scoundrel. trump also took the persona from his mentor, roy cohn. amy: take us back to roger stone, who has just been indicted in the wheeler inquiry, and talk about the triumvirate here. roy cohn, roger stone, and donald trump. >> one of the speak -- one of the people i spoke to off-camera about the relationship between roy cohn and donald trump said to me, donald trump is roy cohn. and you could say that about roger stone. i think roger stone might say it about himself, actually. they swallowed roy cohn whole in a certain way and absorbed all of his incredible abilities that practicing the dark arts of

manipulation of politics and media, understanding the nexus between politics and media and how to operate those levers for really dark and selfish purposes. that is really what cohn's mastery ended up being. amy: what you conveyed very well in the film was not just the manipupulation, whetheher talkig about trump or stone, but the cohn willing, roy to destroy lives, weather in his anti-communist crusade, anti-lgbtq crusade, even though he himself is a gay man. ultimately he would die of aids, though he denied that he was dying of aids. >> yes, he denied it consistently, on camera come off-camera, and privately. amy: president reagan and nancy were his dear friends. president reagan when not

mention aids for something like seven years of his presidency. but in the end of roy cohn's life, you report that got him into a special drug trial at the national institutes of health? >> yes, this is one of the most bitter ironies of diabolical truths of cohn's life. he's bareheaded the lavender scare in the 1950's ruining the lives of lgbtq people and government. of course, he himself was. that was bad enough. according to nancy reagan, he helped her husband get elected. the reagan's had many gay friends, but they were publicly and on a policy level as bad as you can be for gay rights and had only the hiv-aids plague at the time. cohn appealed to them for

special treatment as he was secretly dying of the disease. ronald and nancy reagan got him into an experimental treatment program at the nih that very few people could get into. there are telegrams we show on-screen of ronald reagan ignoring the greatest public health crisis of our time, roy cohn, wishing him good health and god speededs he gets out of the hospital and gets back home after a round of experimental treatment. amy: and talk about how donald trump, the man who called roy cohn's best friend, how he dealt with roy cohn suffering from aids. >> many people who were witnesses of the relationship cite that trump did back away from cohn when he was on his deathbed. at the same time, cohn was disbarred very late in his life with almost weeks left to live.

they managed, after decades of trying at different levels of government, to get him disbarred. it was achieved. he had late stage hiv illness at are many, and there accounts of him appealing to trump for certain kinds of help and being nervous about what trump would think. and then trump did, according to his cousins who were very much present at the time of cohn's boneless, back away. amy: left him to die alone. >> yes. i think this is the moral of the transactional a person in many ways. cohn had many frieiends, but how true where they? they were gained thrhrough beina person who lived through transactional living and politics. he was a total transactional figure.

when he had this terrible disease, which was deeply ironic for him to die of, he lost a lot of friends who were, i think, backing g away becauause of thee dualal crises in his life,e, disbararment and an assured deah at that time, and really extremely terrifying disease that was very little understood at that time. amy: which brings us now to the title of your film, "where's my roy cohn?" talk about how you came up with it. cohn?" is's my roy not a question, it is a complaint. in the white house, when trump first felt the w walls of the mueller investigation closing in on him, i do not think he would the links ofd this. i think he thought he would short-circuit it, and he was hoping that a roy cohn type would hehelp him.

he was not able to find that in the attorney general, or his white house counsel, both who have left office.it is a fundamental misunderstanding of someone in the executive branch of the attorney general of the white house counsel serves him personally. these are the employees of a dictator, the employees of an elected president of the united states. the attorney general represents the people per the justice department represents the interest of the united states. i'm not sure anyone has been able to explain it to donald trump. but roy cohn taught him that he was sovereign. as if he wasved sovereign, roy cohn was sovereign. if he convinced trump that you follow the playbook of ultimate selfishness and justifying means, but you get away with anything. roy cohn almost did.

his spearean, regional on -- your redeemable on his end, but he is given us this delayed reemergence of demagoguery that is the result of a seed he planted in the early 1980's, i would say, and has come back to haunt us in an unimaginable way. amy: matt tyrnauerm, director of the new documentary "where's my roy cohn?" it just premiered here at the sundance film festival. we will be broadcasting here all week. democracy now! is currently accepting applications for a full-time one year paid news production fellowship. details are online at democracynow.org. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. democracy now! is produced by

mike burke, deena guzder, nermeen shaikh, carla wills, tami woronoff, sam alcoff, john hamilton, robby karran, hany massoud, charina nadura, tey-marie astudillo, and libby rainey. mike di fillippo and miguel nogueira are our engineers. special thanks to becca staley, julie crosby, hugh gran, david prude, ariel boone, vesta goodarz, and carl marxer. and to our camera crew, jon randolph, kieran meadows, anna ozbek, and matt ealy. welcome tl

edition of kcrw's left right center decisions decisions coming to you live from the commonwealth club in san francisco as alwayeft righand centprovocive antntidote to th lf conined opions i'm jh barroour hos yo center ausiness lumnistt n york magazine. theight iegan mcarcolumnt o t left is ana mari* hos of th iendsike tse a colugirl.forci fi'san andlease join me in welcominur fir t crimin defense attorne and my c hostn our specl lefightnd