[captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica this i is democray now. >> it the investigator the e source was. it was not the white house, it was not saudi arabia. amy: the public dispute between the world's richest man, amazon ceo jeff bezos, and the national enquirer intensifies days after

bezos accused the paper of extortion and blackmail after it threatened to publish revealing images of him and his lover. we will speak with prize-winning reporter glenn greenwald. his latest piece is titled, "jeff bezos protests the invasion of his privacy, as amazon builds a sprawling surveillance state for everyone else." greenwald joins us from rio de prerelease -- police shot dead 13 people suspected of being drug traffickers. is this a wave of new violence? we will get the latest, coming up. ♪ now,welcome to democracy democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. is another government shutdown

imminent? bipartisan talks on a government spending bill broke down over the weekend as democrats and republicans remained in disagreement over the number of immigrants ice should be allowed to detain. democrats want to put a cap on the number of beds for people immigrant prisoners with around 16,000 reserve for prisoners in the country. the bipartisan conference committee must come up with a new spending bill that both congress and president trump will approve by friday this week in order to avoid another government shutdown. trump has also threatened to call a national emergency to bypass congress for his $5.7 billion in border wall funding. president trump is heading to the border town of el paso in texas today to hold a rally. former candidate for the us senate and possible 2020 presidential hopeful beto o'rourke will speak at a counterrally. meanwhile california governor gavin newsom is expected to withdraw the majority of troops stationed on the california-mexico border,

following a similar move in new mexico by governor michelle lujan grisham. in virginia, democratic governor ralph northam continues to resist mounting g calls from within his own party to step down, after claims he posed for a racist photo seen in his 1984 medical school yearbook page, depicting a man wearing blackface next to a man wearing a ku klux klan outfit. northam has denied that he is in the photo, but he did admit to wearing blackface on another occasion that same year. in an interview with cbs this morning, northam said he thought about resigning but that he believes he can help virginia "heal". host gayle king had to correct northam when he referred to slaves brought to virginia in ago as s "indentured servants". 1619, people landed on our shores. amy: meanwhile, a second woman

came forward friday, accusing virginia's lieutenant governor, justin fairfax, of rape. meredith watson said fairfax raped her in 2000, while they were both students at duke university. in a statement, she called the attack "premeditated and aggressive." fairfax has denied the accusations and called for the fbi to investigate. watson's statement also brought up another rape by a duke basketball player, prior to the rate by fairfax. to dismissed the second claim at the time. dismissed the second claim at the time. hours after the second sexual assault accusation emerged friday, patrick hope, a member of the virginia house of delegates said he will introduce articles of impeachment against fairfax if he does not step down by monday. the us and russia have proposed opposing draft resolutions at the un security council as the leadership crisis in venezuela deepens.

the u.s. is calling for elections in venezuela and for international aid deliveries to be allowed to enter venezuela. the russians called out international intervention in the affairs of venezuela and the threat of foreign military action. meanwhile in venezuela, a ststandoff o over humanitatarian deliverieses at the border with colombia is pitting the venezuelan military which is still loyal to maduro, against supporters of juan guaido, including the united states. venezuelan officials described the aid as a trojan horse. us, humanitarian aid is a trojan horse that is trying to invade venezuela. we have ththe right and the duty to defend our borders peacefully and it is being done by the bolivian armed forces. amy: on friday, an operation by brazilian military police in rio de janeiro left at least 13

people dead after a shootout in the neighborhood of santa teresa. police say they were there to investigate suspected drug traffickers but encountered gunfire when they entered the area. this comes after rio's new governor, wilson witzel, said last month that city security forces were authorized to shoot to kill suspects. he also said rio should have its own guantanamo bay to house criminals, whom he labeled "terrorists." in haiti, thousands have been protesting in the capital port-au-prince since thursday. at least two people were killed, according to local reports, including a 14-year-old boy. protesters are calling for president jovenel moise to step down after a corruption scandal, involving the suspected embezzlement of nearly $4 billion of petrocaribe funds haiti received as part of a venenezuelan oil subsidy progrg protesters are alslso calling ot haiti's economic situation.

>> the people cannot take it. the president does not understand. there is inflation. we cannot stand the situation. there will surely be a revolution. amy: in gaza, israeli forces shot and killed 2 palestinian teenagers protesting at the separation barrier with israel friday. gaza health officials identified the victims as 14-year-old hassan shalabi, and hamza shteiwi - who was eitherer 17 or 18. it's estimated that israeli soldiers killed at least 240 people and wounded 23,000 others since the great march of return protests began last march. acting u.s. defense secretary patrick shanahan landed in afghanistan today for a surprise visit, following recent peace talks between the u.s. and the taliban, and as several violent attacks have shaken afghanistan in recent weeks. shanahan said he does not have

orders to withdraw troops from the country, a plan first announced by president trump in december, as well as a key taliban demand in the ongogoing peace negogotiations. american media inc, which owns the nanational enquirerer, fired back at amazon ceo jeff bezoss friday afterer he publiclyly acd the publication n of extortion d blackmail. ami said it stands behind its reporting and that it acted "lawfully". bezos suggested in a blog post last week that the leak of private text messages to the tabloid might be connected to his ownership of the washington post which has been critical of both president trump and saudi leadership, following the murder of its columnist jamal khashoggi. the texts were between bezos and lauren sanchez, with whom he was reportedly having an affair. saudi officials have also responded to the scandal, denying any involvement in obtaining or releasing the messages. the daily beast is reporting that michael sanchez, lauren sancnchez's brother, is also sususpected as the source of the leak. denver public school teachers

begin a strike today after 11th hour negotiations between the teachers' union and the school district failed over the weekend. the denver classroom teachers association is demanding an increase in teachers' base salary rather than putting money in incentives and bonuses. this will be the city's first teacher's strike in 25 years. transcanada said friday the keystone pipeline is likely responsible for an oil spill last week in st. charles county, near the mississippi river. a new study released thursday counted 137 oil spills in the us in 2018. in new york city, protesters took over the guggenheim museum saturday night to call out the museum's relationship with the sackler family, whose company, purdue pharma, produces the prescription painkiller oxycontin. artist nan goldin, who herself became addicted to oxycontin, has been leading calls for art institutions to stop taking

money and disassociate themselves from the sacklers. goldin and other protesters staged a die-in after dropping thousands of fake prescriptions with anti-sackler messages from the museum's famous winding walkway. the action was a reference to a quote by a member of the sackler family who once claimed the launch of oxycontin would be "followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that would bury the competition." . protest also took on the nearby metropolitan museum. the washington post is reporting that amazon is reconsidering its plan to open its sprawling new hq2 campus in new york city, due to political opposition and protests from the local community. the new york state senate recently appointed michael gianaris, a vocal critic of the

amazon deal, to a board charged with reviewing the plan. activists, union leaders and other politicians have spoken out against the deal, including new york city congressmember alexandria ocasio-cortez. in political news, massachusetts senator elizabeth warren and amy klobuchar both formally launched their presidential campaigns over the weekend. there are now an unprecedented six women seeking the democratic nomination. klobuchar launched her campaign sunday with an outdoor rally in minneapolis during a heavy snowstorm. >> i do not have a political machine, i do and a come from money. -- i do not come from money. what i have is grit. amy: in her announcement speech, klobuchar said she would tackle climate change, gun control, and money in politics. a third-term senator, klobuchar is viewed as one of the more centrist democrats to enter the race.

she is a former prosecutor known for her "tough on crime" track record, including stricter sentencing, in particular for drug offenders. more recently, klobuchar came into the spotlight after a tense exchange with then-supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh. after the senator asked kavanaugh if he ever drank so much that he blacked out, he snapped back "have you?" meanwhile senator elizabeth warren formally launched her presidential run saturday with a rally in the working class city of lawrence, massachusetts. one of the most liberal members of the senate, she is a former harvard professor whose work led to the creation of the consumer financial protection bureau. in her speech, warren pledged not to accept any lobbying or super pac money, challenging other democrats running in the primary to do the same. warren then traveled to iowa on sunday. >> donald trump may not even be president.

[applause] >> he may not even be a free person. amy: she began that statement by saying, in 2020. warren came under fire last year for taking a dna test to demonstrate her native american ancestry. she later apologized for the move. last week, the washington post reported that she listed herself as "american indian" on a 1986 texas legal bar registration form. in response to the backlash, she said "i cannot go back. i am sorry for further confusion and harm that resulted." in entertainment news the grammy , awards made history, celebrating women and rap. six female acts were nominated for best new artist, while five women were nominated for album-of-the-year. alicia keys was the first woman to host the show in over a decade. former first lady michelle obama also made a surprise appearance

at the event, taking the stage with female artists. childishamambinowho o dinot attendhehe awas cecereny, wawa the rsrst ev artrtisto takak home both rerdrd andong g ofhe year for a r t track f " "this is ameri".". north calina replican ngressmeer waltejones di nday on s 76th bthday. iginallyn ardentupporter of t.s. invaon of ir, the 13-term lawmer had a changef heart ter witnsing e funeraof a u u.sservice membererin 2003,fterer fnce fused to back george w. sh's insion of aq, joneordered 3 ngressiol cafeteas to rename french fries and french toast on the menu "freedom fries" and "freedom toast." 2 years later in 2005, he renounced his vote in support of the war and called for a timeline for withdrawal. the u.s. invasion of iraq killed nearly 300,000 people according to brown university's costs of war project - mostly civilians - and displaced millions of

-- others. this is some of the headlines. this is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we begin today's show looking at the ongoing fight between the world's richest man and the national enquirer. last week amazon ceo jeff bezos publicly accused the owner of the tabloid newspaper of "extortion and blackmail." weeks after the paper revealed details about his affair. bezos had recently hired a private investigator to determine how the tabloid newspaper, the national enquirer obtained private text messages , between him and his lover and whether the paper's actions were politically motivated. the national enquirer's parent company, american media, inc., responded to bezos's investigation by threatening to publish revealing photos of bezos if h he did not agree to publicly state that the enquirer's coverage was not politicalllly motivated or influenced by political forces.

the dispute became public when bezos wrote a detailed blog post on the site medium and reprinted ami's threatening letters. bezos suggested the leak of his text messasages might be connecd to his ownership of the washington post. bezos wrote, "it's unavoidable that certain powerful people who experience washington post news coverage will wrongly conclude i am their enemy. president trump is one of those people, obvious by his tweets. also, the post's essential and unrelenting coverage of the murder of its columnist jamal khashoggi is undoubtedly unpopular." in his blog post, bezos went on to write, "for reasons still to be better understood, the saudi angle seems to hit a particularly sensitive nerve." while the national enquirer has had a long, close relationship with president trump, the paper is denying its reporting on bezos was politically motivated.

on sunday, elkan abramowitz, an attorney for national enquirer editor david pecker, appeared on abc's this week hosted by george stephanopoulos. ami h haveos and intererest in resosolving theirr differenence. he did not want another story or pictures published. did not wanant liable to this was inspired by the white house or s saudi ararabia or the wawashington post. it had nothing to do with it. it was a story that the national enquirer gets.s. >> thehe national enquirer believes these photos were newsworthy but they are offering not to publish them in return for a thing of value from jeff bezozos, saying it was not polilitically motivated.d. how isis that t not extortionon? >> all ami wanted wawas the tru. theyey knew who thee source was.

in t the investigator knew w whe source was. it was not the white house, it was not saudi arabia and thehe libebel was that this was a political hatchet job sponsored by a four nation or somebody -- a foreign nation or somebody in this nation. amy: that was elkan abramowitz, an attorney for national enquirer editor david pecker. while abramowitz did not name the paper's source, the daily beast is identifying the source as michael sanchez, the brother of bezos' lover lauren sanchez. michael sanchez reportedly has ties to several people with connections to donald trump including roger stone and carter page. we turn now to the pulitzer prize winning journalist glenn greenwald, co-founder of the intercept who joins us from brazil. headlined,piece is "jeff bezos protests the invasion of his privacy, as amazon builds a sprawling

surveillance state for everyone else." glenn, welcome back to democracy now. for people who are not following every step of this, the first bezosf this, where jeff said he was not going to be intimidated, be blackmailed or extorted with the general , which owns the national enquirer, writing a lawyerso jeff bezos's saying we are not political or we release this texts and photos. some people are calling for bezos to get the pulitzer prize for standing up to national enquirer. your thoughts on this. take it from there. >> it is a complicated story. americans love to venerate

billionaires. the first instinct was to harold jeff bezos as some sort of hero jeffe free press -- herald bezos as some sort of hero of the free press. if it takes a billionaire to do, you kind of remove the stigma that surrounds adult consensual sex in the united states, were never there is a sex scandal, there is this adolescent interest on the part of the media. publishi prefer you not naked photos of me and my mistress. if that is what you're going to do, i am not going to be bullied, shame. that in the future we can be more mature than adults to have sexual relations is noneer adults and it

of our business as long is it is consensual, this could be positive. having said that, it is something that seems to be true that jeff bezos was trying to imply and media outlets were using innuendo to support the notion that the national enquirer was able to obtain these messages as a result of ,buse by the surveillance tape meaning that donald trump use jeff bezos as a political enemy and has become antagonistic to donald trump during the presidency and that eithther the powewers of the nsa or fbi were abused to intercept these messages and give them to the national enquirer. that speculation seems unfounded. beast and other outlets are reporting that the source of this material was not the nsa or fbi but was the

brother of jeff bezos's miststress. is politically connected, it was a private individual who obtain this material, not by abusing surveillance video authorities but instead by his relationship with his sister. the one last point i will make on this question is that if it werere the case that t the powef the nsa or fbi or cia had been abused against a political enemy to collect embarrassing information, ththat would be a serious scandal that we should be concerned about. is thatlem with that aspires the reporting in 2014, we were able to report with the huffington post that one of the programs of the nsa is to do this, to collect the browsing histories and poor and site

porn site -- visits, just people who the nsa believes disseminate radical messages and collect their porn chats ints and sex order to lick them, ruin the reputation, destroy their ability to speak out. we ought to care about that not just when it is used against billionaires like white bezos but also when the is is used to target muslims, which is a thing the nsa is doing. letter, before we get to that, the letter that the ,eneral counsel for ami wrote

it is amazing he put this on paper, that they are demanding an agreed-upon acknowledgment affirming they have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that ami coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces and an agreement that they will cease referring to such a possibility. this is significant if this is blackmail or extortion saying they would release the photos if they did not. because of a mise agreement, immunity agreement, with the southern district of new yorkk, that they were granted immunity and that they broke the law by being involved with extortion or blackmail, they could lose that immunity and this is relationship ami's

with donald trump and whether this was an unlisted campaign contribution, paying for and suppressing negative stories about trump and instead just printing numerous negative stories about hillary clinton in the lead up to the election. >> i think it is interesting. wasof the stories of 2016 how significant a role the national enquirer played in that election. that most for that is major media leaves do not pay that much attention to the national enquirer. their circulation is large. thefact they were covering donald trump campaign in a positive light and the hillary clinton campaign in a negative way had a larger effect than most of us realize. there were a couple of bloggers who were warning, the national enquirer is every week, publishing positive material

about trump and negative about clinton. that is an issue. enquirer is under a criminal investigation where they have admitted guilt in participating in hush money payments by agreeing to silence stories of donald trump's mistresses to help them become elected which may be a campaign violation. the national enquirer, they are the slimiest bottom of the barrel's vaping -- barrel scraping and have been for a long time. the question of whether this is criminal, legally, it is ambiguous. the parties believe that they are libeling one another. i believe you're saying bad things about me that are false.

it is common to write letters saying, we will agree we will stop saying this about you as long as you agree you will stop saying this about us. the national enquirer is saying this was not a and torsion -- extortion. this was a standard settlement offer for parties who believe they were defaming one another to stop doing that. it looks like extortion given the question that george stephanopoulos asked which is if you believe that these photographs of jeff bezos naked are newsworthy, how can you agree or offer to conceal them in exchange for jeff bezos refusing to investigate your ties to saudi arabia or to the trump administration. it is s on the legal line if not crossing it. it is something prosecutors will look at. ami the general counsel for

which owns national enquirer reportedly worked at amazon for nine years before taking on his ,urrent job at american media worked closely with, under jeff bezos as a lawyer, director, and vice president between 2006 and 2015. the lawyer that is threatening him. >> the old line from george carlin fits well here which is there is a big powerful club and you are not in it. ordinarily, we would sympathize with the person who was being threatened with exposure of their private life if they did not stop making claims about a powerful media outlet. in this case, the person who is the victim is not just the by virtuechest person

of exploiting labor in ways that and in allc different aspects, but somebody who has used these tactics himself and most significantly, is somebody who's company has become one of the most valuable in the world by working hand in hand with the u.s. government and police departments in constructing exactly the kind of invasive surveillance state that he believes himself to be a victim of. amy: w we are going to g go to k and come back to discuss these issues. trump has been critical of bezos. amazon has a close relationship with the nsa, fbi and other agencies. we will talk more about that and more. stay with us.

amy: this is america by childish gambino who became the first ever to take on record of the year and song of the year. it was the first ever rarap song to wing. he also won for best music video. this is democracy now. i am amy goodman. glenn greenwald, pulitzer prize-winning journalist and one of the founding editors of the intercept. his latest article is headlined "jeff bezos protests the invasion of his privacy, as amazon builds a sprawling surveillance state for everyone else". let's take it from there.

talk about this sprawling surveillance state. and his relationship with the national security state. of his sleigh, as a result of the snowdon reporting, attention -- obviously, as a result of the snowdon reporting, attention was s surveillance agencies in the u.s. and their partners in the u.k. and less attention was paid as part of that story to the private corporations, the silicon valley giants who play a crucial role in partnering with government agencies to construct that surveillance state. some attention has been devoted to the role both google and facebook are playing in creating a surveillance state that much less so for amazon which has

done a good job of branding itself in this unthreatening way when in fact one of the central components of amazon's business that has made it the most viable businesses in the world are , theacts with ththe cia pepentagon, the e air force, wih police departments all over the technologyld to use to enhance the ability of governments and police forces to .ngage in surveillance they created a facial recognition software that can scan millions of faces in crowds and identify them to enable police to find people they are looking for. they have developed software so police forces can -- amamy: this is recognition? >> exactly.

hasaco you -- the aclu warned it is one of the most potentiallyy invasive tenologiesetet becsese it destroys the ality to be anonymous ev on the reet. ititllows t theolice an gogornment t tidentifyvery pers w when u are e public. at is anmazon pruct. hatyave deveped apps able pole departnts to allow cizens to port o that t pple infoation istored wi amazonloud serces. ere is aroductalleding th is succeful thats maeted as home security system that see ales t periter of yr house and records everyby coming iand t and ty have bn rkless, it was allowg other gernment

agenci to haveccess tohis datahat is sing on yr own home theyave a coract witthe a to prode cloud servis, a contra with thair forcto build ying sateltes and ey arnow the lear, th favotes to w aontract th cloentan to prode store svices tout all o the ta the ptagon sres into aman technogy. theyave beco a centr cog in the military-indurial compx as welas in th miliry survelance state that jeff bezos spent a week trying to imply was falsely used to invade his privacy. amy: can you talk about the things you did a while ago? they could tell the government

where you are from, it is from the intercept. the intercept has been doing ongoing coverage. from me, b but from our repeportersrs about the innovations amazon is boasting that our privacy invasive. one of which allows the technology through skype, through chat, through writing analysis to determine what your accent is. native speaker of english, it will identify the original languages learned as your first language and determine where you are from, a tool that the cia, the fbi, and other law enforcement agencies want to get their hands on to start looking g for people o of specific national origin or where they come from. ice is interested in that.

a warning about this product, saying it will target marginalized groups, not just people who are here on an undocumented bases, so you cannot type on your computer or the telephone without amazon enabling the government to analyze where you are from. amy: you also wrote in october zos's company blue origin, won a contract from the u.s. air force to help develop military rockets on satellites. bezos thank them in a tweet, claiming how proud he is to serve the national space community. frighteninghat is is that silicon valley is producing companies and the

billionaires who control them whose wealth and power are unprecedented. jeff bezos and mark zuckerberg and the people who control google have more power than almost every nationstate, if not more. increasingly, they are integrating into these nationstates and performing core functions of them with almost no transparency and this is frightening. if we have nasa or the air force, we have congressional oversight, we have laws that enable us to find out what they're doing. with amazon and google and facebook development of artificial intelligence, it is almost opaque. you have these people of unlimited wealth but a also sittining o on amounts of our pepersonal data who are

increasingly buying media outlets, jeff bezos is the owner of the washington post, consolidating that into the military-industrial complex and the fact that jeff bezos openly tweets how happy he is to receive a contract in service of the u.s. air force shows how much this partnership is growing and how open they are despite how little we know about it t ad how lilittle time we spend talkg about implications. his maternalt out grandfather worked for darpa in the 1950's. back very far and again, it is one of these things where if you talk to people about what amazon is, most

people's interaction with amazon is unthreatening, it is the place to buy books from, that we order household products from. just like google, which we only reality,with, in israel businesess is to analyze how the human brain functions -- real businesses to analyze how the human brain functions, that is its real business. the real business of amazon also remains hidden. are going to break again and you are in the news today and it involves a controversy. we are going to talk about brazil. the founding editors of the intercept and we are going

to link to his piece. stay with us.

flavia simao & simone soares performing "ele nao" - which translates to "not him". the song is a remake of the italian anti-fascist anthem "bella ciao." we're going to talk about brazil. i want to go to one of your recent tweets. you tweeted "kevin mccarthy threatens publish meant -- punishment over their criticism of israel. it is stunning how much time u.s. politicians spend defending .

then he tweeted it's all about , the benjamins baby, ilhan omar added, gop leader kevin mccarthy threatens punishment. aipac.onded by writing urtfulstatements are her to jews. can you respond? >> this is also ridiculous, it is based upon this demand that everybody knows is a fiction which is we are allowed to talk about the power of the nra, the saudi's in washington, the power pharma butut we're not alallowed to talk about a lobby

that ensures a bipartisan consensus in support of u.s. defense of israel, the minute you mention that lobby, you get attacked as being anti-semitic. the context is important. bipartisantime, the piety was not just that the u.s. has to support israel but the effort to boycott israel is not just misguided but is anti-semitic. that is the official position of the e democraticic party. suddenly, you have these exciting, dynamic women of color , the first two muslim women elected who are supporters of the boycott of israel, which the democratic party sayays is bigoy and that has created this awkward momoment.

the minute muslim women arriving congress, they are going to get anti-semitic if they are critical of israel whichh theyey are. what the congresswoman said is uncontroversial. everyone knows aipac is intimidating. there is nothing wrong with pointing that out, nothing anti-semitic about saying that. anybody who cares about palestinians and about the ability of muslims in the united states to speak freely ought to be defending her. , how weird it is, what a priority it is for u.s. politicians to defend israel is that the very first bill passed by the u.s. senate was about empowering states that punish

a boycott ofpport israel, sponsored by marco rubio and was supported by half of the democratic senate caucus. w was referring to and the congress from was saying a reason is the interest in washington that demand that and everyone knows that is true and to call that anti-sesetic is obscene. tweeted iea clinton also think we have to call out anti-semitic language in our elected officials now. who is chelsea clinton to become the spokeswoman about what is and is not permissible debate when itit comes to israe?

her parents are the individuals most responsible for turning the united states into a defender of an apartheid oppressive regime in that regime. region.at her parents are the leading politicians most responsible for ensuring the ongoing repression of the palestinian people. clinton, who does not have any public status, really has no place in trying to set the boundaries of what is and is not permissible debate given what her family has done, so much harm, to ensuring palestinians do not live with the basic minimum dignity to which every human being is entitled. amy: i want to turn to where you are now. you are speaking to us from rio de janeiro. byfriday, and operation brazilian military police there

left 13 people dead. police say they were there t to investigate suspected drug traffickers but encountered gunfire. last month, the governor said city security forces are authorized to shoot to kill. he also said it should have its own guantanamo bay to house criminals. vowed toonaro has intensify the war on drugs. in other news from brazil, brazil's first elected openly lawmaker recently left his post and fled brazil, amid growing homophobic violence coinciding with the rise of bolsonaro. he was replaced in brazil's congress by your husband david miranda, a rio city council member.

can you talk about this latest news under bolsonaro? >> this is what everybody was afraid of when bolsonaro won. on hiselected based promise to unleash the police and to authorize indiscriminate as, wherein the favell the poorest live, to give police immunity when they engage in slaughter. he is using the model in the philippines of going in and killing drug dealers and innocent people. the governor is more extrememe. this i is the first manifestatin ofof that policy where 13 people were killedd, the largrgest newspaper r in brazil reported that several of the people killed were executed after they werere surrendered.

police laughed and told residents the next time it will be 20 people. this is just the beginning of what is certain to be a frightening climate. as far as the congressman fleeing the country, that is that the otheren part of his appeal was his constant homophobia, depicting them as pedophiles. he was the only openly gay member of the brazilian congress. they would bash into him in the hallway. he suffered a lot. i know him well. he reached the point where he was getting specific death threats saying, here is your address, we are going to chop your mother up and send you her head. he decided he could no longer

withstand that fear. my husband ran for congress, came in behind him, legally took over that position when he renounced it and my husband is one of those go openly gay members and is facing similar kinds ofof attacacks and threat. that is the climate created here in brazil deliberately by the president. we will see how things unfold. there is opposition in the media. wing is a vibrant left movement coalescing against this and i have optimism about the ability to fight against this. amy: how are you going to protect yourselves and your children? we are aware of the fact that we are a visible, gay couple.

i have a media outlet. it has grown rapidly. it has a large audience and it has been critical. in a country in which there is a lot of hostilility, we as an couple with adopted children are threats. we are taking security precautions. i love brazil. to stay and intend fight for as well as we can. a former police officer with ties to organized crime has been identified as the likely killer of a prominent and gay human rights rights activist and city councilmember marielle franco, who was shot dead along with her driver in rio de janeiro in march. according to a police report reviewed by your media outlet, six witnesses have identified

the ax cop as a killer. the officer had been kicked out of the military force and now works as a mercenary. the gunman did not act alone. where have you taken these from there? >> i think it was an important context i left out witches he was part of the same party that franco belong to. lgbblack woman who was also tq. her killers are not apprehended. was close toaders be assassinated by the militia. it is also the party of my husband. the head of this militia had his , i amnd his daughter sorry, his wife and his mother working in the cabinet of also

ro, the son ofona aonaro, which means they have direct ties to the most violent militia amber so. -- militia in brazil. this is something everybody is interested in investigating. we all know they philosophically supported the militia. it came as a shock to know how close of ties they have to the leaders of this militia. i regard this as one of the most serious scandals in brazil. it is something we are investigating g and i hope thehe police are doing that as well. amy: finally, if you could talk about the latest situation in venezuela. siege,nt maduro under

the opposition leader has named himself president, the u.s. , choosingvolved elliott abrams says her point person,- as their point john bolton, the latest controversy centers around the u.s. sending humanitarian aid to venezuela, trying to get into the colombian border. can you comment? there is criticism of nicolas leftistsncluding by who were loyal to president chavez. not come from capitalists in the west. do you think the venezuelan people are going to be helped by having donald trump, john bolton intervene in

their country and prop up what ever leader they like. all you have to do is look at nachos the history of u.s. interference in latin america but the statements they are making. they are not pretendnding their motive is to bring democracy to the people. donald trump does not care about the people. they are admitting openly that their motive is access to venezuelan oil and to capital markets because that would benefit the united states. andh the bipartisan media political class in washington, like the leaders of thee democraticic party, stand behind donald trump, the one they are , as he calling a racist tries to engineer a change in venezuela using people like

elliott abrams who has use the pretext of sending humanitarian aid to send weapons to overtake a country, is stunning. that is what happens. imperialism is feared. we believe we have the right to interfere in other countries and only belinda volant -- -- only benevolent outcomes will be the result. with rare exceptions, you have some people saying we have no role to play in venezuela. is unitedisan class behind donald trump marco rubio and john bolton as they try a regime changnge in a country thy onlyly want to exploit. amy: the significance of them ro,ing as a partner bolsanoa the president of brazil. usually, what happens in

these cases is there is an attempt made to make liberals feel good about what the real motives are, we are going to change the regime in libya because we want to help the people be liberated from this dictator. there is an attempt made. here, there is barely an attempt made. they fact that a leading u.s. should in latin america tell you everything you need to know about what the real motives are in terms of what the u.s. government is trying to accomplish. it is nothing good for the people no matter what your view of nicolas maduro is. it is about imposing a far right ideology for the benefit of everybody but the venezuelan people. amy: we want to thank you for

being with us. one of the founding editors of the intercept. thank you. that does it for our show. i am amy goodman. thanks for joining us. [caption