amy: from pacicifica, this i is democracy now! >> it timime to ense e that althth caris a rht and t a privivilege, guaranteed to every pererson in our country. itit is time for medicare for all. amy: more ththan 100 demomocratic lawmakers are cosponriring a new hououse bill to dramamatally r revamp healalth care in the ununited stateses by creating a single payer medicare for a a system funded by the federal

gogovernment. we will spspeak to demococratic congngress member to millichap pramila jayapal. -- from the frontier to the border wall in the minds of america. >> over the centurury, the border concentrated a certrtain kind of whitite supremacy. it was a place where a certain kind of racial terror was deployed agaiainst people of color, migrants, both documented and undocumented. what we have seen i it -- in the past couple of decades is a mortification of politics. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman.

one week after trump's former lawyer and fixer deliver that explosive testimony, new y york state regulators are investigating insurance claims and policies and have subpoenaed -- the truck regulation -- the trump administration regularly inflated -- rerequested documents from 80 group -- 81 groups and people. in sacramento, california protesters continue to take to the streets following the saturday that the sacramento county district attorney would not file criminal charges against the 2 police officers who shot and killed 22-year-old unarmed african american stephon clark in his grandmother's backyard last year. on monday night, police arrested 84 protesters, including local religious leaders. tanya faison, founder of the local black lives matter chapter said there was heavy

police presence prior to the monday crackdown, which she attributed to the demonstration taking place in a wealthy neighborhood. demonstrators are now occupying a local police station, in an action called by black lives matter sacramento after california attorney general xavier becerra announced his office will not file charges. the justice department along with the u.s. attorney's office and the fbi said tuesday it was launching its own investigation into the killing. in chicago, a police officer filed a whistleblower lawsuit alleging he was directed to falsify a report on the 2017 police shooting of ricardo hays. sargent isaac laerert, who was charargewithth invevestigatining the shootitin, ysys he s totoldy suririors porortr the shoor r as aictim, a hayeas a an gressoso at t time ofhe shootg, ofcer khal muhamma claimehe shot yes, who

court t cumentsays has profoundevelopmeal disabilitiesfterer a eslated encoter wher hayes appeared to be pulling out a gun. but footage of the events that was later released instead sheded officerer hahammed chasising afterer the teenn n his car bebefore shooting directly at him. house speaker nancy pelosi told reporters yesterday ever resolution condemning anti-semitism will also condemn anti-muslim bias. even though the draft resolution does not directly named the freshman congress member, the resolution was announced after comments by -- after by come -- after comments by omar at an event last week, in which she called out the quote political influence in this country that says it is ok

for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country referring to israel. -- accusing her critics of using a double standard. she tweeted quote, incidents like these begged the question where are the resolution against homophobic statements, anti-blackness, xenophobia, for a member saying he will send obama home to kenya? ,n eastern alabama searching rescue operators have identified 23 bodies following sunday's devastating tornado, the nation's deadliest in 6 years. the 170 mile an hour t tornado ripped through homes in lee country, claiming lives from 6 to 8 89 years old. -- six to 93 years old. this is kathy carson, of the local emergency management agenency. >> this is the worst natural disaster that has ever occurred in lee county. we have nevever, most of us cannot remember anything ever creating this much of a loss of l life and injuries.

amy: on tuesday, president trump approved a major disaster declaration for alabama, allowing the devastated commumunity to receive fedederal assistance fundnds. in britain, labour party and jeremyion leader corbyn is renewing calls for his country to stop selling arms to israel in light of the recent u.n. inquiry that found that israel may have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in their response to protesters in gaza since the start of the great march of return demonstrations. the report says that israeli forces targeted unarmed protesters in gaza with lethal force, including children, journalists and the disabled, and that they killed 189 palestinians, almost all of them with live ammunition. the u.k. government must unequivocally condemn the killings and freeze arms sales to israel, said corbyn in a tweet at the time of -- after the report was published. the labour party, which is not currently in power, passed a motion last year calling for an embargo on

arms sales to israel. in egypt -- was released after five years in prison. he was arrested while covering a violent crackdown on a 2013 protesting cairo following the ousting of the president. security forces killed hundreds of protesters at the demonstration. he was tried and sentenced alongside hundreds of other defendants in a mass trial that was condemned by human rights groups. this is him speaking after his release. >> the firirst night is the hardesest. you are sleeping in jail. it is a long night. you are forced in a place. it is a long night. day after day, you get used to it. i i am not the first journalist to be arrested or killed and i will not be the last. this is our job. amy: the white house thected a request from house oversight committee for documents about the

process for granting security clearances. the house oversight chair said last night he would issue a subpoena if the white house failed to comply with the request. meanwhile cnn is reporting trump pressured then chief of staff john kelly and white house counsel john began to grant security clearance for his daughter and senior advisor, ivanka trump. when they both refused, he reportedly granted her the claimants directly. the news comes a week after the new york times reported he ordered john kelly to grant his son-in-law jared kushner top secret security clearance last year, despite the objections of intelligence officials. the republican-controlled senate confirmed allison jones rushing who once interned for a far-right, christian anti-lgbt group, to a lifetime federal judgeship tuesday. the 37-year-old trump pick came under fire from democrats and civil rights groups, namely for her time working as an intern with the alliance defending freedom, which the southern poverty law center

classifies as a hate group that has attempted to re-criminalize homosexuality in the u.s. and has defended sterilization of transgender people. the senate is expected to vote on more rigight-wing trump judicial nominees in the coming days. banking giant jp morgan chase has announced tuesday it will stop financing private prisons, after a sustained grassroots campaign and increasing scrutiny over the prisons' role in jailing immigrants. jp morgan chase will stop lending to geo group and corecivic. around 75% of immigrants in ice custody are in privately run facilities. elizabeth chavez of make the road new york, one of the groups campaigning for banks to break up with private prisons, said of the news, quote, we have marched to the bank headquarters and branches. we will continue to work to put the private prison industry out of business as we fight for respect and dignity for every member of our community. at yale university, 17 students were arrested by the school's police monday, after they occupied the investments office to demand

yale divest its nearly $30 billion endowment from fossil fuel companies and puerto rico's debt. the student activists say that climate change worsens economic inequality, and that in the case of puerto rico, vulture funds holding the island's debt are demanding repayment as many are still reeling from hurricane maria. and in massachusetts, students at hampshire college have been staging a weeks-long sit-in in the president's office, protesting what they fear may be the future shuttering of their school. in january, the president of hampshire college announced they would seek to merge the school with a strategic partner, before laying off staff in the following weeks and announcing it would not be admitting a new class in the fall. this is a hampshire college student with the group hamp rise up, which has been organizing the protests. >> we are fighting for transparency, better and thatation

someone listens to us and serves our best interest. >> it is really tragic, the fact that schools like this are closing down so rapidly and now that we are here in the midst t this movement, i realize how important it is. amy: and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. all of ourme to listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. more than 100 democratic lawmwmakers are co-sponsoring a new house bill to dramatically revamp u.s. -- health care in the united states by creating a single-payer medicare for all system funded by the federal government. this comes at a time when as many 30 million americans have no health insurance and tens of millions of others are either underinsured or struggle to pay their health insurance premiums. democratic congressmember pramila jayapal of washington announced the billll last week. rep. jayapal: it is time to ensure that heal c care is s

right anannot a privivilege, guararanteed to evevery person in ourountntry. it is s time for mededicare for al is this a a bold and a ambitious plan? ddamamstraight it i is. the scscale of our h health care crisis is anan enormououand our plan has to tackle the deep sicknesess in our fofor-profit sysystem. if we cacaend slavery, give women the riright to vote,e, send a manan to the moonon then we can do univiversal healthth care for every american. juan: c congressmembeber jayayapal's bibill would expxpad medicacare to includude dental vision and long-teterm care, while kiking the federarally-run health programam availablble to all a americans. it wouould eliminate heaealth ,nsusurance premimiums copapayments and d deductibles,, whwhile changingng how healthcare providers are paid. amy: robert wesmsman,

president of public cizezen, says t the legislatition would elelimine neararly $500 bibillion in waste spent annually o on bureaucracy, inefficienency and excsive corpororate profs.s. political obobservers say the bill i is largely symbolic, given the republican-held senate and white house, but will likely play a major role in the 2020 presidential race. well for more we're joined by congresswoman pramila jayapal. welcome back to democracy now! let me ask you the question. usually people say how much does this plan cost and who is going to pay for it? i will turn it around a bit and ask how much does the current system cost, who pays for it and how is this system going to be funded? rep. jayapal: and that is why i love democracy now!. you are about making sure we get the truth out to people. thanank you for the question. our health care system today costs 18% of our gdp. in 10 years we are going to be spending $50 trillion on our current health care system. it is not like we are

spending this money and we have better outcomes. the united states is last among all of our peers in infant mortality rates, and maternity mortality rates. of lifeast in terms expectancy. here we are, the richest country in the world and we are unable to provide health care for everybody. right now we pay double what other industrialized countries pay for their health care. my plan says let's take the existing very successful medicare system that already exists for seniors. let's expand the kind of coverage it offers because that is the biggest complaint about medicare, is it does not cover things like dental, vision, mental health. let's extend it to everyone in the country. the same doctors and hospitals but you would actually be able to choose and not be limited by insurance companies that say

this hosospital is in network and that hospital is out of network. you will cap have five different insurance plans. what we do is say the government is going to pay for all of this. in the end, we want to make sure we are containing the cost. we change the way that hospitals are paid. we take on pharmaceutical drug pricing because that is a huge issue. we negotiate now and allow the medicare system to allow -- to negotiate as the va does and i include long-term service and support which is very important for our communities that have disabilities and elders that cannot afford to live with dignity. juan: right now, most of americans who do have health insurance, their health insurance is paid for either by the premiums they pay out of their paychecks every week or their employers pay or a combination of both. changeld this system

under medicare for all? rep. jayapal: right now, the federal government already pays for about two thirds of the total health care cost because we have medicaid and medicare which are already part of the federal system. the rest of it is people who have nothing for people who are -- nothing or people who are covered by their employer. is about $600 billion that employers are paying for their health care for their employees. that money, just a portion of that could come toward the single-payer system because these for-profit insurance companies are continuing to hike of premiums not onlnly for families but also for the employers. enormous amounts of waste that is going toward a for-profit insurance system that is more interested in profit than patient. we will need a little bit more money and we think that is very doable, by putting a

wealth tax on the wealthiest. there are a number of ways to pay that last little bit that would be required. in the end we would have comprehensive care that would serve every single american and we would save at least $2 trillion over the next 10 years. this is a big p plan, an important plan and it is about saying health care is a human right. it needs to be available to everybody, not just the wealthiest. as you said, 30 million americans who are uninsured and on top of that, at least 40 million are underinsured. they cannot pay their premiums and don't get the help -- don't get the care they need. one in five americans do not take the drugs they are prescribed because they cannot afford them. amy: i want to go to secretary of health and human services alex azar speaking at the conservative -- speaking at cpac, the conservative political action conference.

he was asked about medical -- medicare for all. >> the threat is a complete government takeover of health care. they are at least being transparent about what they are about. also it is going to violate the commitment that we have made to our seniors in the medicare program because when you put all of these other americans into the medicare program, you will have the best doctors and best hospitals are going to jump out of that program does they will be paid under market rate and they will be just like europe and other socialist systems w where you have to create a two tiwerer system of health carare and for quality care you will have to go out of the system. amy: that is health and human services secretary alex azar. your response? rep. jayapal: alex azar is industry front people. they are interested in preserving the system as it is so that insurance companies and pharmaceutical

drug companies can continue to make profits while people die. what we know is that the medicare system can be expanded to everybody and that in the end, we can take out the waste, the administrative waste of insurance companies. think about this. united healtlth ceo is making $82 million in take-home salary, profit. all of these ceos are making enormous amounts of money and pharmaceutical drugs and simple procedures cost so much more in the united states than anywhere else. they have to try and scare people i into thinkingng that somehow this system is going to hurt the e people in ththe existingng system, which we know is not the case. we arere just expanding the exexisting sysystem. most importantly, wewe are going to keep cost down. this is about t coverage b but also cosost. why is i t that the medidicare system p pays 80% morore for

presescription drugs than the va? it is because the pharmaceutical indtry, whwhen this provisision was up or medicare to be evil to lower drugor prices, the participle -- the pharmaceutical industry put over $100 million into lobbying the federal government to make sure that could never happen. basic thinings like negotiating for prescription drug prices, making sure that hospitals are paid -- we use what is called a global budgeting process in this bill. this is a system that most industrialized countries use and maryland has started to use it with some very effective results. cost containment, universal coverage. if you are sick, go to the doctor. we want you to go when you start to get sick, not some -- not when you get so sick that you go to the emergency room and it costs so much more.

it is making a real difference for people to know that we are ready to fight the industry lobby that is out there that alex azar and others want to continue to support. juan: you have 107 cosponsors of the bill but there is still opposition among democrats in the house and of course you have the democratic senator from michigan who is pushing for medicare at 50, a bill that would cover americans 50 and older. what do you say to those critics, especially within the democratic party that say you should take a partial approach rather than a hold medicare for all -- a whole medicare for all? rep. jayapal: "a caucus is united around making sure we shore up the affordable care act.t. we have to fix what republicans have stripped away. youver, i do not think

can guarantee universal coverage to eveverybody and contain costs by nibbling around the edges. with respect to my colleagues who are trying to expand care, that is not going to accomplish the deep sickness of our for-profit health care system. we have to take that on up we are going to provide universal coverage and medicare for all is the only plan that does that. as i said earlier, this is the first time we are including long-term support in our medicare for all bill . that is also important. if you look at the statistics around this community, disability, elders who are not getting the care they need unless they get so poor that they have to go on medicaid and in that case, it is institutionalized care. we need to allow folks with disabilities and our seniors to be able to get good care in homes and

communities. our bills w which is the focus from institutionalized care as the default to home care which is significantly cheaper. the i think about united states and you played that clip about all the things we have been able to achieve in this country, providing univiversal health care to everybody, taking it out of the for-profit system , that seems like something we have to do economically but it is the right thing to do. it is a human right that the unit states should be leading on. amy: people immediately say, whatever your proposing, you have the republican-controlled senate and then trump but in his 2000 book called the america we deserve, trump wrote i am a conservative on most issues but a liberal on this one, we should not hear so many stories of families ruined by health care expenses. we must not allow citizens

with medical problems to go untreated because of financial problems are red tape. the canadian plan helps canadians live longer and healthier. we need to re-examine the single-payer plan as many individual states are doing, he said. that is president trump. he did not say it as president but what about this? pres. trump: that is -- rep. jayapal: that is one of the most wonderful things about introducing this plan is that there are lots of people who are not liberal democrats who believe that this is the right thing to do. at our press conference, we had a series of f employers who are part of a a business coalition for medicare for all who talked about the incredible amount of money that businesses are spending for employees. they did the math and saiaid this is a drain on ouour competitiveness, our ability to compete in the global

economy. we would be happy to just pay a portion of that towards the federal government, , take the waste out of the insurance company system and bring the cost down and be able to provide comprehensive care. i think we have seen that from business owners. i have had small business owners who are republican who do not agree with me on many things come up to me and say please get this plan done. i have even had hospital executives and people who are high up in the hospital industry say we know the association may be saying they are against this, but we know it is the smart thing to do. i think this is a plan that unites republicans, democrcrats and independents. it is certainly what the polling shows, the people are with us on this and donald trump is reflecting, in that b book, the reality. now he is coming to the oval office and his cabinet is designed to protect some of

these people who are making profits from the existing system, who are terrified that the goose that laid the golden egg is about to have its neck chopped off. they are trying to protect that system. if we want to provide universal care, this is not a radical idea. every industrialized country in the world already does it. they are paying half the cost of what the united states is paying and their outcomes are so much better and they are more competitive because the system is being provided byy the government. juan: congress member, the issue of insurance companies, many of us remember during the clinton administration, the enormous and now -- amount of money spentsurance industry to scuttle the clinton health reform and then during the obama administration, they sought to make an alliance with insurance companies and offered them increase market share -- increased market

share for the creation of obamacare. you are talking about putting the health insurance industry essentially outut of busineness. what would it take to be able to get this kind of , givention passed what is sure to be a life or death struggle by the insurance industry to bankroll hundreds of millions of dollars to stop this? rep. jayapal: we'll say insurance companies can't exist, but we say you can't provide duplicate of coverage. an insurance company can't have a plan that provides the same thing in our medicare plan. if insurance companies want to come up with other plans that are beyond the scope of the services provided under medicare for all, they are free to do that. they would have to re-jigger themselves and we have expanded the range of benefits provided. we think it is pretty comprehensive care. they won't have the space to provide vision and dental because those will be incorporated.

they will have to re-jigger themselves but we know they are going to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into trying to defeat this plan and the talking points you mentioned are out t there. what we have is the american people. we have people who have family members who have died because they can't afford their cancer treatments, people who cannot get insulin treatments, people who literally are in the hospitals with bills that are $30,000 because they went to an out of network provider. people who are trying to decide between paying rent and paying for their medical treatments. people who are foreclosing on their homes. people who are going to gofundme campaigns as their primary insurance plan. americans across this country know that is unsustainable. it is the single biggest for americans, red states, blue states, you name it. the letters i have gotten

ours just stunning -- gotten are just stunning. a man with disability on employer health care coverage. he is covered but he is paying $35,000 for premiums and adaptable's. another person who has hiv and medication costs $5,000 a month and he is stuck with trying to get a job that covers that even if he hates the job. the stress on people when they go to bed every night and wake up every morning, i think is the thing that we have that will counter all of the hundreds of millions of dollars out there and then allowing people to understand what they are getting is going to be important, which is why your coverage and other people's coverage is essential. they will try and tell a lot of lies and we have to get the truth out there. amy: i also want to ask you about another story. house speaker nancy pelosi and top democrats are expected to bring a resolution condemning

anti-semitism to a house vote today. it looks like it is this week. a direct rebuke of recent comments by minnesota congressmember ilhan omar questioning the u.s.'s relationship with israel. after facing criticism, the democratic leadership added language in the resolution condemning anti-muslim bias as well. is ones member omar of the two female muslim first congressmembers in u.s. history. the draft resolution comes days after democrat eliot engel, chair of the house foreign affairs committee, accused omar of making quote vile antnti-semitic slur at a recent event in washington -- in washington, d.c. at busboys and poets. this is congresswoman omar. >> in this country that says it is ok for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country. okant to ask why is it

for me to talk about the influence of the nra or fossil fuel industries or big pharma and not talk about a powerful lobbying group that is influencing policy? amy: that was congress member omar speaking at busboys and poets. you are right there next to her at the event. can you talk about the anti-semitism resolution as they are calling it, now because of a norm is pushed back by people like alexander cossey of cortez .- alexandra osseo cortez rep. jayapal: we have been working for the last several days with house leadership to make sure that any takes onn we pass the same issues around islamophobia, anti-semitism,

around all the bigotry and racism we are seeing frankly fueled in large part by a president and gop who refuse to call -- you refuses to call any of it out. we are united in the belief that anti-semitism is wrong and there are old tropes that come out sometimes and we have to contend with those. omar, and ive was the first to endorse her, she is a friend and i believe she is very intently listening to her jewish friends and colleagues who are explaining why one sentence in everything she said was troubling. i do think we have pushed very hard for this resolution to also include anything around islamophobia. this is a member of congress who is being subjected to deeply unfair scrutiny

around everything she says at a different level than others. i think she knows she has to be extra careful because of that but i also think that we should condemn a poster that ties her to the 9/11 terrorists. that is outrageous. andave been pushing have been successful, i think and grateful to speaker close he for recognizing that we have to take all of this on. i don't know how many more resolutions we are going to have to put forward around these comments when i think the republicans are just trying to divide the democratic caucus, the democratic party. we just need to make sure we stay united, that we stand in support of all of our colleagues and especially recognize that our colleagues are willing to --rn and listen, whereas even say they are wrong as omar did. i don't see that coming from

the other side and i want to make sure we are protecting the right for the first muslim woman to be in congress and to question legitimately, foreign policy totoward israel. we need to make sure we separate anything that might be said which i don't believe a president of omar meant -- representative omar meant from a legitimate critique of israel. i am worried that these two things are coming together and that a lot of the noise out there is designed to prevent us from taking on the question of our foreign policy toward israel. that said, i did not notice she said that sentence. it was the middle of a very long speech in some ways. the first part was very much about solidarity with our jewish allies. the second part of the speech was about our foreign

policy toward israel. unfortunately the sentence was in the middle and i think she recognizes that, she has apologized for some of her oversight there but i think she wants to make legitimate points about our foreign policy toward israel. we should be allowed to debate that. on another topic, you are a member of the house judiciary committee. the chairman, jerrold nadler has requested more than 80 people connected to president trump, documents looking at potential violations of the law and some people are criticizing this as a wind net of overreach by the committee. your response? submittedal: we document requests for 81 agencies and indndividuals in the white house. these are documents that have already been developed and provided to other investigations like the southern district of new

york. these are already prepared documents. for two years, republicans have blocked democrats from doing our job on the judiciary committee which is to look into obstruction of -- and, public abuses of power. those are our three areas of constitutional responsibility. these documents go to the core of those issues. i hope the white house does not start blocking all of our requests because then we are going to have to start subpoenaing people and i don't think that is one the american people want. these agencies have prepared these documents and they should just turn these over. if you have nothing to hide, let us do our investigations and make this is -- make decisions about what is happening. that is what i hope happens but unfortunately that does not seem to be the way the white house is moving.

i think americans want to know what are you trying to hide? amy: do you support calls for impeachment? rep. jayapal: as you probably know, i signed on to those articles of impeachment in the last congress, the 115th congress because i believed we needed to be having these discussions. control,we are in our perspective is to get all of this information and lay it out for the american people. as you know, impeachment has to happen through a two thirds majority in the senate. we need to have republicans on board and americans on board and we need to make sure we have all the information, which we were prevented from getting.. let us go through this investigation, get this and make sure we are in a place where we can understand exactly what happened and layout that information. amy: congressman pramila jayapal, we thank you for your time, lead cosponsor of

the medicare for all act of 2019, cochair of the congressional progressive caucus, the largest in congress. this is democracy now! when we comeme back, the end of the myth from the front tier to the border wall in the mind of america. stay with us. ♪ [music b break]

amy: this is democracy now!. i am amy goodman with juan gonzalez. rep. jayapal: the senate -- sensored to rand paul became the fourth senate republican to join democrats opposing the emergency declaration. homeland security secretary kirstjen nielsen held a closed door meeting with republican senators tuesday in an attempt to win more support for trump's

emergency declaration. the president is threatening to veto the resolution if it comes to his desk. amy: as the debate over the border wall continues in washington, we turn to a new book that looks at the border wall in a new light. it is called "the end of the myth, from the frontier to the border wall in the mind of america." it is written by the acclaimed historian greg grandin. he is a professor at new york university. his book "fordlandia" was a finalist for the pulitzer prize. congratulations on your new job at yale next year and next semester but you are still here at nyu. talk about the significance of the law, both what trump is attempting to do right now and you look at his metaphor as well as a reality. greg: the way to understand the significance of the wall is to step back and look at the other myth of american history, that for decades underwrote american exceptionalism, america's

sense of nationalism and that is the frontier. the frontier has been a proxy for a privilege that no other nation in history has enjoyed and that is the ability to use expansion and the promise of limitless growth in order to organize domestic politics. the frontier as a symbol of moving out in the world and a symbol of the future as has been ideology lies -- has been ideologygy lies -- ideologized. a look at the way the wall has trumped the frontier as the national symbol and what the frontier symbolized in the future and a sort of kind of openness to the world. the wall symbolizes almost its exact opposite. it embodies what some theorists declare is a

realism that the world is not limitless and that the united states has to take care of its own. in some ways it is a pointnt to a turning in u.s. history, when the u.s. can no longer use the promise of unlimited growth to respond to social demand or to channel and divert extremism outward. all the violence and radicalization of the previous wars could be rolled over into the next war and that is no longer possible. all of that stuff is now swirling around the homeland and that is the essence of what trump represents and the nativism that trump represesents. juan: one of the particular ironies of all of this is i was reading your book and you go back into the history of the country and the issue oflegality or illegality migration across the borders never seemed to bother the united states much.

in fact, you argue one of the main reasons of the american revolution was that the colonists did not like the fact that britain would not permit them to move beyond the east coast over the appalachia's into indian territory and even george washington said -- told his pepeople, find me land in the illegal areas we are not supposed to be in. the revolt was against british attempts to hold the colonists along the eastern seaboard. greg: white settlers east of the appalachias. that is a fairly accepted view of the american revolution. the idea of expansion was built into the conception of the united states before it was founded. one of thomas jefferson's very first political tracts before the declaration of independence identified the right to move and migrate, not just as a natural right

but almost as a condition of all other rights. freemen whenever they were threatened could pick up and move. he defined a moral history of saxons fleeing europe and then people from britain fleeing the british isles for the americas and people on the east coast fleeing west. this was the conception of freedom built into the very beginning of the united states and manifested in various ways acrososs the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. land front tier closes at the end of the 19th century but the word is used for other venues of expansion whether it is military or markets. amy: you talk about the frontier, constant expansion. the u.s. has 800 military bases around the world, and

the effects of that and people try to come to this country as they are affected by u.s. policy. can you talk about what that means and now just moving into this new period of we toand out but now prevent people feeling the effects of that expansion from coming in, we will simply build a wall. greg: back when trump was on the rise and building momentum, there were two kinds of oppositional ways of thinking about a mutually exclusive, one is that you represented something completely unique and unprecedented in u.s. history, in violation of a long history of openness and and procedural is him. another position had him as a fulfillment of a kind of bloody history of settlor colonialists, all of the racism and violence embedded in u.s. historyry, contininental expansion and neocolonial rule.

i think both of those perspectives miss the andrtance of expansion something that has changed. with the iraqi war and the exhaustion of the neoliberal growth model and with climate change, the u.s. can no longer offer that safety valve, that promise of expansion as a way of the learning -- diluting passions and diverting extremism. is in the trumpism some ways the fulfillment of the contradictions of that theier model where border becomes the flashpoint of that long history. amy: we're going to break and come back to this discussion, the new book out this week. "the end of the myth, from the frontier to the border

wall in the mind of america." this is democracy now!. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!. grandin,, greg author of "the end of the myth, from the frontier to the border wall in the mind of america." greg: -- - was in mexican american youth in n texas and he was shot dead by colin carter, a teenager and it was a kind of stand your ground murder in which holland carter felt that ramon in his friends were harassing his family and he shot him dead and holland carter's father was a border patrol agent and he went into border patrol and one of -- the story is interesting because it encapsulates what i call the

nationalization of border brutalism, that racism that has been concentrated at the border even as the frontier myth was moving forward and advancing a sort of universalism of white supremacy distilling on the border. holland carter rises in the ranks of the border patrol. he helps execute and presides over operation wetback which was a brutal mass deportation. when he retires, he goes on to lead a right wing coup withthin the nationanal rifle association and transforms that organization into one of the pillars of the new right that we know today as an extremist organization. it is a perfect example of how this brutalism that is bread and maintained and created on the border has over the years become nationalized and has taken

over national politics. it is a very graphic illustration. juan: in terms of the border patrol, you make the point has the border patrol been", the frontline instrument of white supremacy, that it is perhaps the most repressive of all law enforcement agencies and has its roots in the fact that back in the 1920's when immigration laws were restricted for different parts of the world, that mexico was still allowed to have folks come into the country without restrictions and the right wing then saw the need to create a border patrol. can you talk about that history? some people are now demanding the abolition of ice. greg: the border patrol as a federal agency was exempt from any kind of oversight that even the fbi or cia was submitted to in the 1970's. there was no equivalent of

the church committee. it has been in some ways a rogue agency because of its nature, working in this kind of metal area between the foreign and the domestic on these borderlands with very little oversight. 1924, thended in same year that the u.s. passed its nativist immigration law which basically reduced immigration from asia to zero, emphasized that privileged immigration from protestant and northern europe but mexico was exempt from that law because of agricultural interests. sheepanted cheap -- and access to cheap mexican labor. there was no quota placed on mexico. ththe border patatrol in effectt becameme a consosolation prize to the nativist tool l lost who losttivists the larger argument because it gave a massive amount of power to police on t the point of entry and there were many

incidents of what had become or what was a fairly open process of seasonal migration increasingly became a kind of racist gauntlet where these front-line border patrol agents, many of them had worked in the texas rangers or came from local national guard or police forces, they were one or two generations removed from agricultural life themselves. they did not see their interests as latching onto the larger agricultural interests. they were able to execute and commit quite a degree of unsupervised unregulatated abuse on migrants. juan: you make the point that it was a high tide of these attacks on migrants in the 80's and 90's, but then after 9/11, the focus of the hate and anger shifts overseas and there is some

kind of diminishing period of the attacks on migrants, only now being resident -- resurrecteted under trump. greg: there are two currents, one is the white supremacy that gets worse after vietnam. the troops radicalize from the right come back and many of them begin mobilizing on the border. there is a spike in paramilitaries and. on the other h hand, there is a bipartisan militarization of the border that clinton presides over. around 2000, there is a resurgence in paramilitaries and, militia on the border but then 9/11 happens and the nation's attention moves to afghanistan and iraq. i don't know if parrot militarism -- para

actually declines but it begins to spike again right as george w. bush's wars start to fall apart. -- bringing ththe war home, right-wing paramilitaries and happens after the war'r's end. in terms of the war on terror, domestic or militarism grows in tandem as the war is still going on but as they are discredited. there is almost an exact correlation between the scandal about google rape -- about b -- revealing it to be morally bankrupt and it is at that moment that the miminutemen are formed and the rise of this right-wing paramilitaries him -- para but generally

within their orbit andnd influences the debate. amy: you go back into the 20's saying border patrol saying border patrol doused mexicans with a chemical used in not the death camps -- in nazi death camps. a d: yes, it was andsification program onone of the ways in which the migrant process, even the mexico was exempt from quotas, the crossing became increasingly dehumanizing. amy: you have president trump attempting to build this border and isolate the united states from the effects of u.s. policy and get at the same time, his people and president trump himself, elliott abrams, pence and bolton are pushing attempt in

venezuela. you even have the countries that are supporting the self-proclaimed president, going go -- geoeye go -- president, guaido, balking atsing the m military. --g: the administration marco rubio has also managed to stage a second border crisis in venezuela. there are a lot of layers to president trump. transactional, a way to try and keep the and florida electoral votes in the republican coalition, a way of mobilizing this new right in latin america, new allies in brazil and colombia. in some ways it is a gesture toward mexico. mexico is one of the last progressssive countries.

come and chant build that wall at some country and western party that the trump party held at mar-a-lago. it is an interesting indicator or test to have successful -- how successful trump's bid will be in venezuela. that political coalition has lost the ability to lose foreign -- to use foreign policy to establish domestic -- he is trying to use venezuela to set the terms of the 2020 debate. you wantf socialism, this is what socialism is. i wanted to ask you about the family separations because one of the things that -- one of the points in

your book is that this tactic of separating families is not new but the border patrol was doing it back in the 80's and 90's and decades ago. greg: there is nothing you are reading about t under trump that is new. the border patrol has been on the vanguard of some of the worst most brutal policies one can imagine. it just had not been covered. there were certainly familily separated. the tactic of separating children from parents in order to make parents break or confess. there was the releasing of children back into mexico without any supervision, including u.s. citizens being accused of not being citizens. there was sexual terrorism, violence and brutality and corruption. the ins was riddled with corruption through the 1970's and 80's. trump politicized the issue, he turned it into a national the system of abuse that had been more subterranean. amy: we will post part two

on democracynow.org. his new book out this week, the end of the myth, from the frontier to the border wall in the mind of ameri.ca --