05/09/19 05/09/19 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now!w! >> talk for a long time about approaching a constitutional crisis. we are now in it. we are now in a constitutional crisis. amy: the house judiciary committee votes to hold attorney general william barr in contempt of congress over his refusal to turn over the unredacted mueller report as the white house invokes executive privilege to prevent the e report's full release. we will get the latest.

then uber and lyft drivers go on strike ahead of uber's debut on wall street. the company could be valued as high as $90 billion but its drivers are struggling to survive. >> it really goes to show you the urgency of this fight and the depth of driver unity and the visceral sense of rage that drivers are feeling across the globe. amy: then a stunning u.n. report warns up a million plant and animal species are at risk of extinctionon due to human activity. >> we are losing species at hihiorical rates,, potentially 500,000 to one million species are threatenened with loss. much of ouour nativive forests d wetlands. and effectively, biodiversity needs to be considered at this in equally important issue as

climate change. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the house judiciary committee voted wednesday to hold attorney general william barr in contempt of congress over his refusal to turn over the unredacted mueller report to lawmakers. it's not clear when the full house of representatives might vote on a contempt charge, but house judiciary chair and new york democratic congressmember jerrold nadler said he expected a vote rapidly. wednesday's vote came just hours after the white house said president trump will claim executive privilege to prevent the e full report's release to congreress as well as documumeny top officicials. this is texas democratic congressmember sheila jackson lee. >> i can only conclude the president now seeks to take a wrecking ball to the constitution of the united states of america. for the first time in the history of the united stateses m

a p president i is now exerting executive privilege over every aspect of life that the american people desire to have information. amy: we'll have more on the constitutional crisis unfolding in washington after headlines. the republican-led senate intelligence committee has subpoenaed donald trump, jr. to return to capitol hill to testify about his role in matters related to the russia investigation. it's the first congressional subpoena compelling one of president trump's children to testify. in 2017, trump jr. appeared voluntarily before the senate committee, where he testified he was only peripherally aware of plans by the trump organization to build a massive skyscraper in moscow. his statements were later directly contradicted by president trump's former attorney michael cohen, who testified he briefefed trump jr. and his sister ivanka about the trump tower moscow project about 10 times. new york state lawmakers have moved to make president trump's tax records available to the u.s. congress.

on wednesday, new york's state senate approved the trust act, which would allow the department of taxation to hand over any state tax return requested by certain congressional leaders. the bill faces a vote in the new york assembly on monday, where it's expected to pass, and democratic governor andrew cuomo has promised to sign the legislation. the trump administration has imposed new sanctions on iran, saying it will punish countries that purchase iranian copper, aluminum, or other metals. the w sanctions came a after iran annouounced it will stop compmplying with parts of ththe landmark 2015 nuclear deal and resumeme high-level enrichment f uranium in 60 days if other signatories of the deal do not take action to shield iran's oil and banking sectors from u.s. sanctions. that move, in turn, came a year after the trump administration pulled out of the nuclear deal, even as european allies and the united nations said iran was in full compliance. in arizona, humanitarian aid

volunteers recovered four sets of human remains as they searched for a missing migrant in the western desert of arizona near the u.s.-mexico border. the group no more deaths found the bodies over the weekend as they searched for a man who was last seen with badly blistered feet, vomiting blood. the group says it carried out the search after the border patrol refused to initiate a rescue. this comes as a federal court in tucson wrapped up three days of testimony in the trial of scott daniel warren, a no more deaths volunteer who faces misdemeanor charges for leaving food, water, shelter, and clothing for migrant border-crossers in the same desert region where the group found the bodies. prenenenesident trump traveled o panama city beach in florida's panhandle wednesday for a campaign rally, where he laughed in approval when an audience member shouted that migrants crossing into the united states should be shot. the interaction came as trump was praising border security

woworkers. pres. t trump: we donon't let tm and we e n't lelet them usee weapons. ototr countries do. we can't. i would ner r do that. but have you sppeded these people? -- but how do you stop these people? >> shoot them. amy: only in p psident trurump'sd joke came after the audience member shouted, "shoot them!" in maryland, a federal judge ruled wednesday a coast guard lieutenant accused of stockpiling weapons hoping to kill prominent democrats and journalists can be released from jail while he awaits trial. u.s. magistrate judge charles day's ruling, if it holds up on appeal, will allow 50-year-old christopher hasson to be supervised by relatives in a 24-hour home detention ahead of his trial on weapons charges. prosecutors say hasson espoused white nationalist views, researched the addresses of u.s. supreme court justices, sought to assassinate democratic

presidential hopefuls and cable news anchors, and intended to "murder innocent civilians on a scalale rarely seen in thihis country." in afghanistan, the taliban has claimed responsibility for an attack w wnesday on n the offics of a.s.s.-based d non-governmeml organinization i in the capital kabul thatat killed leaeast fie people andnd left two dozen oths injured. the attack targeted the offices of counterpart international, a nonprofit basesed in arlington, virginia, that's funded by usaid -- the u.s. agency for international development. the attack came following a proposed ramadan ceasefire by afghan president ashraf ghani. the taliban rejected the proposal amid ongoing peace talks with t the united states. in lahore, pakistan, a at least0 people were killed wednesday morning and 25 others wounded after a suicide attacker bombed an 11th-cecentury sufi s shrine. the attack was claimed by a splinter group of the pakistani taliban.

in 2010, an attack on the same site killed more than 40 people. north korea test-fired two short-range ballistic missiles today in its latest show of military power after president trump walked away from denuclearization talks with kim jong-un in february. the military drill did not violate a moratorium on long-range, nuclear-papable missile e tests, but south kor's government called them a very disturbing development that won't help to ease tensions on the korean peninsula. in south africa, polls clolosed wednesday in national elections, with early results showing the governing african national congress will likely hold its parliamentary majority. with about one-third of districts reporting, the anc has won about 55% of the vote, with the main opposition democratic alliance party in second-place, with a quarter of the vote. the results do suggest support for the anc could fall below 60%

for the first time since the end of white minority rule. final results are due on saturday. back in the united states, voters in denver, colorado, appear to have approved a ballot measure decriminalizing the recreational use of psychedelic mushrooms. under the ballot initiative, psychedelic mushrooms will remain illegal to buy, sell or possess, but police are instructed to make enforcement of such laws the lowest possible priority. recent medical studies have found psilocybin, the active ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms, can have positive effects treating depression, addictions, ptsd, pain, and anxiety. in baltimore, maryland, university administrators at johns hopkins called in police wednesday to end a month-long sit-in protest at the campus's main administration building. seven protesters were arrested. students are demanding johns hopkins reverse plans to create a private university police force and cancel contracts with ice -- immigration and customs enforcement. to see our coverage of the sit-in occupation you can visit our website democracynow.org. and drivers with the ride-hailing services uber and

lyft went out on strike in cities worldwide wednesday to protest low wages and poor working conditions. drivers in los angeles, london, melbourne, sao paulo, new york and other cities temporarily halted work to demand uber and other rideshare companies like lyft treat drivers like full-time employees rather than independent contractors. this is janet kwon of the new york taxi workers alliance. now the amount that has and just pay is not regulated. that needs to be regulated. it percent to 85% of the driver needs to -- amount needs to go to the driver because they are the ones doing the work. physically fired without just cause. amy: the strike in just days after we were set to go -- uber is said to go public. we'll have more on ththe uber ad lyft strike later in the broadcast. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report.

i'm amy goodman. nermeen: and i'm nermeen shaikh. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. we begin today's show on capitol hill where the house judiciary committee has voted to hold attorney general william barr in contempt of congress, over his refusal to turn over the unredacted mueller report and the underlying evidence to lawmakers. meanwhile, house intelligence committee chairman adam m schiff has issued a sububpoena to t justice department for the unredacted report. this all came after the white house and vote executive privilege to prevent the full report's release to congress and to bar former white house counsel from providing documents to congress related to the mueller probe. the house judiciary committee chair jerrold nadler spoke after the vote. very great and momomentous step that we were forced to take today to move a

contempt citation against the attorney general of the united states. we did not relish doing this, but we hadad no choice. attorney general barr, having proved himself to be the personal attorney president trump rather than of the united the publicmisleading as to the contents of the mueller report twice, by not being truthful with congress, theshown himself to be personal attorney of the united states rather than the attorney general. we talked for a long time about bridging constitutional crisis. we are now in it. we are now in a constitutional crisis. amy: the house committee vote to hold barr in contempt was 24 to 16 along party lines and will now go before the full house. the justice department accused democrats of engaging in inappropriate political theatrics. republican lawmakers including doug collins of georgia rejected nader's claim of a constitutional crisis.

>> are the chairman's that we are in a constitutional crisis. the crisis is the committee asking from the attorney general things to say he cannot give. the constitutional crisis is a a -- mmittee askiking to amy: we go to ian millhiser, columnist for thinkprogress. his recent piece is headlined "trump's claim that the mueller report is protected by executive privilege is hot garbage." ian, talk about the signifificae of the vote and it going to the full house, holding barr in contempt. >> sure. so i thinknk the contempmpt vots less important than what is goining to come after t the cont vovote. so congrgress in theory could clclaim now that b barr is in contntempt, they can send sesert of arms to round him up and arrest him. but the attotorney geneneral han entire armed law enforcement apparatus behind him, so i don't think theyey want a shoott out betweeeen the sergeant of arms d the u.s. marshals.

so realistically, this will be resolved in court. i think trump claims of executive privilege here are exceedingly weak, but the question is, whether we have courts that are not so papartisn that thehey will actually y folw the law and whether this gets dragged out for so long that it doesn't really matter what the courts wind up sayaying. whaten: could you explain it means to invoke executive privilege?e? you have said there is no one single conceptpt of executive privilege. >> right. there are two distinctions. the stronger is when there's a communication directly with the president of the united states, or in some cases with the top advisers. that is not the case here. robert mueller was adverse to ththe president. he was investigating the president. so there is a weaker privilege ththat deals with when internrnl government communications that discuss how they come to decisions about policy or other government action, that

privilege probably applies here but exceedingly weak. itit does not apply toto documes that just contain information and don't containin like deliberation over specific policies. and it also does not apply to potentiaial government miscondu. the mueller report is one big investigation into potential criminal misconduct by the president of the united states. so i think it would be very, very strange if the courts were to say that the privilege applieies in this case. the proboblem is, we have the courts we have, we have a very partisan supreme court, so there's no guarantee they will follow existing law. amy: so the same time you have the house judiciary committee to hold william barr in contempt, you have the republican-led senate intelligence committee, led by senator burr, subpoenaing for the first time donald trump, jr..

cacan you explain what that is l about anand the significance of this, ththe first time dononald trtrump's childrdren have been subpoenaed? >> sure. we know less about that than we know about some of the other things. i think what we do know is that donnie trump claimed he was not very involved atatll with plans to build a trumpmp tower moscow, planans that eventually fell apart. but there was apparently active discussions about building a trump tower in moscow during the 2016 race. of course, given russia'a's interest in electing donald trump,, any connection n to rusa is potentiallyly very disturbin. don jr. claimed he did not know muchch about that atat all w whe testified in front of the senate judiciary y committee. michael cohen, trump's ford motor lawyer, said that was not -- trump''s former lawyer, said that is not true in that donny knew a great deal ababout this.

at the v very least, there is te potential for pererjury invevestigation because it is possible that donny did nonot tl the truth to the senate judiciary committee but i don't think we know more yet about what they intend a probe or what not be revealed when donnie eventually testifies. no me go back to the house vote in this question of executive privilege. how does the current situation compare to what happened when president obama asserted executive privilege in 2012 to block the release of documents related to secretive than running sting operation called fast and furious? the house voted at the time 255 to 67 donald attorney general eric holder in contempt of congress. four years later, district court judge ruled against obama's assertion of executive privilege. ian millhiser, your response? >> so i thinks actually there are a lot o of distinctioions bebetween those two o cases.

thehe fast anding furious investstigation n turnet to b be a really e easy court ce and the reason it was easy is thatat the obama administration had already mostly complied with those subpoenas. attorney geneneral holder at testified multiple timimes, they releaseded publicly and inspectr general's report that quoted liberally from some of the documents that the house was seekining. eventually, fefederal judge sai, look, you basically already complied with these sububpoenaso therere is s no good reason foru toto not fully comply because there's nothing left for you really t to protect. so on the one e hand, that w waa fairly easasy case. the other thing to know about that easy case is like you said, it took about four years for the federal jujudge to get around to sayingng that. if it took four years in a really easy case like that one, one thing i worry about with this fight over the trump subpoenas is that the courts could potentially string this a

long for very long time. amy: we're talking to ian millhiser of thinkprogress. deb haaland nowow joins us, the democratic congresss woman from new mexico, first congressional district, along with commerce member david, one of the first native amemerican won elelectedo congress. you will be voting when this comes to the house floor. how will you vote and how significant is this? do you see this as a constitutional crisis? do you see it leading to calls for impeachment? >> it is an absolute constitutional crisis. it has been since the president got sworn in. he has consistently -- i mean, it is getting worse and worse every day and of course, the comments yesterday at the rally in florida are just appalling. his racism, all of the other things that give rise to all of this, it is a constitutional crisis. look, i know the committee's

need to be able to do their jobs. it is our job to do oversight on this government. so once we are able to get the information that we need, that the american people deserve to know, yes, i will happily make my decision. so we just need to get to that place. to go to breakg and come back to our discussion and go further to talk with you about a number of issues. but on the issue of impeachment, if you're talking about him being in contempt of congress, exertingsident trumpmp executive privilege, are you headed in that direction? >> i''m going to wait and see. i feel that we need to get the information that we need to get, right? i can't say right off the bat that i want to vote to impeach. i want to wait and see all of

the information that we deserve to get, and i will happily make my decision then. amy: because you would be defying leadership. you have a divide in the democratic party right now with a house speaker nancy pelosi saying no to impeachment, saying that is exactly what donald trump wants, that he is pushing democrats to get in meyer dennis and the american people feeling like when are they going to be served rather than having these fights. >> thank you for raising that issue. right now we have oversight of the president but we also came to congress to do a job for the american people. that is exactly what i am doing. they don't expect us to sit on our hands and wait to make changes, weight to legislate all of the things we know need to happen. with respect t to giving workera fair s shot at success, studenta fair shot at a quality public education -- all of those things, the environment that and you mention

that in the news that started out your show. we have a climate crisis on hand right now as well. singlet just for every bit of attention into the president. doing soo move toward much more for the american people and so o we need to make sure we are paying attention to those things as well. nermeen: in a moment we will ask about the uber and lived strike. but first, your protecting the canyon. it is a world carriage side. last month you co-introduced the protection act to protect the area from future leasing and development of minerals. could you talk about the threat cananyon and why y the site isis so importanant? >> absbsutely. it is my ancestral homeland, the

ancestral homeland of the pueblo people, as are other areas in the southwest. it deserves to be protected. a livingsite -- landscape. is not ins. is not mething the past that wshould n care abt. right now i know there s a court decision that essenentialy statated that thee review was nt ne properly. so that is a small v victory. what we wantnt to do is havava permanent victory. we wana a permant end to frfracking and drilling for a 10 canyon.ius around chaco and that is what i will continue to fight for. amy: we're going to go to break and come back to our discussion with you, democratic congress member deb haaland, about the massivive uber and lyft strike that took place across the world as uber is about to go public.

this is democracy now! deb haaland, from new mexico, first congressional district, one of the f first two native american congresswomen ever elected. stay with usus. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. nermeen: uber and lyft drivers in cities around the world went on strike wednesday to protest low wages and poor treatment of

workers just days before uber's initial public offering, which could value the company at up to $90 billion. but while uber prepares for what could be one of the biggest ipo's in history and executives plan to take home millions, drivers say their conditions are worse than ever. drivers in los angeles, london, melbourne, sao paulo, new york, and other cities temporarily halted work wednesday to demand uber and other rideshare companies like lyft treat drivers like full-time employees rather than independent contractors, guarantee a livable income, and end deactivations for drivers that can occur without explanation, among other demands. amy: the day of the strike, democratic congresswoman from new mexico deb haaland announced legislation that would require uber and lyft to pay for drivers' social security and medicare costs. because drivers are considered independent contractors, they

currently are required to pay social security and medicare costs themselves. congressmember haaland's legislation would place that burden entirely on lyft, uber, and other multinational corporations employing large numbers of so-called independent contractors in the gig economy. congressmember haaland said in a statement, "the gig is up." well, for more, we go to washington, d.c., and in new york, we're joined by bhairavi desai, executive director and co-founder of the new york taxi workers alliance, which represents over 21,000 taxi drivers in new york city. deb haaland, talk about this legislation. is about to go public, $91 billion corporation, and again, we have a large corporation that dozens are you its workers. family sent me to

congress because i know what is like to live paycheck to paycheck. i know what it is like to be on food stamps and have them for groceries back at the checkout line because you don't have enough money to pay for it. so this continues to be the situation. there is too much in equity in our country and in our world. i think it is time for the big corporations to make right with workers. generally, if you are in a play, the company you work for pays half of -- it is employee contributions. they pay half of your social security and half of your medicare taxes. aret now uber and lyft making their contract employees responsible for that. they're not contract employees. they are workers for the corporation. they are responsible for their $91 billion corporation right now because they are the ones doing the work. lyft toime for uber and

pay their fair share so workers can make a decent living, a livable wage, and can support themselves and their families. nermeen: congresswoman holland, you said -- and you explain what the loophole is, which he appointed to in your statement, whereby large companies can dodge standard labor practices and employer contributions to social security and medicare? >> its that loophole? one is a classification. they classify workers as contractors rather than workers. rather than employees. someone is say that an independent contractor, they are responsible for all of their own taxes, all of their own employment taxes and federal and state and every other tax. if they are classified as

employees, then the employer picks up part of that tab. by all intents and purposes, these workers appear to be employees and they should be classified as such. amy: what has been the response of uber as uber is just about to go public? it's workers having their wages dropped as they are about to make one of the largest public offerings in history. >> well, you know, it is unfortunate. they have claimed their employees, their workers make up to $21 an hour. we found that uber and lyft drivers make between eight dollars and $10 an hour. when you're in a big city like the one i'm in right now, washington, d.c., it is very expensive to live here. you cannot live on a weight like that. -- on a wage like that. i am sure they're not happy

about it but i came here to fight for working families, and that is what i'm doing. nermeen: just to give a sense of the m massive disparity, as you pointed out, a large number of uber drivers don't even make minimum wage, and uber's top five executives last year took billion. five executives, $ $143 million last year. >> that is sickening. that is the inequity i''m talkig about. it is so unfair that the big executives can make that much money when there are people that can't afford to buy groceries. .t is fundamentally unfair it is not right. they don't have a conscience. they need to pay up. amy: we want to thank you for being with us, new mexico

congressmember deb haaland, one native americican congresswomaman ever e elected. we turn now to the drivers gathered right here in new york city on wall street after the new york city strike began yesterday. produceremocracy now! speaking with an uber driver who went on strike. >> i have been driving for uber since 2013 and my income has been dropped drastically because when i was working with uber, it was three dollars a mile. today i get $1.15 a mile. when a was driving in 2013-2014, 30,000 to 40000 and today there are 160,000 drivers. my income has been drastically decreased frfrom $37 an hour to about $10 an hour. it is very hard to support my family and myself.

i am lucky. i have three kids who support me. they have good jobs. they have masters degrees. they are helping me out. without that, i would have no way to survive. looks you drive up to 80 hours a weekek but you're treated as a part-time employee. how does that affect you? >> and 2013, was driving 70, 80 hours. i would to the office and they said all of the uber drivers are part-time. i said, i worked 80 hours last week and you tell me i'm a part-time? said it is our policy to only have part-time. he said all of the drivers are part-time drivers. uber once every driver to be part-time. >> your income has dropped to around nine dollars an hour from $37 and yet you have to pay for gas, car insurance. how much are you spending to be an uber driver? >> my expenses average about $10

an hour. when i make $10 an hour, i'm just meeting my expenses. i am not taking any money to myself. is a nexts ipo location. if anybody buys is ipo, they are becoming a member o of exportation. it is explication of not one or two drivers come almost 3 million drivers. in the 1900s, factories were exploiting the factory leaders and then the leaders woke up and made laws. 3 million drivers are suffering and we need political help and we need some political leaders to take a look into it and the labor department to look into it that uber should not exploit drivers behind the doors of th at we are independent contractors. >> you call this a slave system. why? a i called uber and lyft

slave system because i'm getting paid nine dollars, $10 an hour when my expenses are $10 an hour. i went home with zero dollars to myself or my family. that is why i call these companies exploitation and slave drivers. >> you set without the help of your family, you would have been dead, like some other drivers. there is been a spike in suicides by drivers here in new york city. can you talk about that and the devastation this leads to to people's lives? >> most of these drivers were yellow cab drivers. they took a million dollar loan on their medallions and could not make a payment and the banks were foreclosing on their houses and on their accounts. all of those things were getting frozen and they could not take that. if you see two years ago, taxing newspapers had no advertisement for suicide help. today, every taxi newspaper has half a page ad telling the drivers not to commit suicide, come to them for help.

we don't need help to commit suicide. we need help to make money. what we were making two years ago, we want to make the same amount of money so we are financially and physically and mentally healthy. amid aay, uber and lyft situation where we are physically and financially -- we are getting exploited by these multibillion dollar companies will step we do not have any help from nobody. tellingt need a doctor us not to commit suicide and we don't need to take medication for depression. we need to get paid properly for what we do. inwere getting paid properly 2013, 2014, 1 15. our income has now been dropped by two thirds and thatat is whyo many drivers are in depression and committing suicide all over the country. we need our political leaders and labor department to wake up. amy: a special thanks.

we're joined in studio by bhairavi desai, executive director and cofounder of the taxi workers alliance which represents over 21,000 taxi drivers in new york city. she was out there yesterday. talk about the significance of this global strike that took place as uber is just about to go public. >> it is absolutely amazing. there were strikes across every single continent. united states had several cities. it was a rolling strike for over 24 hour period. the first time with ever seen this among dririvers. nermeen: why was it scheduled just as uber is going public? >> it was timed with the ipo. in the pre-ipo filing, uber unabashedly notes that they toect driver dissatisfaction

only increase. they expect to cut driver pay, to cut incentives, and move quickly into a driverless vehicles. this is all after technology in the vast majority of drivers earn below minimum wage. majority ofy vast drivers earn below minimum wage. nermeen: there i is are ready been a massive and p precipitous declinine in drivers income for uber. why has that decline happened? this business model is so fundamentally anti-worker. uber saturated the streets with vehicles and then they continue to cut the rate of fare the drivers would be paidd by. you are competing with so many more people and getting paid less per fare. i top of that, you're paying heavy cost for vehicles to rent or to buy in order to go to work with them. amy: your head of the new york taxi workers alliance.

explain, as we just heard, ride-share driver talking about the effect on taxi workers. >> in new york city, out of our 21,000 members, about 10,00000 actually dririve for uber or r . we started out as a yellow cab organization back in the 1980's, but more members driving with uber and lyft and they became our members. we have a unit of the platform. -- unity platform. driverr so theyr can starve the taxi drivers. we need to stand togetether against this business model. nermeen: were the yellow taxicab drivers who moved entirely to uber? >> it is been a revolving door of desperation. in the beginning, uber offered bonuses and promotions, $60,000 guaranteed. federal trade commission

investigation actually found only 10% of the drivers ever grossed what uber had promised. uber it'd up settling for $20 because of false advertising. amy: talk more about this issue of independent contractors, part-time workers versus full-time workers. >> the gig economy, whether it lived, or others come anytime workers have demanded a livable income, dignified work, they responded by saying this is not supposed to be full-time. this is part-time. uber has gone escorted saber part-time we mean just a couple of hours here and there is each week. every time we raise the babar to just get to the floor of basic employment protections, they lowered the expectation of what .his is supposed to be

when they lobby, they call it ta job. once they get the job in, they call it a gig. nermeen: new york is one of the biggest markets for uber. what should people know? >> new york and london have had massive driver opposition. what people should know is that this is a fundamentally flawed business model. the gig economy represents less than 1% of the u.s. economy, yet they are lobbying for explicit exemption not only taxi laws, but also labor laws. they're looking to overturn basic protections. today, taxi drivers, uber drivers are on that front line, but there are millions of workers standing behind us if we fall. 40 years ago, taxi drivers were considered commission employees. they then became independent contractors being stripped of all basic labor protections from minimum wage to the right to democratic unionism in

collective bargaining. drivers, a wood onto more than 30% of the american workforce. on to more than 30% of american workforce. the significance of may 8 is it was the drivers from uber --uber is partly seeking a 90 valuation.lar foundatio it can become too big to fail as it unveils its business model against workers and communities. what we're saying is they have made drivers too poor to live. and these two forces are on a collision course. we wanted to send a message yesterday we are not deterred by wall street and their wealth. we know this business model cannot exist without the drivers. in their filing, they repeated their needs to be driverless car's.

they cannot get drivers out of the car's fast enough. what we say is we exist now and you need to answer that. amy: explain how tips work. you don't pay at the end when you go to the car. the driver showed democracy now! his paystub and for 20 hours tips.he had $2 worth of tio started, the company they said that was the difference in taxes. when tips started, only 2% tipped. down another way to bring driver incomes. amy: we want to thank you for being with us bhairavi desai, , execututive director and co-founder of the new york taxi workers alliance, representing over 21,000 taxi drivers in new york city. we will continue to follow this schrock will that include's not only the uber and lyft drivers,

but yellow cab drivers as well. when we come back, up to one million species extinct in a lifetime? stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. nermeen: an alarming new report by a panel of leading scientists warns that human activity is causing the disappearance and deterioration of wildlife at a rate that could represent an existential threat to humanity within our lifetimes. the united nations' intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services released its conclusions earlier this week

and found that one million species could go extinct in the foreseeable future unless current trends are reversed. the study estimates the global extinction rate is "already at least tens to hundreds of timems higher than it averaged over the past 10 million years." it is the largest and most comprehensive e global study of biodiviversity ever.r. it took three yeyears to complee and isis based on 1515,000 scientific papers. the landmark report singled out industrial farming and fishing as major drivers of the crisis and called for transformative change to arrest present trends of biodiversity loss and species extinction. the report will be released in full later this year. this is chair of the u.n. panel, sir robert watson. >> we're losing species at historical rate, potentially 500,000 toto one million species are threatened with loss.

we have lost much of our native forests,s, native wetlalands. effectivelely, biodiversity y ns to be considered as an equally important issue as climate change will stst it is notot jut an environmental isissue, it isn economic issue, a development issusue, a security i issue, a social memorial, and ethical issue. amy: to talk more about the report, we're joined now by two guests. in minneapolis, kate brauman is one of the coordinating lead authors of the u.n. science report. she is an environmental scientist at the university of minnesota. and here in new york, ashley dawson is with us, professor of post-colonial studies at the city university of new york graduate center and college of staten island. his books include "extreme -- "extinction: a radical history." welcome both to democracy now! a million species going extinct? explain. >> it is really shocking. what we have done, a bubunch of experts have looked at really what the trends look like for

many, many different species, including insects, and looking at those trends it is quite clear that up to a million species, 25% of all of the animalals on eararth, are thread with extinction -- many within the next couple of decades -- unless we change our activities. nermeen: what most surprised about this report as you are working on the research? >> the thing to me that is the most shocking is really just what the picture looks like when we bring it all together. so this report is an assessment. it is designed to bring together the inincredibly large existing body of research. this was not designed to do new research. so much of this has been known. what we have e done is really bring g together all of the pies and lay them out clearly so that we can see what a big problem this is. amy: can you talk about the , ongoing biodiversity

species extinction, and climate change? >> what we see is that there are a lot of different drivers that are causing this to happen and that they all interact with each other. so probably the biggest threat to species to date have been land use change. we have made so many changes on the e earth, particularly throuh farming, but also through roads, timber harvest. and that has had a tremendous impact. but it interacts with climate change. so what we see is these interacting effects of land use pollution,mate, species extraction, they all work together to really make a huge threats to the environment and to us as humans. nermeen: i want to bring ashley dawson into the conversation. you have written an entire book on the radical history of extinction. your response to this report? >> it is a landmark report and

shows the crisis we face isn't just one of climate change. in some ways it is comparable to the ipc see report from last october which really sounded a really important alarm about the system that we face and its potential collapse, but what this shows is it is a crisis of multiple different dimensions and it is driven by an economic system, which is fundamentally destroying the systems we all depend on. nermeen: i want to turn to secretary of state mike pompeo's recent comments on the arcrctic. just hours after the release of the u.n. report pompeo , celebrated the shrinking levels of sea ice in the region, saying it opened up new opportunities for trade. he also called for the exploitation of f natural resources in the arctic. >> the arctic is at thee forerefront of o opportunity and abundancnce. it houses 13% of the world's undiscovered oil, 30% of its

undiscoverered gas, , and an abundancnce of uranium, mineral, and millions of f square miles f untapped resources. fisheries galore. ci's areductions in openening new w passageways andw opportunities for trade. arctic c ceilings cocould come before the 21st century suez and panama canals. amy: scientists warn that melting sea ice in the arctic due to climate change will have catastrophic effects on coastal cities, biodiversity and the global economy. president trump has called climate change a chinese hoax. ashley, your response to what pompeo said just hours after this u.n. report was released? >> a figurative a five his attitude, which as i said, is destroying the planet. to give one concrete instance, we have been exploititing land o much and degrarading land so muh we only have about 60 harvests

left. nermeen: what does that mean? >> only about 60 more years of food, potentially. we're talking about a fundamental crisis of humanity, its relationship to the natural world, and our relations to one another. amy: he is saying if the ice melts, it opens up possibilities for trade. it means you can get another panel mall or suez canal. this is about yoking the planet as we push it toward sustainability. if the searauman, ice melts, just opens up opportunities for trade? it as an see opportunity, but one for doing things better. one of the things we talk about a lot in this report is we are not hopeless. there are a lot of potential ways we can have a better futurere really of those is

having better intergovernmental cooperation. the arctic is a place for intergovernmental cooperation has happened in the past. we had the opportunity to really manage and steteward these resources in a positive way that can be a a model for the way we think about the planet. part of that is going to be really integrating what we know from indigenenous and local culturee many of whom have lived in these regions for a long time, into the way we do management. amy: ashley dawson, you talk about radical conservation. what does that look like? cacan you particularly talalk at cities? i am intrigued by the title of your book "extreme cities: the peril and promise of urban life in the age of climate change." >> we have ever business you based on using -- we have agribusiness based on fossil fuels and exploiting lands.

we need a shift. this report explicitly talks about shifting the sysystem to e that is based on using natural inputs, not using allll of these pesticicides that are destroying pollinators like bees and other insects. we don't need to just think about that happening outside cities. cities can also be a place for increasing some of the wetlands in a for instance, that we have plowed under. by doing that, absorbing more carbon. i agree with kate how this report is sounding an alarm but also called for a really important shift in attitude and material changes that can put us on a different course. that saywhat does about the kind of structural transformations that would be required minimally for the economic system that governs at this point large parts of the planet, which is based on in less expansion and consumption are larger and larger numbers of

people a greater levels? folks i think it is the greater levels that is key. the report does talk about the issue of population increase but also makes it white clear it is a kind of capitalist system based on constantly ramping up consumptption of natural resours that is at fault and that we need to shift away from t that system. amy: what is the alternative? >> the alternative is a kind of green new deal for the planet. they say quite explicitly we need a value shift and material shift toward more sustainable forms of engagagement with the plplanet. nermeen: cage, this report comes on the heels o of several other climate reports, biodiversity reports. what is it that this report says that these other reports have not concluded? >> this report does a couple of different things. it brings together a wider body of evidence and really makes a

point of elevating what we know from indigenous and local cultures. it makes explicit tie from human activities to biodiversity to human well-being. anand then it points us in positive directions for the future. i think ashley summed this up correctly, we are identifying the need to have transformational change, to redefine what it means to live well in a way that reduces our consumption and changes our production. amy: let me ask you, ashley dawson, about the report as it frames the species survival as a matter of human survival, you know, perhaps concerned that humans won't care that a million species will go extinct unless it is put in terms of human beings going extinct? >> right, right. there is something about the report that is influenced by the

times we live in. it is called report not just on biodiversity, but ecosystem services. liberalismf your -- and neoliberalism is in the title of the report. not discounting the innate validity and importance of the natural world and other life forms, just wants to emphasize how intertwined we all are at this point and how we can't bring that does break that link. amy: kate, if you want to respond? >> i agree. it is important because as actually said, we are not separate or unlinked from the environment. the environment, whether it is for personal gain or because we care him i is what we as s humans a are doing and t brings us to t the center in was that i i think are very importat in terms of moving forward and changing our behavior and changing this trajectory.

amy: do you see policymakers responding? >> i think so. one thing that is so exciting as it is a report of the governments. there are 132 member states who are part of his platform. they approved this document. this is something that governments say "we think is important." amy: we will link to the report. kate brauman is one of the coordinating lead authors of the on extinction, speaking to us from minneapolis. ashley dawson is professor of new york graduate center and has written books including "extreme cities: the peril and promise of urban life in the age of climate change." democracy now! is currently acceptpting applicatations forod six-month internships here in our new w york city studioio. learn more and apply 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. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]