[captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york this is democracy now! , ado not allow a witness document. no witnesses, no document, in an impeachment trial is a perfidy. it is a grant tragedy, one of the worst tragedies the senate has ever overcome. amy: the republican-controlled senate appears poised to acquit president trump after rejecting a call for witnesses in the

historic impeachment trial. the trial resumes today. the president is expected to be acquitted on wednesday. we will get the latest peer we begin in iowa as the first caucus takes place. the democratic national committee is being accused of taking steps to hurt the chances of senator bernie sanders from winning the nomination. >> we are taking on the entire political establishment, both the republican establishment and the democratic establishment. amy: plus, we look at how president trump has expended his travel ban to six more countries, including nigeria, the most popular nation in africa. then the mature pass sabotaged america's response to thee coronavivirus pandemic. that is the headline in the latest piece by laurie garrett. she will join us in studio. all that and more, coming up. welcomome to democracy now!,!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman.

house impeachment managers and president trump's defense team are giving closing arguments in his historic impeachment trial today as the senate appears set to acquit president trump later this week. the republican-controlleled body quashed the democratic effort to call witnesses and introduce new evidence in the trial in a 51-49 vote friday. senators mitt romney of utah and susan collins of maine were the the only two republicans who voted in favor of calling witnesses. the senate will hold a final vote on the two articles of impeachment wednesday. democrats slammed their republican counterparts following friday's vote. this is senate minority leader chuck schumer. witness, allow a document -- no witnesses, document -- no document -- in an document -- in anis a impeachment trial is a perfidy. it is a grant tragedy, one of the worst tragedies that the senate has ever overcome. america will remember this day,

unfortunately, where the senate did not live up to i its respone apologies -- itsts responsibilities and went along with a sham trial. amy: voting in the 2020 presidential election kicks off today with the iowa caucuses. candidates spent the weekend making last-minute appeals to voters in what appears to be a tight race. this is vermont senator bernie sanders addressing his supporters on sunday. are taking on the entire political establishment. both the republican establishment and the democratic establishment. we are taking on wall street and the insurance companies and the drug companies and the fossil fuel industry and the military industrial complex and the prison industrial complex and 1%.whole damn

amy: in more news about the 2020 elections, the democratic national committee is coming under fire after overhauling debate requirements to eliminate the donor threshold, allowing billionaire mike bloomberg to take part in upcoming debates even though he does not have widespread grassroots support. meanwhile, politico is reporting dnc members are discussing rule changes that are designed to stop bernie sanders from democratice nomination by giving superdelegates even more power. we'll have more on the iowa caucuses after headlines with the nation's john nichols. president trump dramatically expanded his travel ban friday. nationals of nigeria, eritrea, myanmar, kyrgyzstan will no longer be able to obtain visas to live and work in the u.s., while sudan and tanzania will no longer be able to participate in the diversity visa lottery program. the ban, commonly referred to as the muslim ban, already affects citizens from iran, libya, syria, yemen, somalia, venezuela, and north korea.

democrats say they will chchallenge the new ban and are expected to introduce the no ban act in congress soon. we'll have more on the -- on n this w with omar child h later in the broadcast. the coronoavirus outbreak continues to spread, with the death toll in china now topping 360 0 and over 17,000 cases of infection worldwide. on saturday, a 44-year-old man in the philippines became the firsrst casualty of f the diseae outside of china. the united states has declared a public health emergency and is barring foreign nationals who have recently traveled to china from entering the country. u.s. citizens who have visited hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak, will be quarantined when reentering the u.s. the shanghai stotock markeket plunged eight percent today. on thursday, the u.s. circuit kateri of commerce appeared to welcome the disease as a boost toto the u.s.s. job market, sayg in a fox news interview it w wod "acceleratee the return of jobs to north america."

questions are being raised about the handling of the diseaease by chinese authorities, who critics say delayed d their reononse and downplayed the severity of the problem, and a local red cross in hubei has come under fire for failing to distribute essential medical supplies to the hospitals that need it most. meanwhile, chinese and asian communities in countries including france and canada say they have been the target of increased racism since the outbreak. we will speak to pull or prize-winning journalist laurie garrett later in the broadcast. in syria, doctors without borders says multiple hospitals have been destroyed or damaged amid a russian-backed syrian government offensive against the northwestern province of idlib. nearly a quarter of a million civilians have been forced to flee toward the turkish border as the syrian regime aims to recacapture one of the last rebel-held territorieses in syr. thth is jennah, one of thehe displaced civilians. felt sadndness. i lived there and had friends therere, and it wawas targeted a planend they died.

i cried when we left and t the regime took over. i hohope it's s people will be e to return one day andd thahat we wiwill be able to go back. this is injustice. amy: thousands of protesters took to the streets of the occupied palestinian territories to condemn the so-called middle east peace plan. israeli soldiers shot rubber bullets and tear gas against demonstrators. the palestinian authority is cutting all times with the united states and israel and protest with the proposal, which gives israel even more sovereignty over occupupied territories. the arab league said saturday it also rejects the u.s. plan. in iraq, protesters took to the streets following the appointment of a new prime minister. in november, massive antigovernment demonstrations november, massive antigovernment demonstrations ousted former iraqi prime minister, bubut protesters said the former communications minister is part of the same

corrupt political establishment they have been protesting against. the united states it dropped more bombs and afghanistan in 2019 than any other year since the pentagon began keeeeng a recocord in 2006. data from u.s. central command shows u.u.s. warplanes dropped nearly 7,500 bombs and other munitions on afghanistan last yearar, nearly eight timimes moe than in 2015.. in nicaragua, six indigenous environmental leaders were assassinated last week after a group of at least 80 armed men rated the bosawas biosphere reserve, the second largest rainforest in the americas after the amazon. the attack is believed to be linked to raging land disputes between the local indigenous community and non-indigenous illegal loggers and miners who seek to steal fertile land, timber, and gold. another 10 indigenous leaders were also kidnapped during the violent raid. in mexico, a second man linked to a monarch butterfly sanctuary in michoacan has been assassinated. raul hernandez romero's death comes just days after another slain conservationist's body was discovered. authorities are investigating the deaths and whether the men were targeted for their environmental activism.

friends and family of leading monarch conservationist whose body was found last week attended his funeral on friday. in australia, dozens of koalas have been killed or injured at a timber plantation in the southeastern state of victoria, where environmentalists say they were bulldozed in order to harvest the blue gum trees, a vital koala habitat. australia's record-breaking bushfires have already killed tens of f thousands ofof koalasd an estimated 1 billion animals since september. and in new york city, some 45 people were arrested friday night after at least one -- at least 1000 new yorkers took part in a protest calling out the policing and high cost of public transportation. the protest was met with a heavy police presence in was the third of its kind in recent months following the announcement of a plan to add 500 police officers to subway stations around the city to clamp down on fare evasion. mta data shows black and brown people are the most targeted by fare evasion policing. the city recently introduced a

new reduced fare program known as fair fare but critics say the cost is still prohibitive to many low-income new yorkers. this is marz, an activist with decolonize this place, one of the groups organizing the demonstrations. >> people keep telling us to be civilizezed, call your representatives, your senators. what we understand is that law is not justice. what we are askiking for is very simple. we want free transit, not a fair fare. if someone cannot take $2.75, what makes you think they can pay half the price? we ask for free fare, not fair fare. i think it is a way for them to silence a movement, to give a select few benefit without giving it to all. amy: and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we begin with the iowa caucuses, the official start of the 2020 election season. candidates made last minute

pitches to voters over the weekend. bernie sanders addressed 3000 people on saturday at a rally in cedar rapids, one of the largest rallies of the election season in iowa. >> we are taking on the entire political establishment, both the republican establishment and .he democratic establishment street andng on wall the insurance companies and the drug companies and the fossil the industry and military-industrial complex and the prison industrial complex and the whole damn 1%. amy: on saturday, former vice president joe biden campaigned in north liberty, iowa. >> several of my colleagues in this race think it is naive of me to think we can bring the country together. i refuse to accept a notion that

it is a forever war between democrats and republicans. impossible. i have done it my whole career. they say you do not understand the new republican party. you got a glimpse of it. i understand the new republican party. i have been the object of their affection for a long while now. i wonder why. i wonder why. [laughs] oh, god love them, as my mother would say. folks, it is pretty simple. they do not want me to bebe the nonominee because they know i wl beat them like a drum. we will beat him. amy: on sunday, senator elizabeth warren campaigned in iowa.ola, >> look, i get it, in america, there are rich people and they may own more shoes, more cars, but they are not supposed to own a bigger piece of our democracy.

if we want to change that, we are not going to be able t around the edge, one little statute over here, a couple of regulations over there. no, we want to beat back the influence of money. we want to save our democracy, save our country. it is going to take big structural change. plan n for that. amy: in more news about the 2020 election, the democratic national committee is coming under fire after overhauling debate requirements to eliminate the need for candidates to obtain a significant number of small donations, allowing billionaire mike bloomberg to take part in upcoming debates. advisoranders' senior jeff weaver on d&c debate rules said, "to now change the rules in the middle of the game to accommodate mike bloomberg, who is trying to buy his way into

the democratic nomination, is wrong. that's the definition of a rigged system." this comes as fear is growing among some democrats that bernie sanders might win the nomination. politico reports a small group of dnc members have begun discussing a proposal to increase the role of superdelegates to give the party establishment more say in who becomes the nominee. we go now to des moines, iowa, where we are still joined by john nichols, the nation's national-affairs correspondent and host of the podcast next left. he's on the ground covering the iowa caucus and just wrote the piece, "the dnc's move to accommodate bloomberg stirs outrage in iowa." his forthcoming book is titled "the fight for the soul of the democratic party: the enduring legacy of henry wallace's anti-fascist, anti-racist politics." good to have you on the ground at the dnc. talk about the changing rules on

who can participate in the debates. john: the dnc set a pretty strict rules last year, and there was a structure to it, but essentially you had to have a little bit of hold position and then you had to raise a substantntial number of small contributions in order to get on the debate stage. with each step of the process, they raised the number of contributions you needed and also raised the threshold for polls. that is what all the candidates whwho got in earlierer last year accepted, what they dealt with. sometimes they complainened abot it, but t those were the rules. now suddenly,y, on friday, the c singled that -- the dnc that they want to get rid of the small donor rules and set a coupuple of poll thresholds arod 10% or to say if you have delegates in iowa or new hampshire, you have to meet t oe of thosese s standards to get io the nevada debate, the debates

going forward. what is interesting about that is in the p past when climate activists asked for climate debate, they were told, well, you cannotot, that is not wititn the rules. wanted a poverty dedebate andnd asked for it, thy saidid, no, you cannot, t thosee not ththe rules. when cory booker really challenged this process and said, look, you're going to end up with the potential of all white debates i in a party that has relied very heavily on african-american and latatino support, again, he was told you cannot change the rules. but now, suddenly, they change the rules in a way that elective -- that a lot of activists, frankly, candidates believe that michael bloomberg, the former mayor of new york, that it benefits him, and he got into the race late and skipped new hampshire. there is a tremendous amount of frustration with this because it

looks like to a lot of folks at the rules are being changed to accommodate a billionaire, especially at a point when one candidate, bernie sanders who has campaiaigned against the billionaire class, seems to be rising. amy: i want to turn to activistner filmmaker michael moore speaking friday night. >> waking up to realize we have to fight the corporate democrats, the 1% of the democratic party who are three that berniey [beep] sanders is number one, that bernie sanders might win this primary season, that bernie sanders might be the next president of the united states. they are so upset. how the hell does this happen? wasn't supposed to win. intoday they have announced,

two -- tryry pass to to undo the people's movement, they are removing the rule to be on the debate stage where it says you have to have so many people donating to you. peoplese instead of 27 on the stage, there would be 227 people on the page paired you have to show you have a certain number of americans that will give you a buck. to show that there is support. and that is how they determine who would be on the debate stage . today they removed that rule because mike bloomberg, the billionaire, the republican mayor of new york city -- ]crowd boos going, oh,ckstage god, what is he going to say. [laughter] they removed it so that he can be in the next debate. he does not have to show he has

any support amongst the american people. he can just buy his way onto the debate stage. i have to tell you what is so distressing about this, i watched the debate in iowa here two weeks ago -- the all white debate -- and the fact that the democratic, the dnc, will not allow cory booker on that stage, will not allow julio castro on that stage, but they are going to allow mike bloomberg on the stage because he has a billion [ beep] dollars. amy: michael moore speaking on friday night, and the next night was a massive rally in cedar rapids of thousands. john, you were at both. talk about the significance of what is happening with -- and we butot usuallyly cite polls, it does look like bernie sanders is at the top right now. john: i mean, there is an incredible enthusiasm in iowa

racalso awareness of the e. you saw at that rally, the mention of the dnc rule change, which maybe be a lot of folks around america are not fololwing that closely come in iowa it was not just a line that drew passionate response, literally booing and angngry responses, is indicative of how seseriously te people there are taking this race and how seriously the sanders peoplele are. sanders is r running very welll. anduld always caution, you referenced it moments ago, that polling is really hard because of the dynamics of the caucuses. so be cautious about saying who is upper who is in front, but it is clear that bernie sanders is doing very well here, and he could win. and the enthusiasm that is built up, you see it at the rallies, ,f course, and the rallies here

band vampire weekend drew a massive crowd, and a lot of other speakers. sanders spoke but also cornell west and others. the rally you saw with bon iver, a popular singer, popular band, also had a lot of speakers. it was full of energy, a mix of politics and culture. and these are big deal events getting coverage. amy, i have been around the state the last week a lot, and i have gone to what should be small events set sanders' field office, you know, the basement of a building in some small town, something like that, and there will be 150 people at those events. no there is clearly a incrededible grassroots energy here. and to tie it back to the debate change, i think a lot of the activists get very frustrated by the notion that the rules might be changed in the midst of the game.

and they don't just talk about bernie sanders. in grinnell,vent iowa, the other day and talking to people that brought up the rule change, and they were aware of it and brought up cory booker. there was a real sense that while cory booker never let the polls in iowa, he really worked hard in the state. he won a lot of interest, sympathy, and support. and he did drop out at a point where it was clear he was not going to get on those debate stages anymore. and there is a real consciousness that an african-american candidate who worked hard in iowa, wanted to keep going and be in the debates, could not get accommodation, but mike bloomberg who has not campaigned in iowa appears to be getting an accommodation. amy: and even democrats who raise the issue of bernie sanders being a democratic-socialist, who is raising the issue of bloomberg switching from being a republican to democrat? mayor,epublican

yes. amy: let's talk about what is happening tonight, for people to understand what caucuses are, why people might go in and caucus with someone they might not normally support, someone who is not going to win, to then be freed up to see who will be the top candidate, to g go overo that person's caucus. yeah, caucuses s are complicated for people who do not live in iowa and a couple of states who usese it. i do not even really understand them quite well. and there are a lot of reasosons to criticize caucuses, a and we may talk about that in a little bit. but the way a caucus works is line00 tonight -- people up around 6:30 -- he go to a library or a s school oror a community hall in towns across iowa, every tiny town, the smallest places, and you go with the people who live in your area, your voting district.

some of these caucuses are huge and will get hundreds of people, college towns, places like that. some are rather small, almost like in a living room or somemething. at 7:00, they open the caucus the chair calls it intercession, if you will. they close thehe door so more people cannot come in. so they ask peoplple to go to a corner in a room with the other folks that are for your candidate, so if you are for sanders, you go to your corner. if you are for warren, you go to your quarter -- corner. biden, buttigieg, etc.. they count who is in each corner. you have to have 1 15% of the people in the room to meet the so-called threshold for kind of and gettinggates, the delegate equivalents at this level.l. and if you do not have 15%5%, tn you have fallen below what is referred to as 5 billion. the people who are with -- say you arare i in a room with a lof

bernie sanders and yoyou'rere n that corner, you're locked in their cannot move around other candidates. but if you are with a nonviable someone who did not get to that threshold, then you become the most popular person in the room because the other campaigns want you to come over. they get a higher level of elegant strength ultimately if you come to them. or you can c coalesce withth otr nviable's and form your own group. but the bottom line in the room is that everybody wants to come out with the most support. frankly, nobody wawants to leave withouout supporting somebody. so there is a lot of interest in, or at least a lot of attraction, too joining a campaign you might not have back. amy, the best way to understand this is, let's say you show up very excited about andrew yang and excited he brought up universal basic income and that

he talks about aututomation n.y. other candidates s do not, and e does not get to the threshold, so then you look around, and maybe people from the other campaigns come up to you and say ththat andrew yang said somethig nice about bernie sanders or, you know, elizabeth wawarren is talking about big structural change and that might fit into what you are discussing,g, e et. so you go with some of the others, let's say sanders, you and other people from that yang group going to sanders could boost sanders to a stronger position. say supportersg can move to bernie sanders if there caucus sites don't meet the threshold for yang? john: he has, although he sort of pulled back and forth on that. one of the challenges on this thing is you do want your backers to get there and you want to be as strong as possible. yang has said some nice things. frankly, there has been

speculation that amy klobuchar, who has a substantial amount of support but might not meet the threshold, that her people might go with another so-called moderate candidate like a biden or buttigieg. so all of the campaigns have trained their caucus leaders to work that angle, work really hard. and to give you a sense how much this has moved up the political ladder, yesterday i was with elizabeth warren at an event in ames, and she opened up with a very long soliloquy about how much she liked the other candidateses and how much shehed learned from them and how much they had contributed. the telegraphing there was iff you u show up at a a caucus and maybe your candidate is not doing very well, elizabeth warren r really likes your candidate and is sympathetic and will listen. that is a smart thihing for elelizabeth warren to do. you're h hearing this from other candidates, as well. they really do want to kind of pull these folks together, at

least at the caucus. amy: quickly, could there b be multiple winners tonight? john: absolutely. the rules are complex. so when they do the initial count to the room, right, you will get a report on that. so somebody might do pretty well in the initial accounts but not meet the threshold, so they will point to that. ultimately, the big thing people will look back is -- look at is delegate equivalents, who is moving up that ladder. that will probably be the main winner. remember something else, amy, iowa, coming in second can mean a lot. if bernie sanders comes in first and elizabeth warren comes in second, that will be powerful for elizabeth warren because she drifted down a little in the polls. if someone unexpected, let's say buttigieg, who has had big rallies and big events, say he comes in first, that is huge for him and might be rough for sanders because people expected hihim to come in the first. a lot to read into it late

tonight and early tomorrow. amy: we will be bringing people results tomorrow on democracy now! john nichols, please stay with us because we want to ask you about impeachment. we wrote a book about it. john nichols is the nation's national-affairs correspondent . and we will talk about the trumping muslim ban and 's approach to the coronavirus. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

is democracy now! i'm amy goodman. the republican controlled senate appears poised to acquit president trump and just the third impeachment trial in u.s. history. the senate scheduled a final vote on the two articles of impeachment for wednesday. on friday, the senate voted 51-49 against calling witnesses to be in a senate trial. just two republican senators supported calling for witnesses and collecting new evidence. senator mitt romney of utah and senator collins of maine. prior to the vote, president trump's personal lawyer jay sekulow said there was no need to call witnesses. >> this idea that they have not

had witnesses, because that is the smokescreen, you have heard from a lot of witnesses. the problem with the case, the problem with their position is, even with all of those witnesses, it does not prove up and impeachable offense. the articles fail. the record that the managers told us was overwhelming and complete, mr. schiff went through every sentence of the articles of impeachment just a few days ago and said, prove, prove, proof. the problem is the with prove, prove, prove,, it is not an impeachable offense. amy: after the vote on witnesses, chuck schumer said the senate did not live up to its responsibility. >> to not allow a witness, a document. no witnesses, no document, in an

impeachment trial is a perfidy, a grand tragedy, one of the worst tragedies that the senate has ever overcome. america will remember this day, unfortunately, where the senate did not live up to its respononsibility, where e the se turned away from truth and went along with a sham trial. amy: the senate trial will resume today at 11:00 a.m. eastern for four hours of argument. final vote scheduled for 4:00 p.m. on wednesday, the day after president trump gives his state of the union address. democracy y now! wilill be live streaming at democracynow.org the senate impeachment trial. still with us is john nichols of the nation, author of many books, including the genius of impeachment, a founder's for realism. john, respond to the latest. a vote has taken place. you even had lamar alexander who was supposedly on the fence, republican from tennessee, and he said he thought the house managers did prove their case.

he just felt that this was not the way to move the president, the election is. talk about this and what is about to happen and if you can see anything unpredictable taking place. john: i am not expecting a lot developmentsble today. obviously what we're looking for in the speeches might be an indication from the two republicans who voted for hearing witnesses and what they are thinking. you also want to look at a couple of democrats who might vote for one article and against another because they come from more conservative states. there are some twists and turns that might arise. but at the end of the day, we appear to be heading toward a senate vote to acquit donald trump, and it will probably be quite overwhelming in the context becausese republicans wl hold together. we have learned a a lot.

we have learned that the republican party has really become pretty much a pure reflection of donald trump. there is a little bit of dissent. you mentioned it. but it is not what we had in, say, the watergate days, for instance. this is a big deal because impeachment is supposed to be, in my opinion, a wonderful tool that allows us to hold presidents to account in the midst of their terms, and it is clearly undermrmined when you he such a high level of partisanship that the chambers that are supposed toto tried the impeached d president effectivey will not do so. but the other thing is that i always remind people that t -- don't look f for too many unprededictable things in the nt day or so but understand that impeachment h has multiple meanings and multiple layer's. and while we have never, ever had a president convicted at trial, we impeachment

have often had presidedents who are held to account by popular opinion, by elections -- not their r own elections, trump wil be the first to run for reelection as anan up each president, and a also by histst. so i do not think this story is done b by any means. but i i do thinknk that the forl structures of it will be done in a few d days. and i encourage people toto keep watching it and paying close attention because this is really an exercise of the people's constitutional authority, even if some of the politicians may avoid it. amy: interesting that you're watching the impeachment from the beginning of the election, the first caucus state, iowa. your piece headlines -- donald trump's defense would make the prpresident t a king. explain. john: sure. i wawas really troubled by a lot of the arguments made by the presidents defense chief, not the over-the-top things you might hear from a ken starr or

alan dershowitz, but the arguments made by the more suit and tie, formal come a lawyerly members of the team, and what was incredibly troubling to me was that they were arguing that if you agreed to an abuse of power charge against the president, that somehow you were extending the meaning of imimachment, t that somehow you are making it into something it was not intended to be. that was exactly the wrong argument. that was false. ththe truth is that impeachment was created specifically to address abuses of power. they were also suggesting that somehow the authority to impeach , the power to do so, you know, did not really rest wholly with the house. yeah, the house could do it but they really should be going to the courts and other things. again, that is not how this has been understood historically. so what was s troubling g to mes that they were arguing for a new definition of impeachment that

essentially makes impeachment impossible. and if impeachment is impossible, if it really is something that will never happen, then we get to a point where future presidents not cooperate with the congress in any way, and this president essentially has not, and where they will feel an immense amount of freedom to do as they please because they genuinely believe they will never be held to account. that gets us to exactly what the founders of the american experiment feared the most, and that was that a president might yearsrs,a king for four and that that king for fourr years might abuse his position to win a second term. basic c concpieceptwe will link to, "the dnc's move to accommodate bloomberg stirs outrage in iowa." soon,w book coming out of theght for the soul

democratic party." we will be live streaming the impeachment senate trial today and wednesday. this is democracy now! i'm amy goodman. we move on now to the new travel ban. the trump administration has expanded its contested travel ban to six additional countries, most of which are african nations. under the new restrictions, nationals of nigeria, eritrea, myanmar, kyrgyzstan will no longer be able to obtain visas to live and work in the u.s., while nationals of sudan and tanzania will no longer be able to participate in the diversity visa lottery. the ban, commonly referred to as the muslim ban, already affects citizens from iran, libya, syria, yemen, somalia, venezuela , and north korea. the expansion is expected to affect more than 350 million people. democrats say they will challenge the new ban and are expected to introduce the no ban act in congress soon. the latest travel ban takes effect february 22. for more, we're joined by omar jadwat, director of the aclu's immigrants' rights project. the aclu has been challenging the trump administration's muslim ban since the first ban was announced in january 2017.

the aclu won rulings against all three prior versions of the ban, blocking it until the supreme court allowed it to go into effect. they are still litigating against it today. the fight, a sundance film festival film, also chronicles the fight of the aclu around the travel ban. omar, thanks so much for joining us. explain what the trump administration laid out as people are paying attention, between the a pinch meant, iowa caucuses, what has happened? omar: they have doubled down on the muslim ban and expended it further. this was supposed to be a temporaryy measure.. even when he promisedd a muslim ban, it was supposed to be until they figured out what the hell was going on. they still have not figured it out three years later. so we have the original muslim ban continuing and we have added on top of it a ban on africans.

a quarter of the people living on the african continent now live in countries now subject to the expanded ban. what we see here is the president -- africanuarter of the continent, the population, will now be under -- omar: live in a country will they will -- where they will be affected in one way or another by the ban. remember, president trump, wewe recallll the things he said abot muslims in the election campaign. amy: and we recall what he said about african countries. groupnigeria, the biggesest affected by the expansion of the ba,n. he said they would never go back to their huts if we allow them to come into the united states. so he goes from one racist version of this ban to an expanded racist version of this ban. and that is where we are today.

amy: how does it affect countries or people who have already received visas? omar: people who have a visa rightt now a k kind of grandfathered in. they can use that visa, but it affects going forward people who may have been in the process, waiting in line for visas for years, right, so you have people, and we have seen this with the existing bans, people who have family members -- people in the united states who have family members abroad, wile to establish that, notwithstanding everything that has happened, notwithstanding we have had to live under this ban for years, we will show that it is unconstitutional. amy: explain the trump administration's rationale. omar: their rationale is that these countries, they say, do not adequately sure enough information with the united soes we ca seci whetinsthey come. beforehe first ban came into place, sure, there were

countries where we vetted people more strongly because we do not countriesy think the did enough. but we did the vetting and we never had these per country bans on this basis. it is clear that the rationale is reverse engineered to fit with the president wants to do. as rudy giuliani said, muslim ban, let me tell you how to do it legally. right? andaid he wanted a ban they came up with this basis, so now they are using the same basis to expand it. would restrict the ability of this president or any other president to use the power that he is relying on in the law to go after groups of people. so it is an important reform to , and the way laws

the supreme court understood the law is giving the president grade power to basically enact whatever he thinks the restrictions ought to the on people coming into the country. amy: omar, thank you for being with us. we will continue to follow this. director of the aclu's immigrants' rights project. the aclu has been challenging the trump administration's muslim bans since the first ban was announced in january 2017. they one rulings -- they are litigating against the ban today. this is democracy now! when we come back, the pulitzer prize-winning journalist, laurie garrett, joins us. she has written a new piece about the coronavirus. stay with us. ♪ [music break]k]

ll with poverty." a member of the band died at the age of 64 yesterday. we endining the show looking at the wuhan coronavirus outbreak , which has already claimed the lives of at least 361 people in china. 17,000 people are now affected. as the virus continues to spread, the united states has declared a public health emergency and is barring foreign nationals who have recently traveled to china from entering the u.s. so far there are 11 confirmed cases of the virus in the u.s. a 44-year-old man in the philippines became the first casualty of the disease outside of china saturday and over the weekend, the number of confirmed cases worldwide rose to at least -- worldwide continued to grow in more than two dozen countries. most of those cases are in china.

u.s. citizens who have visited hubei province, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, will be quarantined when re-entering the country. questions are e being raised a t the handling of ththe diseasasey chinese e authorities, w who crs say delayed their response and downplayed the severity of the problem. the local red cross in hubei has also come under fire for failing to distribute essential medical supplies to the hospitals which need it most. meanwhilile, chinese and asian commununities in countries including france and canada have become targets of increased racism, they say, because of the outbreak. by lauriewe're joined garrett, author of several books, including "ebola: story of an outbreak," and "the coming plague: newly emerging diseases in a world out of balance" and "betrayal of trust: the collapse of global public health." her latest piece for foreign policy is headlined, "trump has sabotaged america's response to the coronavirus pandemic." welcome back to democracy now! great to have you with us. explain what you found. omar: the trump administration,

from the moment it came in late, wanted to disband signature programs of the obama administration, and one had to do with global health security in response to the 2014 ebola epidemic in west africa, which as you know was a very deadly outcome and involved three countries, and the united states played a big role, including having our military on-site in liberia and they support. and the trump administration pretty much disbanded the entire program, got rid of the national security council's special pandemic response unit, got rid of the equivalent in the department of homeland security, cut the budget of the centers for disease control, and we can go down a huge list, even a program specifically aiming at protecting you and me, citizens inside the country, by beating up the hospital capacity and training of local health-care workers and public health leaders is running out of money and will officially shut down in

may unless something happens. and congress has refused to even look att it. mcconnell has never allowed it to be called for vote. so we are in a situation now where we are flying on fumes with people in charge who have never really been in the middle of an epidemic, have not listened to those who really understand how to stop an epidemic. and on top of it all, pump a, secretary of state, seems to be -- have carte blanche to do whatever he wants. he is not consulting other agencies before acting, so he has basically banned, not only a travel ban on people coming from china to the united states, but he has inflated the immigration policy with the travel issue. so if you are a chinese citizen now, you cannot come to the united states. most americans do not realize they essentially used this epidemic to stop all travel and movement. and onee of the e outcomes of t, which is incredibly nuts, is

that almost all of the active pharmaceutical ingredients used in the firm elation of medicines in america, frankly to the whole world, come from china. so we will soon run out of drugs for everything. it has nothing to do with the epidemic. we're going to run out of diabetes drugs, heart disease drugs, and cancer drugs, many of which are already in short supply, because the pharmaceutical industry uses ingredients that all come from china. amy: what will happen to them being made in china? laurie: the tension between the u.s. and china has gotten so high that the foreign administration's statements today declaring that america is responsible for a global xenophon the attack against anda in no uncertain terms, it is clear inside china that it is playing as america is our enemy and making it worse for

us. of onhat do you think thursday, the u.s. secretary of commerce, wilbur ross, appearing to welcome the coronavirus as opposed to the u.s. job market, saying in a fox news interview that it would "accelerate the return of jobs to north america"? ill-advised comments, to say the least. we will have other comments of a similar tone. in new york city, we have three suspected cases of the coronavirus, all individuals who had recently been in china. all over the u.s. we are seeing it in individuals who have been in china. many of them are ethnic chinese, so you may feed a kind of racial xenophobia kind of that is always in america, you know, this close to the surface, give it a little scratch and comes out the racism. so i think we are in very

dangerous territory right now where we need not only infrastructure guidance but moral guidance in how to respond to a frightening epidemic. amy: apparently, as part of the restrictions now in the u.s., summit flights are being rerouted to specific airports where passengers receive advanced health screenings. yes, this is the playbook that follows what happened in 2009 with the h1n1 swine and it went global. everyone goes to shutting down their airports, as if that matters, as if that works. one thing that is a problem with this virus that was not with sars, even though they are very close genetically -- amy: the sars virus from what year? laurie: 2003, and i was in the middle of that epidemic in china, so i know what i am speaking of. in that epidemic, we were fortunate that people were really only contagious when they

had a high fever. so this thing you see in china now of these fever guns pointing at people's heads to see if you have a fever and if you do, sending you off to quarantine, it has become the method used all over the world. so now we have set up these fever portals at airports that you walk through. amy: to detector temperature? laurie: to detector r to perturb your you see those in airports, but we now know that this virus spreads before you have any symptoms at all. so the person carrying the virus might not have a fever. so we are setting up a false sense of defense. amy: let's go back, laurie, explain what is happening in china right now. in fact, explain what the coronavirus is and then what we are seeing with over 360 deaths, 70,000 people, overwhelmingly from china, being hit the hardest. corona it is called because it has spikes around the outside.

when you look at it through a microscope, a kind of looks like a crown, corona crown. but it has nothing to do with the biology. it is a class of virus that includes most of your common colds. actually, everybody is quite familiar with coronavirus but do not know it. all the dangerous coronaviru ses we have seen in recent years, the big ones being the current one, sars, and mers, middle east respiratory syndrome, which is still circulating in saudi arabia, they are all originally bat viruses. not a vampire bats but fruit bats. because of pressures we are putting on bat habitats, particularly rain forests, bats more and more are going into areas with human occupation, even though they are very shy creatures. somewhere in the chain of wildlife hunting and transport and the sale of live animals in

markets in china, bats come in contact with some other intermediary species. in the case of saudi arabia, it is camels. sivet, which was a is eaten in winter to ward off respiratory infection, ironically. wethe case of this disease, don't yet know what species and what market was the intermediary animal, which is very scary because it means that species is still in sale and circulation in asia and may be spreading the virus to human beings. meanwhile, once it has jumped to human beings, we are looking at a virus that causes really severe pneumonia. that is your top dangerous symptom. d we do nonot have any trereatmt for it except to put you on oxygen intensive care treatment to help you fight your own pneumonia. since it is a viral pneumonia, of course antibiotics cannot be

used and should not used. there is no vaccine. we do not have a vaccine for any of the coronaviruses. there is a lot of evidence that as people are infected for a while, they make antibodies against the virus. they do manage to eventually clear it in most cases, but the antibodies are not lasting. so they do not remain immune over time, which bodes ill for developing an effective vaccine. amamy: how did china deal with ? how are they dealing with it? what is happening in wuhan? drawn on its has 2003 sars epidemic, and the similarities are enormous. it started in november 2002, was not really detected until cases fled across the border into hong kong. suddenly, hong kong's hospitals were filled with mysterious

cases, but china was denying it was a mainland china problem, denying it had gone beyond the original outbreak in shenzhen, and covered up the existence of the virus in beijing where it was being handled secretly by the military. cases were being put in military hospitals. when they finally had to admit, yes, we had a problem, people fled, and i was there as an eyewitness. they fled by the tens of thousands from beijing by every means possible. overnight, it was an all nation epidemic. the only way to conontrol it was to say everybody get your fever chchecked at every highway poin, every entry. amy: 10 seconds. laurie: they are now replicating the same thing. building hospitals, barricading a blocking city sent transport. amy: and part two, democracynow.org, what can people do about it?